Address: 69 Ly Tu Trong Street, Ben Thanh Ward, District 1
In 1868, the Library of Cochinchina Admirals and Governors (or Cochinchina Governor's Library) was established by decree of Vice Admiral Ohier. In 1882, the Library changed its name to the French Cochinchina Government Documentation Library (Bibliothèque de Documentation du Gouvernement de la Cochinchine Francaise) and became the first public library in Vietnam. This spot was formerly a mint, then the Saigon Grand Palace was invested and built from 1886 to 1890, which was formed and put into operation. In 1953, it was demolished, then right on the old foundation was built Van Khoa University (1948-1967) and then the National Library.
From 1968, the work was started to build into the National Library; The work was completed at the end of 1971. On December 23, 1971, the National Library was inaugurated and put into operation in February 1972. The library consists of two blocks:
- The first block is a row of houses 71 m long, 23 m wide, including a basement, a ground floor and two floors, a terrace on the second floor.
- The second block is located in the center, square and it rises like a tower with 14 floors, 43m high, containing documents.
This was the largest library in Vietnam at that time, with modern architecture combined with ethnicity. At this time, the library has 53 staff members with about 100,000 copies of documents.
After April 30, 1975, Saigon National Library changed its name to National Library II under the Ministry of Culture according to Decision No. 1018/VH/QD signed on November 1, 1976. The library has received rich supplementary materials from the National Library of Vietnam, the Central Library of Science and Technology, and the Library of Hoa Binh.
On April 14, 1978, the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City issued Decision No. 57/QD/UB to change the name "National Library II" to "Ho Chi Minh City General Science Library". Ho Chi Minh".
The General Library of Ho Chi Minh City is an ideal destination for reading culture enthusiasts. Not only meeting the reading needs, the Library now also opens a copy service of rare and ancient documents, optimally meeting the needs of readers.
In addition, the Library also has a Sino-Vietnamese Characters Reading Room, attracting many foreign readers and researchers. This reading room currently stores about 2000 publications, all of which are precious documents. Most of the foreign readers who come here are masters and doctoral students who come to search for documents. The General Library of Ho Chi Minh City also has a document production room for the blind located in the basement of the Library, operated by two blind specialists.
In addition to the above rooms, the Library also has a newspaper reading room, newly renovated and modern, a children's reading room with lively and colorful space, or a large reading room for foreign language books, a document, videos, audios… access area.