History

History Images Historical archives

 

A bit of history

Many of our readers do not know it, but our library is more than 100 years old

 

The State Public Library date back to the 19th century when, as a result of the release of wealth and items belonging to the church, the State is obliged to preserve and maintain the bibliographic heritage it inherits. Our library has had various locations throughout its history:

  • The first news we have of the library takes us back to 1913, in a visitors? minute book.
  • Up until 1947 it was located in the Instituto Provincial in 11, Mendez Nuñez Street, in a building owned by the Ministerio de Educación Nacional.
  • From 1947 to 1970 it was situated in Mora Claros Street (before named Botica Street) in a building beloging to the Diputación Provincial.
  • In 1969 it moved to its current location in the Martin Alonso Pinzon Avenue, under the name of Casa de la Cultura, although from 1996 to 2000 it was temporarily moved to 23, Duque de la Victoria Street, while the building underwnet refurbishment.

 

This extensive refurbishment was carried out by the Ministry of Education and Culture, under the direction of the architect Diego Pérez Medina, to make it into a modern library, with open spaces allowing public access to all its collection.

 

Images of yesterday

The following photographs illustrates part of the history of our library working for the community

 

fotohistoria1

 

These images correspond to the front page of the local newspaper Odiel, of friday 15, march, 1947, with the following caption:
"Two aspects of the mafnificent new venues of the Centro Coordinador de Bibliotecas and the Biblioteca Provincial, in 15 Mora Claros St., in our town"

 

fotohistoria2

 

In 1962, a mobile service was available in several towns of the province and also in Huelva city. The mobile library provided its services from 7 to 10 p.m. in the main square, "Plaza de las Monjas".

 

fotohistoria3

 

This photograph illustrates the children's library in the Casa de la Cultura, as it was the known, towards the end of the 1970s.

 

 historia1

 

We would like to take this opportunity to ask any of our former readers with information about the different locations of this library (the most important and practically the only one for many years) to get in touch with us.
We would be especially interested in photographs which bear witness to our history.

 

history5

 

This is the membership card in the 1950s and 1960s. It was shown to us by one of our oldest readers.

 

 


Casa de la Cultura

The former building fo the Casa de la Cultura built at the end of the 1960s and opened in 1970.
It stood in the same spot where the library is now, in one of the main street of the town.

 

Our historical archive

As we have said, our library dates back to the middle of the 19th century, but the oldest collections we have been able to find go back 1913.
If you are interested in looking up any item in our archival collection you can download these files: