The scholarly journal ‘Archiwa Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne’ is a publishing house of the Institute of Church Archives, Libraries and Museums of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. The periodical has been published continuously since 1959. The journal was founded by Fr Romuald Gustaw OFM, the Director of the Catholic University of Lublin Library and Rev.  Stanisław Librowski, the Director of the Diocesan Archive in Włocławek, who also became the editor-in-chief of the periodical.

   The three first volumes of ABMK were released as quarterly journals. Since 1962 (the fourth volume), the journal has been published twice a year.

   The journal is unique on a world scale because it publishes articles from three areas (archive studies, library science and museology), referring to the activity of the cultural institutions of the Catholic Church. Interdisciplinary nature of the journal results from the fact that it includes papers not only from the area of archive studies, library science and museology but also from the history of the Church, art, theology and religious studies.

    The periodical ‘Archiwa Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne’, according to the statute of the Institute of Church Archives, Libraries and Museums, constitutes a link between church archives, libraries and museums. In Poland the journal plays a key role in inspiring and motivating researchers to study church cultural resources and the institutions which store these treasures. The semi-annual journal also welcomes the publications written by foreign authors. The aim of the International Research Council and articles written in foreign languages is to popularize the Polish publication on archive studies, library science and museology, as well as the papers on the history of the universal and local Church in other countries. This is possible through contacts between Polish and international research communities dealing with the collections of the Catholic Church.

  The semi-annual journal ‘Archiwa Biblioteki i Muzea Kościelne’ is divided into thematic sections: studies and materials, reviews and information, a bibliographic review.

   The ‘studies and materials’ section includes articles on research and documentary work undertaken by the Institute, as well as guidelines on the organization of church archives, libraries and museums. This journal also contains treatises and studies on the methods of work used in church archival studies, library science and museology in Poland and other countries, as well as information on the church institutions which store cultural resources of the Catholic Church in Poland and in the world. In addition, the periodical presents the research of historians, archivists, librarians and museologists on the church material, not only from church research institutions. These are the articles focusing on the history of the church collections and characterizing their most important fonds.  The journal also publishes archival inventories and library catalogues of church libraries and archives, source texts for the history of the Catholic Church on Poland’s territories (canonical visitations of parishes, confraternity books, chapter statutes, the foundations and erections of church institutions). Some of the articles published in ABMK are the result of the research work of historians using church archival materials microfilmed/digitized in the Institute. In recent years, the periodical has released numerous articles concerning the history of the Catholic Church in the Easter Borderland of the Republic of Poland and the articles presenting the history of the Polish Catholic parishes in Western Europe. Furthermore, after an archival fonds has been described, microfilmed and digitalized, the catalogues of microfilms/digital collections of ABMK are published.  

   The semi-annual journal also includes the reviews of publications which appeared in Polish and the most important titles in foreign languages. In this way, the ABMK journal promotes Polish research into the cultural resources of the Catholic Church and the church institutions storing the collections of the past, and presents the results of research from other countries. All these publishing undertakings reinvigorate scholarly debates in the Polish scholarly community, not only in the one connected with the Church.