After decades of focusing on Central and Eastern Europe, the newly renamed European Division closed the 1970s with enlarged coverage of Western European countries, but no additional staff to oversee collection development of the new areas of responsibility. In the 1980s that situation changed with the hiring of personnel to handle the Romance, Nordic, and Dutch languages. The chief wrote in one report of the challenges of trying "to achieve a greater visibility in West European affairs while maintaining a long-established presence in East and Central European matters." Also of note in the area of reference publishing, the staff began to explore using machine-readable data to assist in producing bibliographies, but the computer realm was still in its infancy at the Library, with few terminals available to staff for their work. Another significant challenge the division faced in the 1980s was the first change in the physical location of the division in over 30 years due to renovations. The chiefs of the European Division in the 1980s were David H. Kraus (Acting) (1978–1982), Clara Lovett (1982–1984), and David H. Kraus (Acting) (1984–1989).

Below are images of selected items acquired by the European Division during 1980-1989.