During World War I, the Library building and collections were damaged by bombing, so the small remaining holdings were moved from Belgrade to Niš and Kragujevac for their protection.

In 1925 the National Library moved into a building in the district of Kosančićev Venac only to be bombed and gutted by fire sixteen years later from 6 to 9 April 1941 at the start of World War II.

[5] After the liberation of Belgrade in 1944, under the changed social conditions, there was a period of intensive reconstruction of the lost collections and rapid development of the Library.

It is located in the Vračar municipality, sharing the naturally elevated plateau with Temple of Saint Sava, as the highest peak of that part of Belgrade.

[6][7] General collection includes: books printed after 1868 in Serbian and other ex-Yu languages and books printed after 1700 in foreign languages, periodicals from Serbia, ex-Yu and abroad, bibliographies, encyclopedias, lexicons, catalogs, dictionaries, directories in classical and electronic form, organized in an open access reference stock.