On April 18, 2018, a major exhibition on the history of the museum over 200 years, entitled The Museum of Times , opened. The exhibition provides a glimpse into the main stages in the history of the museum, from the idea to the development of the museum in various locations such as the Cathedral Loft, the Alþingishús, the Láerði skól and the Museum House to its merger with the University Library in the National Library.
The beginning of the collection can be traced back to the fact that on March 30, 1818, a letter from the Danish antiquarian and officer Carl Christian Rafn was presented to the board of the Hafnardeildar of the Icelandic Literary Society, which had been founded two years earlier, which included a proposal to establish a committee to "consider how a public library should best be established in Iceland" along with an invitation to donate books. The president of the department, Bjarni Thorsteinsson, thanked Rafn for the initiative, wrote to the Reykjavík department of the society and instructed it to talk to the diocesan authorities. A response was received on August 28 with a letter from Bishop Geir Vídalín to Árni Helgason, the cathedral priest and president of the Reykjavík department, in which he said that he would ask the chancellery for funding for housing in the cathedral attic for the books. This day, August 28, 1818, is considered the founding day of the Diocese Library, as the National Library was called in the early decades. Rafn never came to Iceland and therefore never visited the museum that he nurtured with devotion for decades.
Jón Árnason, best known for his folklore collection, was appointed as the first librarian of the National Library in 1848 and held that position until his retirement in 1887. The library was located in the cathedral attic until 1881 when it was moved to the newly built Alþingishús and was then named the National Library of Iceland. The National Library then moved to the newly built Museum Building on Hverfisgata in 1909 and remained there with other libraries for most of its existence, until 1994 when it was moved to the National Library along with the University Library.
The exhibition ended on March 25, 2019.