The collections of the National Library consist of more than 18 million objects, including books, posters, pictures, manuscripts, and newspapers.

[5] The National Library also purchases literature about Sweden written in foreign languages and works by Swedes published abroad, a category known as suecana.

[6] The National Library has been collecting floppy disks, CD-ROMs, and other electronic storage media since the mid-1990s, along with e-books, e-journals, websites, and other digital material.

In 1953, the National Library purchased considerable amounts of Russian literature from Leningrad and Moscow.

Publishers of music, film, radio and TV must similarly submit copies to the library.

The ordinance (legal deposit) ordered all printers in Sweden to send two copies of every publication printed to the Chancery before the material was distributed.

LIBRIS is freely available to the public via the Internet and contains more than five million titles held in 300 Swedish libraries.

[5] The roots of what we now know as the National Library go back to the days of King Gustav Vasa in the 16th century.

[10] The king collected books on a variety of subjects including history, science, and theology, as well as maps.

The collections were expanded by Eric XIV, Johan III, and Charles IX and kept in the palace known as Tre Kronor (The Three Crowns).

Some books were purchased abroad, while others were confiscated from Swedish monasteries dissolved in the Protestant Reformation.

[11] Queen Christina took much of this material with her to Rome after she abdicated the Swedish throne, but the royal collections continued to grow during the reign of Charles X Gustav through additional spoils of war and purchases abroad.

Rather than to acquire newly published literature for research purposes, the decree reflected the desire of a great power to exert state control and censorship.

Much of the library went up in flames during the Tre Kronor Palace fire of 1697 when 17,286 bound volumes and 1,103 manuscripts were lost.

The collection grew further in its new home when the Antiquities Archive was dissolved in 1780 and most of the books kept there were transferred to the National Library.

[12] The subsequent investigation revealed that the thief was Anders Burius, a senior librarian working at the National Library.