Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc (BNRM)

Overview

The Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc (BNRM) is Morocco's national library, a public establishment with legal personality and financial autonomy under the Ministry of Culture. Located in Rabat's Agdal district, it holds legal deposit responsibility and publishes the national Moroccan bibliography; it also maintains a branch in Tetouan.

History

The institution originated as the Bibliothèque Générale, created in 1924, drawing its first core collection from the Institut des Hautes Études Marocaines. Pierre de Cénival, appointed curator in 1919, designed the interior plans of the buildings intended to house the library and established its cataloguing rules. A 1926 royal decree (dahir) transformed it into the Bibliothèque Générale et Archives (BGA), a public establishment tasked with gathering, centralizing, and communicating documentation on Morocco and with receiving administrative archives, including those of the dissolved Bibliothèque de la Mission Scientifique du Maroc. A 1932 law establishing legal deposit strengthened the institution's acquisition capacity. In 1998 the Ministry of Culture relaunched a project to construct a new library building, approved by King Hassan II, who designated the institution the Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc; Law No. 76-99, promulgated by dahir No. 01-03-200 of November 11, 2003, formally renamed the institution and reconfirmed its public-establishment status. The current building in Rabat-Agdal, designed by architects Rachid Andaloussi and Abdelouahed Mountassir, was inaugurated by King Mohammed VI on October 15, 2008.

Collections, Holdings, and Publications

The BNRM holds more than 340,000 works, including tens of thousands of manuscripts and rare books, in French and Arabic, covering Morocco, the Maghreb, and the Muslim West. Its collections encompass manuscripts, printed works, prints, maps, plans, sheet music, photographs, sound and audiovisual documents, and coins and medals, alongside more than 10,000 periodical titles and roughly 1,800 Moroccan and foreign newspapers. In May 2024 the BNRM signed a cooperation agreement with the Bibliothèque nationale de France to strengthen collaboration on digitization, library management, and training.

Access and Usage

The library is open to the public, including students and researchers, with reading rooms, an auditorium for cultural events including conferences and film screenings, and an on-site cafeteria. It is open Monday through Friday and Saturday mornings.