The National Library of Luxembourg (BnL), whose history dates back to 1798 and which has been based in its new Kirchberg building since 2019, houses 1.8 million works and employs a wide range of specialists that gave RTL a glimpse behind the scenes.
Christine Kreimer greets the RTL team in the light-filled entrance of the BNL. As head of communications, she explains that this is both the oldest and largest library in the country, with 1.8 million printed works in its collection. Roughly 200,000 are readily available in the reading room, while the rest are preserved in closed stacks. What she finds most remarkable, however, is not just the sheer size of the collection, but the diversity of expertise that keeps the institution alive, from logisticians and cataloguers to restorers, IT specialists, and communicators.
First stop: the mailroom
The tour begins where every new title first arrives: the courier service. Here, Enzo d'Amore and his team unpack deliveries, compare each parcel with the shipping slips and scan them into the logistics system. Newspapers arrive as early as 7am and must be prepared immediately so that by the time the doors open at 10, visitors already have access to the latest press, d'Amore explains. Kreimer points out that this daily routine sets the pace for the entire building.
Selecting and cataloguing
From there, parcels move to acquisitions. Specialists like Nora Humbert monitor trends, decide what should be purchased, and once the books return, they carefully record every detail, including author, title, subject, and keywords, so that the catalogue is complete, Humbert says. She adds that some volumes go straight to the reading room for immediate use, while others are sent to storage. Each book is effectively assigned an "address" within the library, ensuring that it can be located years down the line, Humbert states.
Into the stacks
Next, Kreimer leads us into the closed stacks, where staff like Monique Barthels from the logistics team search for items requested by readers. She explains that every order is tracked by slips carrying codes and bar numbers, making retrieval efficient, adding that books are arranged by size to save space, with each floor dedicated to a specific type of collection. She explains further that the environment is maintained at a steady 18°C and 55% humidity to ensure long-term preservation. Once located, the book is replaced with a marker, placed on a conveyor belt and sent upstairs for collection, she concludes.
The digital frontier
The BNL is not limited to print. Digital resources have become a major part of its work, including e-books, journals, databases, streaming media, and a growing collection of digitised Luxembourgish works, as IT manager Yves Maurer explains. Maurer and his team are developing new tools, from a chatbot that allows users to interact with historical newspapers to a robot capable of scanning shelves to verify the order and presence of books.
Back to the reader
Eventually, the book that started as a delivery in the mailroom ends its journey in the reading room, placed on the shelf for the next curious visitor. For Kreimer, this is the perfect example of how much unseen work lies behind every simple act of borrowing a book. As a parting gift, she reminds us that registration to the library is free.
