The State Scientific Library in Banská Bystrica is a successor of the City Public Library in Banská Bystrica, founded in 1926. The first librarian was Karol Kiszely, a former high school professor and well-known Orientalist who was a member of both domestic and foreign scientific societies. The basis of the library holdings was a gift from the Ministry of Education – 200 books. The library started its activities in a small meeting room in the city hall.
The City Public Library was transformed into Regional People’s Library in 1951. In 1952 library served already as a regional, district and municipal library in the building of the former teaching institute on the current street Kapitulská ulica.
In 1962, the library received an incomplete collection of standards from the Slovak Technical Library in Bratislava and several thousand patent files from the Office for Patents and Inventions in Prague. Since this year, the collections of special literature have been continuously updated and the library has also started to serve as the Regional Centre for Standards and Patents.
An important event in the history of the library dates back to the granting of legal deposit of Czechoslovak book, magazine and newspaper production since 1st July 1963. The status of the scientific library acquired the former Regional People’s Library on 1st July 1969 and the library passed under the direct control of the Ministry of Culture of the SSR.
The State Scientific Library in Banská Bystrica with a specialised organisational unit Museum of Literature and Music is a cultural, information, collecting, scientific and educational institution focusing on library, bibliographic, literary-museum, music-museum, publishing and cultural – educational activities.