The Central Library of the National Research Council, established in 1927, is the main Italian library of multidisciplinary science and technology. It coordinates the CNR Library System which consists of about 20 Research Area Libraries and about 80 Library / Institute Documentation Centers, distributed over most of the national territory. Its task is to collect and preserve the scientific and technical publications produced in Italy (Legal deposit-Law 15 April 2004, n. 106, Decree of the President of the Republic 3 May 2006, n. 252, Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers 7 October  1987, n. 475). It is the custodian Library of scientific and technical production of CNR (Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers 7 October 1987, n. 475).

It is National Reference Center for the coordination of producing organisms of grey literature in the context of the European network OpenGrey (System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe).

It is Italian ISSN Center (International Standard Serial Number).

It is European Documentation Center (EDC) and has become part of the general network of EUROPE DIRECT information services.

It participates in ISO-UNI technical standardization activities.