Marjan Kozina (1907–1966), a composer, music pedagogue, writer and translator, after completing his education at the Novo Mesto Gymnasium, began studying philosophy and mathematics in Ljubljana and also improving his musical knowledge at the Ljubljana Conservatory and later in Vienna and Prague. After returning to the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he conducted the choir and orchestra of the Maribor Glasbena Matica, taught at the Belgrade Music Academy and joined the partisans, while after the war he worked as the director of the newly founded Slovenian Philharmonic and a professor at the Ljubljana Academy of Music. In 1953, he was elected a full member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. With his composing, to which he was passionately devoted and which encompassed symphonic and stage music as well as vocal and film music, he greatly enriched Slovenian post-war musical creation. His work, which included writing and translating texts on music theory and aesthetics, earned him several awards.

With the digital collection, to which there will soon be added the digitized legacy of Marjan Kozina, we pay tribute to the memory of the composer and mark both the 60th anniversary of his death and the 280th anniversary of the founding of the Novo Mesto Gymnasium, from which the composer graduated in 1925.

Through the diversity of material and the multi-layered narratives they carry, the richness of our library collection is revealed again and again: the intertwining of priceless, irreplaceable and simply beautiful books and other curiosities preserved on our shelves. All of these materials - be it the Costerianum, a unique fragment of the Coster printer, Trubar's Ta celi novi testament (This Whole New Testament), Valvasor's Slava vojvodine Kranjske (Glory of the Duchy of Carniola), Vega's logarithm book, Prešeren's Poezije (Poems) or the proclamation on the opening of the Lyceum Library, portraits, scores, maps and the famous 57th issue of Nova Revija (New magazine)- reveal the NUL's diverse mission and its vitals role in collecting, preserving and transmitting the recorded traces of rich Slovenian creativity.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of NUL, we have selected 250 treasures from the NUL collection to be specially showcased throughout the festive year 2024. These highlights were presented through publications on the MMC RTV Slovenia portal, poster exhibitions along the Krakovski embankment and in the Jakopič promenade in Ljubljana, as well as on social media.

Igor Krivokapič belongs to the middle generation of Slovenian composers. During the last thirty years, he has composed numerous compositions for various musical groups and attracted renowned Slovenian musicians to perform them. His large orchestral ensembles include four symphonies, three concerts, and music for brass orchestra. He pays special attention to the selection and testing of less recognizable and even overlooked musical instruments, thus fulfilling his mission, which is reflected in his many chamber compositions. He revived the helicon trumpet once used by cavalry, and he encouraged the creation of a family of these instruments, which he also successfully teaches as a professor at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana. As a contemporary composer, he believes in the ancient roots of musical language - through generations, on the level of the unconscious, they continue into the future in his work as well. The future is guaranteed due to his careful and responsible attitude towards musical record, and willingness to exhibit his compositions without any restriction.

Tomaž Hren (1560-1630), the Bishop of Ljubljana, was the leading person in Carniola during the Anti Reformation period. His duty was to carry out ecclesiastical reform in the spirit of the Tridentine Council. He ordered the destruction of Protestant books, with the Pope's permission he preserved only the Dalmatin Bible; he was aware of the power of the vernacular language in the strengthening of religion. He worked to set up a printing house in Ljubljana. The texts in the Slovenian language that he approved were solely of a Catholic religious nature, and he edited and reviewed them himself. He financially supported many\nartists, especially musicians dealing with liturgical music. Hren’s choir books represent a selection of a diverse liturgical works that were popular in the Inner Austria - masses, magnifiers, litanies, psalms, hymns, Marian antiphons and short chants. Compositions in the Hren’s choir books were mostly created by Italians from Venice and other northern Italian regions. There are five\ndifferent writings in the books: three intertwine, indicating the existence of a workshop in Graz where the main writer Georg Kuglmann came from, while according the other two scripts it can be assumed that the compendium was not entirely transcribed in one place.