Simón Bolívar Library

The Simón Bolívar Library, on the 8th Floor of the Torre II de Humanidades building, is a specialized library on the UNAM campus. It’s an essential library for Latin American and Caribbean studies.

Researchers will find fundamental works of the 16th to the 19th centuries, many in digitized formats. The collection also contains select works from the 20th century, and more recent publications in history, literature, culture, and the development of Latin American ideas and thought.

It maintains relations of loan and exchange of publications, but international scholars should check the website prior to visiting. Information and communication technologies has allowed it to broaden its scope. Today the Simón Bolívar Library offers more of its services to a greater number of people interested in Latin American and Caribbean thinking.

Tower II of Humanities is also the headquarters of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities and the Center for Research on Latin America and North America, among others.

The building was originally the headquarters of the Institute of Sciences, next to the Faculty of Sciences. During the 1970s, the old Science Tower with its 15 levels was considered “the tallest concrete building in Mexico City. It was used for many years as an example of the speed with which the university area was built. That’s according to Rocío Ortiz, an official University City tour guide. The UNAM website quotes her:

The structure was built in just 138 days, a record time indeed! It’s a building that responds to the architectural criteria of functionalism. What we can see is a free plan, that is, there are only columns at the base so as not to interfere with pedestrian crossing.

Indeed, lots of students will pass beneath it, even today.