The principal aims of the Tarragona Public Library are: to serve the reading and information needs of the community; to promote reading; to facilitate the study and investigation of our bibliographic heritage to continue its preservation; to be an access centre for information technology.

We are a centre with 156 years of history. We strive for the transformation, innovation and the continual improvement of the services we offer to adapt ourselves constantly to the changing needs and expectations that we perceive in our users. We want to be the cultural and information support of our community providing a service for local people, institutions, companies and the global community.

We specialise in information about the regions of Tarragona and in particular the city of Tarragona.

The Tarragona Public Library is state-owned and managed by the Generalitat. It was founded in 1846 as a result of the sale of Church Lands, in order to safeguard and preserve the bibliographic inheritance from the monastries of Santes Creus, Poblet and other monastic orders. From this heritage preserved here stand out the 318 manuscripts (from 10th-18th Centuries), 230 incunabula, 401 volumes covering from the 16th to 19th Centuries.

In 1962 the Library moved to the present building, which was refurbished in 1983 and 1992.

In May of 1998 we launched our Web page and thereby made virtual services avalaible thanks to the collaboration of Fundació Ciutat de Tarragona and the Dow Chemical company.

During the year 2000, we have started a plan of redistribution of spaces, furniture and reorganization the collections to extend, improve and update the services that we offer.