The National Library of Latvia (NLL) was established on August 29, 1919.The first supervisor of the Library was Jānis Misiņš, the outstanding librarian and the founder of the Latvian scientific bibliography (1862-1945).

One of the characteristic cornerstones of the NLL, which characterizes every national library, is the formation of the collection of national literature, its eternal storage and long- term access. To facilitate the preservation of culture historic values of national significance, the NLL starts forming the Latvian Digital Library “Letonica”, having launched the pilot project “Jāzeps Vītols”, where the compositions, articles, photographs, letters, sound recordings and other documents of the famous Latvian composer are available to users.

The collection of the NLL (4,5 million units) embraces all branches of science, its basic profile being Social Sciences and the Humanities. Library readers are offered special collections - rare books, manuscripts, Letonica, the Baltic Central Library, maps, scores, sound recordings, graphic documents, small prints, periodicals. Pursuant to the status of the state major library the NLL has got the leading role in forming the information society. At present the emphases of the library activities is laid on supporting higher education, research and life-long education.

The NLL is a centre of theoretical research and practical analyses of the activities of Latvian libraries. The Library carries out the functions of the centre of Latvia Interlibrary Loan, ensures the library and information service to the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia, implements the standardisation of the branch. Since the very outset its main concern has been the national bibliography. The massive union catalogue “Ancient Prints in Latvian 1525 -1855 ”(published in Riga, 1999), received Spīdola Prize in 2000 and was awarded “The Beautiful Book of the Year 99”.

In 2005 “The Index of the Authors of Letonica Books (1523-1919)” was published, supplying with the information about versatile branches of science and representatives of various nations, Latvia being in the limelight of their publications.