The history of the library

The library of the Royal Association for the Promotion of  the Interests of the Book Trade, now the Royal Society of the Dutch Book Trade, was founded in 1845. Its aim was to establish a central library for those who were active in the book trade or received training in this field. The core collection was formed by the collections presented by some prominent booksellers. One of these, Frederik Muller, also became the first librarian. On 9 January 1958 the library was incorporated as a loan into the Amsterdam University Library. The volume of the collection now amounts to more than 4,000 metres of manuscripts, archives, books and other kinds of printed material.