National Library of Spain

Biblioteca Nacional de España
(National Library of Spain)

Country	Spain
Established	1712 (305 years ago) (1712)
Reference to legal mandate	Royal Decree 1581/1991 on October 31st.
Location	Madrid
Collection
Items collected	books, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings and manuscripts
Size	26,000,000 items, including 15,000,000 books and other printed materials, 30,000 manuscripts, 143,000 newspapers and serials, 4,500,000 graphic materials, 510,000 music scores, etc.
Legal deposit	Yes, by Decree on December 23rd 1957
Access and use
Access requirements	Access to reproductions and post-1958 materials is open to Biblioteca Nacional library card holders. Access to pre-1958 materials is only allowed with a researcher card. Materials in exceptional circumstances are subject to special restrictions.
Members	115,707 readers in 2007. The web users in the same year were 1,800,935.
Other information
Budget	€47,380,860
Director	Ms. Ana Santos Aramburo (since 2013)
Staff	1025 (including external employees)
Website	http://www.bne.es/

National Library of Spain
Native name Spanish: Biblioteca Nacional de España
Location	Madrid, Spain
Spanish Property of Cultural Interest
Official name: Biblioteca Nacional de España
Type	Non-movable
Criteria	Monument
Designated	1983
Reference no.	RI-51-0004908
Location of National Library of Spain in Spain

The Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library of Spain) is a major public library, the largest in Spain, and one of the largest in the world. It is located in Madrid, on the Paseo de Recoletos.

The library was founded by King Philip V in 1712 as the Palace Public Library (Biblioteca Pública de Palacio). The Royal Letters Patent that he granted, the predecessor of the current legal deposit requirement, made it mandatory for printers to submit a copy of every book printed in Spain to the library. In 1836, the library's status as Crown property was revoked and ownership was transferred to the Ministry of Governance (Ministerio de la Gobernación). At the same time, it was renamed the Biblioteca Nacional.

During the 19th century, confiscations, purchases and donations enabled the Biblioteca Nacional to acquire the majority of the antique and valuable books that it currently holds. In 1892 the building was used to host the Historical American Exposition. On March 16, 1896, the Biblioteca Nacional opened to the public in the same building in which it is currently housed and included a vast Reading Room on the main floor designed to hold 320 readers. In 1931 the Reading Room was reorganised, providing it with a major collection of reference works, and the General Reading Room was created to cater for students, workers and general readers.

During the Spanish Civil War close to 500,000 volumes were collected by the Confiscation Committee (Junta de Incautación) and stored in the Biblioteca Nacional to safeguard works of art and books held until then in religious establishments, palaces and private houses. During the 20th century numerous modifications were made to the building to adapt its rooms and repositories to its constantly expanding collections, to the growing volume of material received following the modification to the Legal Deposit requirement in 1958, and to the numerous works purchased by the library. Among this building work, some of the most noteworthy changes were the alterations made in 1955 to triple the capacity of the library's repositories, and those started in 1986 and completed in 2000, which led to the creation of the new building in Alcalá de Henares and complete remodelling of the building on Paseo de Recoletos, Madrid.