national library

American  

noun

1. a library established and funded by a national government with the designation national, to serve the needs of this government, often to function as a library of record for the nation's publishing output, and in some cases to act as a central agency for library and bibliographic development in the nation.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

national library

That points to a tension Ms. Aikin repeatedly discusses through short thematic sections: Is the Library of Congress a library for Congress or a national library for the general public?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025

Among missing books are the history of the national library building itself in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, by Daniel Huws, and books by George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf.

From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2025

Officers lay in wait for the woman at a Metro and suburban train station in eastern Paris that serves the François Mitterrand national library, the prosecutor’s office said.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 31, 2023

Deep in the archives of France’s national library, an assortment of coded letters listed as Italian texts lay untouched for more than 400 years.

From New York Times ● Feb. 8, 2023

Suddenly, Zlata’s focus switched from her studies and watching MTV to the closing of her school and the destruction of the national library.

From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers