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Columbus Memorial Library

Washington, Italy

Columbus Memorial Library

The Columbus Memorial Library is the library and archives of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C. It is the institutional memory of the OAS and the Inter-American System. The library offers an extensive collection of books and periodicals that date back to 1535. Its holdings

include the official documentation of Specialized Conferences and Meetings, as well as the publications of the Specialized Organs of the OAS. It also holds contributions from the hemisphere's governments including “historical, geographical, and literary works, maps, manuscripts, and official documents relating to the history and civilization of America." The Library was created in 1890 at the First International Conference of American States, held in Washington, D.C. in 1889-1890. The Conference agreed, in the words of the Delegate from Colombia, Ambassador Carlos Martinez Silva, to establish "... a memorial Library, to which each government could send, on its own account, the most complete collection possible of historical, literary, and geographical works, laws, official reports, maps, etc., so that the results of intellectual and scientific labor in all America might be collected together...

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