The European Reading Room is the primary point of contact for researchers interested in materials from and about Serbia. The Reading Room maintains a collection of several hundred reference books for Serbia, with general encyclopedias, subject encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, language dictionaries, bibliographies, statistical data, and other reference materials. In addition, older reference titles of interest may be held in the reference collection for former Yugoslavia.

Also available in the European Reading Room are most of the Serbian newspapers on microfilm, issues of unbound periodicals and print newspapers from Serbia, a collection of Serbian propaganda pamphlets from the 1990s war, and a general pamphlet collection containing over 100 items from former Yugoslavia. In the European Reading Room cage a number of unique materials are kept on hand due to rarity or the need for displays. Cage materials include Wuk's Stephanowitsch Kleine serbische Grammatik, the first edition of the famous "Small Serbian grammar" by Vuk Karadžić; a small selection of anti-Milošević ephemera from Otpor; the oldest newspaper volume from Serbia held by the Library of Congress - Serbskīĭ narodnyĭ list [Serbian national newspaper] from 1835; the first edition of Miloš Crnjanski's Maska [Mask] from 1918; and a signed copy of Vojislav Koštunica's Ugrožena sloboda [Threatened freedom] from 2002. All cage materials are available upon request at the European Reading Room reference desk. Several special items available in the European Reading Room are described below.