It houses the largest collection of Belarusian printed materials and the third largest collection of books in Russian behind the Russian State Library of Moscow and the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg.
Construction of the new building started in November 2002. The library’s main architectural component has the shape of a rhombicuboctahedron. The height of the building is 73.6 meters. The building has 23 floors. The National Library can seat about 2,000 readers and features a 500-seat conference hall. The library’s new building was designed by architects Mihail Vinogradov and Viktor Kramarenko and opened on 16 June 2006.
