Busy at BNE

Anna Ellis

ALMOST 1,700 visited the National Library of Spain (BNE) on April 22 to join in celebrations of International Book Day which took place on April 23.

From before 8.00am (doors opened at 9.00am), and despite the rain, visitors began to arrive.

Tickets were allocated in order of arrival and, in less than three hours, the 1,500 planned tickets had already been distributed.

This situation led the BNE to expand the groups and organise new routes and guides to meet the expectations of all those people who had been left without a pass.

The library was founded by King Philip V of Spain in 1712 as the Palace Public Library.

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In 1836, the library’s status as Crown property was revoked and ownership was transferred to the Ministry of Governance, and renamed the Biblioteca Nacional.