From 28 February 2025, the exhibition “Is a Library a Birthright?” is on display in the National Library of Latvia (NLL). The exhibition opens the culmination year of the series of events “500 years of Latvian Books”. It will encourage people to think about a library and reading as cornerstones of a democratic society. As already reported, the five-year programme (2021–2025) of the extensive series of events “500 Years of Latvian Books” is designed to highlight the most significant processes that have contributed to the spread of the written and printed word in the Latvian language over the past 500 years. Admission to the exhibition is free.
The exhibition “Is a Library a Birthright?” is imaginative, intellectually reflective and also political, the exhibition is a must-see for everyone who loves books and even more for those who do not yet love them. The central element is Riga City Library (1524) – the first public library in Riga established five centuries ago during the iconoclasm, most of whose collection was destroyed in the World War II. The story of Riga City Library is full of drama and vivid, surprising details. The exhibition uses it as an example to encourage us to think of and discuss changes in society and thought processes today, emphasizing that the library as a model of the world reflects far broader regularities in both individual and collective efforts to organize, comprehend and understand the world around us. Literacy, books and libraries are important elements, also in shaping a vision of the future, and the exhibition uses the history of libraries to ask again a question: would we like the future to be in the hands of an illiterate and uncritical thinking society?
The content of the exhibition was created by curators Maija Treile, Head of NLL Research and Interpretation Centre, and Pauls Daija, Head of NLL Research. Its message reflects research on the history of Riga City Library and today’s reading habits – both of these levels are united by the desire of the exhibition creators to talk about universal human issues. An important role in the exhibition is played by Bonhomien (Bonomijas, 1792) – the first work on library philosophy in our region – by Johann Christoph Behrens, Riga town councilor, intellectual and Riga City Library inspector. Behrens in his work invites us to look at the library as a multifunctional intellectual and cultural centre. During the preparation process for the exhibition “Is a Library a Birthright?”, several studies of the 21st century reading habits were conducted, starting from a representative survey that provided data on Latvian society in a cross-section to in-depth interviews with young people.
The format of the exhibition blurs the boundaries between contemporary art and historical exhibitions. The exhibition invites us to look at historical artifacts as objects of contemporary art, while interactive solutions reveal the paradoxes of intellectual and emotional experience. The exhibition was designed by one of the most significant contemporary Latvian artists, Krišs Salmanis, who has been nominated for the Purvītis Prize again this year (he has already received it in 2017). Like the multimedia world of today, the exhibition also creates a complete informative picture for the visitor by combining various sources and formats. Among them, the book-format exhibition guide is of particular importance confirming the book as a landmark in the ambiguous and often difficult to understand world around us.
The exhibition features books from Riga City Library and other materials from the collection of the National Library of Latvia. Various materials have been deposited by the Library of the University of Latvia, the Latvian National Museum of Art, the Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation, the State Historical Archive of Latvia of the National Archives of Latvia, Riga Cathedral Congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia and Artis Ērglis. A lot of exhibits will be on display for the general public for the first time.
The exhibition is open until 28 February 2026 during working hours of the NLL. It will be supplemented by events of various formats, as well as by a pedagogical programme for students (from April 2025).
Additional information
Maija Treile
Head of the Research and Interpretation Centre
National Library of Latvia
E-mail: maija.treile@lnb.lv
Phone: +371 29631741
Illustration: Kristians Luhaers, National Library of Latvia