The National Library has released the mPolona mobile application, which offers many of the features of the new Polona digital library website. The application allows searching, browsing, and sharing of the digitised collections of the many institutions that contribute to Polona. It allows more convenient browsing of digital objects and journals, optimised for mobile devices.
New options include listening to audio books, saving selected publications for offline use or viewing the content of objects in a new mode for reading the text layer.
Once logged in, users can create, edit and share their own collections and notes, as well as personalise their account. Logged-in users can also access their browsing history in Polona and receive personalised object suggestions, selected based on past activity. Those who have previously used Polona in web browsers will have access to the saved results of their previous work.
Polona is one of the most modern digital libraries in the world and at the same time the largest library of its kind in Poland. The National Library provides access to the service not only to its own collections, but also to the objects of other institutions – digitised using the most up-to-date technologies to achieve the highest quality.
Every day, Polona’s collection grows by an average of 2,000 objects: books, old prints, manuscripts, graphics, maps, sheet music, photographs, leaflets, posters, and postcards. Annually, this amounts to more than 17 million scans.
Finally, Polona includes almost 4 million publications available online and through the Academica digital lending library in 4,000 libraries throughout Poland.
Polona contains some of the most valuable treasures of Polish culture and history, such as the Gesta Principum Polonorum, manuscripts by Kochanowski, Mickiewicz and Chopin, drawings by Norwid and Witkacy.
The National Library announces that a new version of the search engine will also be made available soon, which will significantly expand the possibilities of exploring Polona’s resources.
Adrian Andrzejewski