Upon the initiative of Dr. Milosav Stojadinovic, Deputy Mayor of the County of Belgrade, various materials on Belgrade started being collected in 1929. Library holdings were established, and, upon the basis of these holdings, one of the oldest cultural institutions of the City, the Library and Museum of the City of Belgrade was solemnly opened on the 11th of January, 1931. Since 1935, the Library and Museum have been located in the building in Zmaj Jovina 1, which was restored for the celebration the first centennial of the County of Belgrade in 1940. At that time, it’s interior and exterior were both renovated and restored, and solemnly opened as Belgrade’s first City Cultural Home.

After the Second World War, the Library, the Museum and the Historic Archive of the City of Belgrade were separated into individual organizations. The building had become too small for all of their collections. Gradually, the Historic Archives, periodical holdings, general holdings and children’s holdings of the City Library were transferred and the oldest books on Belgrade, collected since the establishment of the Library, remained under the same roof.

Presently, the Department for old and rare books and books on Belgrade holds more than 20,000 titles. In these holdings, Belgrade is either the main topic or is mentioned in some important context. This includes literary and scientific works on the City, domestic and foreign, travel books, documents, testimonials, address books, almanacs, calendars, works on economics, utilities, construction and social issues, publications issued by City organizations, and the like.

Special attention is paid to the Holdings of old and rare books which contain editions printed up to 1918, regardless of whether they were printed in Belgrade or elsewhere.

The manuscript collection includes 543 manuscripts on about 4,000 pages, consisting mainly of correspondence, literary works, political and historical documents, court documents, autobiographies from the 19th century...

The cartographic collection of Belgrade City Library consists of about 200 cartographic documents created from the end of the 16th century to the first half of the 19th century, in all three main printing techniques (printed from wood engravings, copperplate engravings and lithographic stone). They are mostly hand-colored. The largest part of the collection is based on a donation from Rista and Radmila Acimovic.

The photo holdings comprise more than 2,000 photos of old Belgrade, significant events and historic persons that marked the life of the city.

Professional Activities of the Department for old and rare books and books on Belgrade – Local History Department, are mostly focused on processing library data and creating documentation, research and lexicographic work, as well as selecting titles for publishing activities.

The results of the department’s bibliographic work are condensed into two volumes of Material for the Bibliography of Yugoslavian and Foreign Books on Belgrade (Gradja za bibliografiju jugoslovenske i strane knjige o Beogradu), published in 1974 and 2003. The scope of this subject provides comprehensive insight into the contents of the library holdings on Belgrade.

The two-volume monograph, Streets and Squares of Belgrade (Ulice i trgovi Beograda), published in 2004−2005, is a detailed and documented review of the names of 2,363 streets of Belgrade, as well as their routes, and includes the history of changing their names till mid-2004. This book is illustrated with some 800 illustrations, and is the result of long-term lexicographic work in the Belgrade City Library Department for old and rare books and books on Belgrade.

Even though the publishing activities of the Belgrade City Library were initiated in 1933 by publishing the Illustrated History of Belgrade (Ilustrovana istorija Beograda) by the author Marija Ilic-Agapova, the Local history Department started publishing as well in 1967 with a book entitled Belgrade in the 19th Century in Works of Foreign Travel Writers (Beograd u XIX veku iz dela stranih putopisaca). Its publishing activities were continued in 2002, with the publishing of The Selected Works of Marija Ilic-Agapova (2002).

The reprint of the 1757 monograph: The Life of the Emperor’s General and Renowned Engineer: Baron Doxat de Mores, Executed on the 20th of March 1738 in Belgrade with a Description of Several Developments in the War against the Turks (Zivot carskog generala i slavnog inzenjera gospodina barona Doksata de Moreza pogubljenog 20. marta u Beogradu uz opis pojedinih desavanja u tadasnjem ratu protiv Turaka), 2006.

In the same year, another reprint edition was published, Testimonials of the Association for the Adornment of Vračar (Spomenice Drustva za ulepsavanje Vračara) 1884−1909.