Bibliotekarz Podlaski was created by the Head of the Łukasz Górnicki Książnica Podlaska (library) Jan Leończuk (the first Editor in Chief.) and Professor Anna Sitarska (the first Scholarly Editor) in 2000. The journal was intended to fill a conspicuous gap – at the time there was no regional periodical that would provide a platform for professional discussions on bibliology, librarianship or book science, as well as on the specific problems of libraries in the region, regional readership and perspectives for the library as an institution in the near future.

To meet the local demand for such a periodical, Leończuk invited bibliologists, librarians, and academic scholars both from the region and from academic institutions outside Podlasie to launch Bibliotekarz Podlaski. For 10 years, apart from articles dedicated solely to ‘library life’, the journal (issued twice a year) would feature papers on history, literary studies and social sciences.

In 2012, having obtained the status of academic library, The Łukasz Górnicki Książnica Podlaska broadened the field of its statutory activities, and its periodical became a Polish, peer-reviewed scholarly journal with an international Editorial Board and a group of regular contributors.

In 2013, Professor Jarosław Ławski, Head of the Chair in Philological Studies ‘East-West’ at the University of Białystok, became another Editor in Chief. It was in this year that Bibliotekarz Podlaski met the criteria required of a ranked scholarly journal, a new international Editorial Board was set up, and a number of Polish and foreign scholars were invited to contribute to the journal and/or to act as its reviewers. Professor Anna Sitarska, a specialist in librarianship and scholarly information management, became Head of the Scholarly Committee. Since 4 May 2014 the post of Editor in Chief has been held by Dr Łukasz Zabielski. The journal’s editorial policy and its academic strategy are supervised by the international Scholarly Committee, by scholars from Polish and foreign universities, and by the research team ‘Glogerianum’, which was established in Książnica Podlaska to carry out current scholarly projects (one of them being the edition of miscellaneous works by Zygmunt Gloger, financed by the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities).