The National Library service was established under an act of parliament, No. 31 of 1967. Its main task is to operate nation-wide public library and information services in Malawi.

Its statutory responsibilities, as stipulated in the Act, are to promote, establish, equip, manage, maintain and develop libraries in Malawi.

The National Library Service (NLS) is responsible for ensuring that people throughout Malawi have access to reading and information materials. It has therefore for many years supported and developed various types of libraries which include school and rural libraries.

In recent years, the NLS has focussed on the promotion of the reading culture especially among children. To this effect, it has established primary school libraries in all the regions of the country, trained teacher librarians, stocked the libraries with both locally purchased books as well as book donations from North America and United Kingdom. It has gone further to ensure that the libraries have a conducive environment for reading by providing library furniture to the schools.