During the Medieval period, the Austrian Duke Albert III (1349–1395) moved the books of the Viennese vaults into a library.

The oldest book on record at the library, the 1368 golden Holy Gospels, was owned by Albert III; in 1368, Johannes of Troppau, priest at Landskron and canon in Brno, transcribed the four Gospels of the Bible in gold letters with detailed illustrations in the school of Burgundian book art.

[1] On scenes depicting the lives of the four Evangelists, four coats of arms show the House of Austria, Tirol, Styria, and Carinthia, the lands which Archduke Albrecht III had ruled at the time.

Also Maximilian's second wife, Bianca Maria Sforza, brought into the marriage books from Italian workshops as part of her dowry.

In addition to the valuable books from the public treasury, the Bibliotheca Regia, which collected and categorized scientific works, was developed in Vienna during the 16th century.

Caspar von Nydbruck, imperial counselor who was for a time in charge of the library, was a crypto-Protestant who provided much assistance to the Lutheran polemicist Matthias Flacius, who composed the major anti-Catholic history known as The Magdeburg Centuries.

Flacius and his Lutheran associates took care to find and quote original sources to prove what they considered as "the grave corrupting errors" of the Catholic Church.

In 1722, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor authorised the construction of a permanent home for the library in the Hofburg palace, after the plans of Leopold I.

An important addition to the Imperial Library is the papyrus collection, which goes back to the acquisitions of the Viennese of antique dealer Theodor Graf.

In 1966, large parts of the collections were moved from the building at Josefsplatz to the premises of the Neue Burg wing at Heldenplatz, where new reading halls were set up.

Organizationally, the library uses a central management and has three chief departments (personnel and accounting, inventory structure and treatment, as well as use and information), plus the individual collections.

The wing was begun in 1721 by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and finished after his death in 1723 by his son Joseph Emanuel.

The hall is divided, after the original list of the books, into two opposite "war" and "peace" sides, which is reflected also in the wall frescoes, from Daniel Gran.

The fresco in the central dome represents a kind Apotheosis of Emperor Charles VI, whose image is held by Hercules and Apollo.

Around the image of the emperor, several types of allegorical figures meet in a complicated theme, which symbolize the virtues of the Habsburgs and the wealth of their domains.

Also during her reign, the wing was extended on both ends, connecting the central Prunksaal with the Hofburg and St. Augustine's Church, forming Josefsplatz (Joseph Square).

One of the major tasks of the Austrian National Library is the collection and archiving of all publications appearing in Austria (including electronic media).

Dating from the 4th century CE to the present, this collection includes antique, medieval and modern manuscripts from almost every literate culture.

Considered the most beautiful and most remarkable atlas ever composed, it includes four volumes of manuscript maps and topographical drawings originally made for the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

[5] The Papyrus Museum, located in the library in the Neue Burg wing of the Hofburg Palace, has around 200 objects from the collection on display.

[6] Since 1826, the music collection contains numerous scores and first-printings of works of well-known composers, such as Anton Bruckner or Richard Strauss.

[7] The Department of the Library which collects, digitizes and works to promote publications on women and gender studies is known as Ariadne.

Founded in 1992, the department digitized its materials in 2000 and works to improve the visibility of women's contributions to society and in the history of Austria.