National Library of the Philippines

The National Library of the Philippines (Pambansang Aklatan ng Pilipinas or Aklatang Pambansa ng Pilipinas, abbreviated NLP, Biblioteca Nacional de Filipinas) is the official national library of the Philippines. The complex is located in Ermita on a portion of Rizal Park facing T. M. Kalaw Avenue, neighboring culturally significant buildings such as the Museum of Philippine Political History and the National Historical Commission. Like its neighbors, it is under the jurisdiction of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). The library is notable for being the home of the original copies of the defining works of José Rizal: Noli Me Tangere, El Filibusterismo and Mi último adiós. The National Library of the Philippines can trace its history to the establishment of the Museo-Biblioteca de Filipinas (Museum-Library of the Philippines), established by a royal order of the Spanish government on August 12, 1887. It opened on October 24, 1891, at the Intendencia in Intramuros, then home of the Manila Mint (as the Casa de la Moneda), with around 100 volumes and with both Julian Romero and Benito Perdiguero as director and archivist-librarian, respectively. Romero resigned in 1893 and was briefly replaced by Tomás Torres of the Escuela de Artes y Ofícios in Bacolor, Pampanga (now the Don Honorio Ventura Technological State University), who in turn was replaced by Don Pedro A. Paterno on March 31, 1894. By that time, the library had moved to a site in Quiapo near the present site of the Masjid Al-Dahab. Later on, Paterno published the first issue of the Boletin del Museo-Biblioteca de Filipinas (Bulletin of the Museum-Library of the Philippines) on January 15, 1895. The Museo-Biblioteca was abolished upon the onset of the American colonization of the Philippines. By the time of its abolition, the library held around 1,000 volumes and averaged around 25–30 visitors a day. The entire collection would later be transferred at Paterno's expense to his own private library, of which some books would form the basis for the Filipiniana collection of subsequent incarnations of the National Library.