Basic facts about the Public Library of the Town and Spa Community of Muszyna

A few words about us
The library is a self-governing cultural institution, established and supported by the Town and Spa Community of Muszyna. Muszyna is situated in the south of Ma³opolskie province in Nowy S±cz district along the Polish-Slovak border in the valley of the River Poprad and its two tributaries: the Szczawnik and Muszynka.
The community of Muszyna has a total population of 12,000, of which 5,000 live in the town of Muszyna itself and the remainder - in surrounding villages. All told, the library' resources comprise nearly 75,000 volumes which comprise fiction for children, adolescents and adults plus reading matter for primary school as well as junior and senior secondary school, popular science literature and regional book collection.

Each year, some 2,800 readers register with the library, visiting it a total of 30,000 times and borrowing more than 50,000 books. The library's main tasks involve providing knowledge by propagating book and periodical readership, information, bibliographical and tourist activities and cultural development by promoting artistic content and contacts with cultural institutions and organisations. The structure of our library system comprises the Municipal Library, which serves as the central base and is situated in the Muszyna town square as well as three branch libraries: a children's and young people's branch and branches in ¯egiestów and Powro¼nik.

Some of our initiatives
Our library's Little Gallery is where we organise exhibitions of painters and sculptors as well as amateur and professional photographers from Muszyna, Krynica and neighbouring Slovakia. The library houses the premises of the Muszyna branch of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts (www.tpsp.muszyna.pl). We work with the Regional Museum, the Municipal- Community Cultural Centre, the Extramural Work Centre (www.opp.muszyna.pl) in Muszyna and Slovakia's Cultural Centre and Library in Stara Lubovna (http://kniznica.slnet.sk), acting as a go-between in organising children's art exhibitions and poetry readings. Our reading room is the meeting place for the Society of Friends of the Muszyna area (www.tmzm.muszyna.pl), the editorial board of the Muszyna Almanac (www.almanachmuszyny.pl) and the J. Kochanowski Senior Secondary School's literary group, directed by Witold Kaliñski (www.swobodasandecka.pl).

Our online catalogue is accessible via the Fidkar Ma³opolski search engine at the Web site of the Voivodship Public Library of Kraków (www.wbp.krakow.pl/bd/muszyna.htm). Our computer catalogues encompass non-periodical publications contained in our collections. The documents in our catalogue total more than 30,000 volumes, already accounting for nearly one-half of our resources. Searches are facilitated by eight separate files: authors, titles, series, publishers, ISBN, subject entries, thematic entries and title words. We offer our readers the use of computers and free Internet access. Under the IKONKA 3 programme the Municipal Library has received from the Ministry of Science and Information Technology three computer sets with software and free Internet access.

Several facts about our 60-year history
On 1st September 1947 the opening of a Municipal Public Library took place. It contained 1,308 volumes bearing the stamps of the People's Reading Room, the W³adys³aw Jagie³³o People's School Society, the J. Pi³sudski Reading Room, the Tadeusz Ko¶ciuszko Reading Room, the Haszahar Association's Reading Room, the Fire Brigade Reading Room, the District Teachers' Library, the Primary School Library, the Fire Brigade Library and the Officers' Mess Society Library. Up until 1951 Janina Rybiñska served as its director.
1956 -Wanda Bernasik becomes the director. Work is launched on tidying up the collection, preparing thematic and alphabetical catalogues, arranging books on shelves according to the UDC and providing free access to them which was something new to the libraries of Nowy S±cz district.
1957 - Wanda Hoffman becomes director.
1972 - £ucja Bukowska takes over as director.
1900 - The library moves to new premises in the Town Square. A children's and young people's branch is set up.
1991 - A Little Gallery is established at the Muszyna Municipal Library.
1996 - Cooperation with the Municipal Library in Stara Lubovna is launched.
2001 -Work to create a MAK system electronic catalogue gets under way.
2005 -The library's Web site www.biblioteka.muszyna.pl goes into operation (editor Renata Kopacz).
2007 - The library's catalogue becomes accessible via search engine Fidkar Ma³opolska at Web site www.wpb.krakow.pl/bd/muszyna.htm
In September 2007 - in the company of our readers we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Municipal Public Library.

We are online.
We invite you to visit www.biblioteka.muszyna.pl A great deal of information is available at the following sub websites:
Publishing news - frequently updated acquisitions divided into: dramatic, sensational and fantasy novels, journalistic features and children's and youth literature.
Press information Muszyna - bibliographic lists of chronologically arranged cuttings from the local press and regional supplements on regional events.
Literary calendar - important anniversaries and events in the literary realm pertaining to the region, country and world.
Muszyna in poetry - poetic texts devoted to Muszyna, poets living in Muszyna, hailing from Muszyna or otherwise connected to it.
Event archive, picture gallery - information on important library events and activities including an extensive photo gallery started in 2004.
Worth visiting - links to interesting Muszyna Web sites, libraries in the region and online catalogues as well as the Web pages of Slovakian border localities: Bardejov, Stara Lubovna and Lipany, Muszyna's partner-town.

How to get in touch with us?
Rynek 31, 33-370 Muszyna
phone +48 (18) 471-4114
e-mail:biblioteka@muszyna.pl
www.biblioteka.muszyna.pl
Director: £ucja Bukowska, MA
Lending Library and Reading Room are open:
Monday: 9 am - 4 pm, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 10 am - 6pm, Saturday 9 am - 3 pm

return