Biblioteca Nacional de España

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Statue of Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo in the lobby of the Biblioteca Nacional de España

For the Brazilian National Library, see Fundação Biblioteca Nacional.

The Biblioteca Nacional de España ('The National Library of Spain') is a major public library, the largest in Spain. It is located in Madrid, Spain.

[edit] History

Founded in 1711, the Library was originally The Royal Public Library of King Philip V. It housed some 60,000 books by 1752, by which time it had become a legal deposit library. The Library continued to grow, and had significant royal patronage throughout the 18th century. By 1836 it had been renamed as The National Library of Spain ('Biblioteca Nacional de España'), and by 1850 it housed some 200,000 items. In 1896 the Library moved to the current location in center Madrid. The Madrid premises are shared with the National Archaeological Museum.

[edit] The Library today

A page from the manuscript of The Lay of the Cid.

Its current catalog is called the Bibliografía Española. It indexes some 6,000,000 books and journals, 25,000 manuscripts, and 240,000 rare books. In addition to books, maps and manuscripts, it holds collections of visual material such as drawings, posters, and photographs. Access to the collections is reserved to scholars.

The current Library director is Rosa Regas. Former directors include Jon Juaristi.

Since it is a legal deposit for the whole of Spain, since 1991 it keeps most of the overflowing collection in a secondary site in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid.