The National Library of Republic of Karelia is the largest library in the Republic. 
There are more than 1 mln. 500 thousand holdings in its collections (including books, journals, serials, musical scores, video cassettes, audio cassettes, CD-ROM, etc.). 

Annually the National Library of Republic of Karelia is attended by 46 thousand people. 
The Library collects, preserves and makes accessible materials on or  relating to Karelia and provides an accurate record of Karelian's output in print in the Russian, Karelian, Vepsian languages. 

In 1996 the electronic catalogue was maintained. Now it holds about 200 thousand entries. 

Library departments and services. 
There are 16 departments in the Library. The Library staff comprises of 172 employees, 132 librarians among them. 

Since 1975 the National Library of Republic of Karelia performs a function of a regional depository for the North-Western part of Russia ( Archangelsk and Murmansk regions, Karelian and Komi Republics).  It collects and disseminates valuable , but rarely asked literature. 

Since 1959 the Library functions as the Republican Book Chamber. It collects, preserves and registers all publications on the territory of the Republic. It also publishes "The Chronicles of Printed Editions of Karelia",  both in print and electronic form. 

The significant role in the Library belongs to the National and Local Literature Department, where all kinds of publications on the local history, economy and culture are collected. 

The Medical Literature Department has a variety of reference tools: alphabetic catalogue, systematic and subject catalogues, bibliographic database on CD-ROM "Russian Medicine", on-line access to the database "Medlars". 

The Department of Literature in Foreign Languages has a collection of 48 thousand volumes (books, text-books, albums etc.) 

The collection of the Music Department consists of books, musical scores, records. 

The collections of Periodical Department amount to 1000 journals and 200 newspapers. 

The Bibliographic-Reference Department has both traditional catalogues and electronic catalogues, electronic data-base on CD-ROM, the access to the Internet. 

Since 1993 the Library participates in the Programme "Automation and technical equipping of the libraries of Karelia". 

This programme will help to coordinate the activities of the republican libraries in the field of automation and cooperation. The coordinator of the programme is The Automation Department.