Lamego Library

The origins of the Lamego Public Municipal Library date back to the end of the 19th century . Viscount Guedes Teixeira, the great promoter of the Lamego Library, declared that he wanted to maintain a library in his municipality.

Cassiano Neves is the brain behind the Association for Popular Instruction, which has a Popular Library with 1,400 books. He is considered the main founder of the Lamego Public Library.

In 1880, the city councilor Dr. Cassiano Neves was authorized to prepare one of the shops in the city hall under his direction for the municipal library . The Library, with a catalogue, was a fact.

Under the Separation Act, the Bishop's Palace was confiscated and the city council took possession of the "Palace Library", which was annexed to the Municipal Library, but largely remained in the Lamego Museum.

After the confiscation in 1911, the municipal library's collection was moved to a space in the Lamego Museum and Town Hall , where it remained until 1928.

The City Council moved part of the collection of the Municipal Library, then housed in the building, to the current Lamego Museum , making the entire collection of the Municipal Library available to the public. Between 1928 and 1964, the public municipal library of Lamego moved, along with other institutions, to the former residence of the bishops of Lamego.

In this building of the Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the Lamego public municipal library was established in 1989.

The Municipal Public Library was enriched with the donation of the Literary and Didactic Library of Dr. Vasco Guedes de Vasconcelos , with a total of 1,200 books. The valuable public library of Lamego, which was packed up in 1964, is stored on a floor of the Town Hall. Fortunately, from 1964 onwards the books were kept in a room of the Town Hall and in 1976 they were again housed in a room of the Regional Museum of Lamego, at the request of the Administrative Commission of the Town Hall in the period after 25 April. In the early 1980s the books of the public library of Lamego were stored on the ground floor of the new Alvoraçães district, in "high metal shelves full of heavy books, not in a row, but laid out..., of which no file was ever created".

The city council buys the old Caixa Geral de Depósitos building to house the municipal library, which remained inactive and without readers for 25 years between 1964 and 1989.

On November 25, 1989, the Municipal Public Library was inaugurated in Rua de Almacave.

Willem Vandenameele