It is responsible for the technical coordination of public libraries and the promotion of books and reading.

Since independence, more services were housed in the town hall, and as a result, the library fell in decay and was eventually closed.

The gap this left was partly filled by the Francisco José Tenreiro Reading Room, that was the only public library in the country for over a decade.

The itinerant libraries set up by the Portuguese Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2000 brought books to more communities.

[1] In March 2015, the National Library began a cooperation with the University of Minas Gerais (UMG) from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, began its project to promote reading for children and teenagers.