National Library of Colombia 3.2

The National Library of Colombia is the national library of Colombia. The library is a dependency of the Colombian Ministry of Culture.Founding and historyThe National Library of Colombia is generally considered to be the oldest national library in the Americas. It was founded at the end of the eighteenth century in 1777 by Viceroy Manuel De Guirior, who established the library in the city of Bogotá. The original collection of the library consisted of books expropriated from the Jesuit community, which had been expelled from all the dominions of the Spanish Empire, as a result of the 1767 order of King Charles III of Spain. In 1825, due to the work of Francisco de Paula Santander, the library was established at the campus of the Colegio de San Bartolomé and received its current name. On March 25, 1834, the first legal deposit law was decreed, which required that all copies of printed material in the country be sent to the library for storage. This law set the objective of the library, which then became the sole entity in charge of maintaining the bibliographic heritage of the nation.