National Library of Latvia to Introduce Entrance Fee for Visitors

The National Library of Latvia (LNB) has prepared a new price list featuring significant changes. Starting September 7, a €3 entrance fee will be introduced for viewing the library building without a guide. The fee will not apply immediately upon the regulation's entry into force to allow for public notification. Free library card registration and library services will remain unchanged.

Late fees for borrowed materials will increase from €0.10 to €0.50 per item per day. The personal subscription, currently €24 per year, will be differentiated into three types: home subscription at €40, music collection subscription at €50, and academic subscription at €70 per year.

Digitalization prices for text documents will rise. For digitalization without OCR, an A4 page will increase from €0.18 to €0.25, and larger formats from €0.35 to €0.40. With OCR, prices will rise to €0.40 for A4 and €0.65 for larger formats. A new service – preparation of data sets from digital collections – will be priced based on estimates.

Several new room rental options are included. On the mezzanine floor, the AsiaRes room and Youth room will be available for €120 per hour, and the Sofa zone for catering at €80 per hour. On the second floor, the John F. Kennedy reading room will cost €120 per hour. The atrium’s first-floor area (up to 300 sqm) can be rented for coffee breaks at €300 per hour if other library spaces are also rented.

The library’s data center will offer new services: rental of two GPU cores with 144 GB RAM each for AI model training and high-performance computing at €15,680 per month, along with infrastructure platform management at €400 per month and configuration work at €84.70 per hour.

Exemptions from the building entrance fee are planned for attendees of library events, Latvian librarians, and members of ICOM and ICOMOS. Student groups during organized visits will be exempt, and discounts are available for pupils, students, and socially protected persons. On promotional days, a 100% discount on building tours and 50% on guided tours is planned.

A new service is a guided tour in Latvian during library hours for €30 per group. The ISBN assignment pricing is changing to a package model: €7.50 for one ISBN, €30 for five, €55 for ten, €100 for 20, €213 for 50, and €325 for 100. Existing annual subscriptions remain valid until December 31. Interlibrary loan fees will increase: from €10 to €15 for orders from European countries, from €15 to €22 from other countries, and from €16 to €25 for recent publications.

Rental fees for existing spaces such as the conference hall, exhibition halls, and conference center foyer, as well as translation equipment, may also increase. The new price list still requires approval.