page_title: Jagiellonian University
section_title: Libraries
hierarchical_section_title: Jagiellonian University / Libraries
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Neuer Anbau der Jagiellonen-Bibliothek, Krakau
context_page_description: The Jagiellonian University is a research university in Kraków, Poland.
  Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, the Jagiellonian University is the oldest university in Poland, the second oldest university in Central Europe, and one of the oldest surviving universities in the world. Notable alumni include astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, poet Jan Kochanowski, Polish King John III Sobieski, constitutional reformer Hugo Kołłątaj, chemist Karol Olszewski, anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski, writer Stanisław Lem, and President of Poland Andrzej Duda. Students at the University who did not earn diplomas included Nobel laureates Ivo Andrić and Wisława Szymborska. Pope John Paul II enrolled in the Jagellonian University of Krakow in 1938 to study Polish Studies at the JU Faculty of Philosophy, but shortly after enrollment, his studies were interrupted by Sonderaktion Krakau. In 1953, Father Wojtyła presented a dissertation at the Jagellonian University of Krakow on the possibility of grounding a Christian ethic on the ethical system developed by Max Scheler.
  The campus of the Jagiellonian University is centrally located within the city of Kraków.
context_section_description: The university's main library, the Jagiellonian Library (Biblioteka Jagiellońska), is one of Poland's largest, with almost 6.5 million volumes; it is a constituent of the Polish National Libraries system.  It is home to a world-renowned collection of medieval manuscripts, which includes Copernicus' De Revolutionibus, the Balthasar Behem Codex and the Berlinka. The library also has an extensive collection of underground political literature (so-called drugi obieg or samizdat) from Poland's period of Communist rule between 1945 and 1989.
  The beginning of the Jagiellonian Library is traditionally considered the same as that of the entire university – in 1364; however, instead of having one central library it had several smaller branches at buildings of various departments (the largest collection was in Collegium Maius, where works related to theology and liberal arts were kept). After 1775, during the reforms of Komisja Edukacji Narodowej, which established the first Ministry of Education in the world, various small libraries of the University were formally centralised into one public collection in Collegium Maius. During the partitions of Poland, the library continued to grow thanks to the support of such people as Karol Józef Teofil Estreicher and Karol Estreicher. Its collections were made public in 1812. Since 1932, it has been recognised as a legal deposit library, comparable to the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford or Cambridge University Library or Trinity College Library in Dublin, and thus has the right to receive a copy of any book issued by Polish publishers within Poland. In 1940, the library finally obtained a new building of its own, which has subsequently been expanded on two occasions, most recently in 1995–2001. During the Second World War, library workers cooperated with underground universities. Since the 1990s, the library's collection has become increasingly digitised.
  In addition to the Jagiellonian Library, the university maintains a large medical library (Biblioteka Medyczna) and many other subject specialised libraries in its various faculties and institutes. Finally, the collections of the university libraries' collections are enriched by the presence of the university's archives, which date back to the university's own foundation and record the entire history of its development up to the present day.
caption: The Jagiellonian Library extension
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