Uruguay - Libraries and museums

The National Library, founded in 1816, contains over 900,000 volumes, primarily modern but including a sizable historical collection. Other major collections are found in the special libraries of the Council of Secondary, Basic, and Higher Education (110,000 volumes), and the Museum of Natural History (200,000), and at the Pedagogic Library (118,000). The University of the Republic in Montevideo (1849) holds nearly one million volumes.

The National Historical Museum exhibits artifacts of local Amerindian cultures and of Uruguayan historical development. The National Museum of Fine Arts has paintings by prominent Uruguayan artists, including Juan Manuel Blanes and Joaquín Torres García. Both are in Montevideo, as are the Museum of Industrial Arts, the Pedagogical Museum, and the Museum of the Discovery, a unique public affairs institution chronicling the impact of the European encounter with the new world. There are regional museums in Mercedes, Salto, San José de Mayo, and Tacuarembo.