The National Library of Montenegro 'Đurđe Crnojević' (NBCG) is a public institution that maintains a collection of written works – handwritten, printed, or otherwise – published in Montenegro and abroad. The current form of the NBCG was founded in 1946, although it was preceded by the Public Library (1893), the Royal Library (1912), and the State Museum Library (1926). NBCG regularly releases a retrospective and maintains a bibliography of Montenegrin authors. NBCG also acts as the national agency in charge of assigning ISBN, ISSN, ISMN, and other international bibliographic numbers, and of maintaining Cataloguing in Publication (CIP) records for publishers in Montenegro.
The National Library of Montenegro 'Đurđe Crnojević' is named after Montenegro’s ruler from the fifteenth century, Đurđe Crnojević, who in 1493 founded the first South Slavic printing house.
The library collection of NBCG 'Đurđe Crnojević' consists of approximately two million books, newspapers, magazines, manuscripts, geographical and historical maps, atlases, postcards, photographs, albums, catalogues, audio and video materials, micrographic images, and other library materials, stored in three sections: basic fond, special collections, and museum fond.
The basic fond consists of scientific books and serial publications (newspapers and periodicals) in various languages. Basic fond publications have been obtained through legal deposits of copies, purchases, gifts, and international exchange. The special collections fond is comprised of manuscripts and documentary material, collections of old and rare books, cartographic materials, a collection of music and audio-visual material, and a graphic art collection. The museum fond consists of the national collection Černogorika (“Montenegrina”) and legates.
The national collection Černogorika is made up of publications which fall into three categories: those whose contributors (authors, translators, illustrators, photographers, etc.) were born in Montenegro or whose family origins are found in Montenegro, those published or printed on the territory of Montenegro (regardless of authorship or theme), and those thematically related to Montenegro (regardless of authorship, language, or place of publication).
As a member of the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), NBCG 'Đurđe Crnojević', has set up its own electronic catalogue, a common catalogue of Montenegrin libraries, and has partially digitized its collection as part of the portal of European national libraries, The European Library.