“The Ossolineum Could Give Wrocław a Future…”

The Baroque edifice with courtyard was built at the turn of the 18th century. In its 300-year history, it has served various functions. It was built as a monastery, then became the seat of a school. In 1946, the Ossolineum research library was housed there.

Snow falling on the well and mounded earth in the baroque courtyard of the Ossolineum reactivated after World War II. Emptiness. The first employees were hired at the Ossolineum in mid-1946, while the first group of people arrived there in autumn, just before the first snowfall.

About 110 years ago, the wing that connected the building to St Matthew’s Church existed in that place. All that remains of it is the projected part visible in the photo. The wing was demolished to create a sports field for the young people attending the grammar school which operated there.

The Ossolineum Library began its operation in Wrocław relying on the collections that arrived from Lviv “as a gift from the Ukrainian nation to the Polish nation” in 1946-1947. These included books as well as valuable manuscripts and old prints dating from the 16th–18th centuries.

In academic libraries with diverse and valuable collections, items can be accessed in reading rooms. The Ossolineum has reading rooms for special collections, i.e. manuscripts, old prints, periodicals, social life documents, cartography, microforms and digital collections.

After almost 80 years of its existence, the Ossolineum in Wrocław ranks among the most important cultural institutions in Poland. Today, its structure includes not only the Library, but also the Museum of the Lubomirski Princes, the Pan Tadeusz Museum and the Publishing House.