Biblioteca Nacional Digital de Chile BNd

Overview

The Biblioteca Nacional Digital de Chile (BNd) is the unified digital platform of the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile (National Library of Chile), aggregating all of the national library's digital services and collections in one online portal. The BNd was inaugurated on August 19, 2013, during the bicentennial of the National Library's founding, under the direction of the Dibam director Magdalena Krebs and National Library director Ana Tironi. The platform is accessible at bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl.

History and Founding

The National Library of Chile was founded in 1813 and is one of Chile's oldest public institutions. Its digitization efforts began in the early 2000s, with Memoria Chilena launched in 2001 as a pioneering digital heritage portal. In August 2013, on the occasion of the library's 200th anniversary, a modern Digitization Laboratory was inaugurated and the BNd platform launched, providing unified access to all digital collections. By November 2014, the platform already offered access to 80,000 titles, photographs, videos, and articles, and aimed to digitize 167,000 documents in its early phase.

Collections and Holdings

The BNd platform encompasses more than 350,000 digital objects from multiple collections, including: Memoria Chilena (over one million digitized pages and 960 original research items on Chilean cultural history and identity); Chile para Niños (children's heritage resources); the Audiovisual Archive; the Archivo de la Palabra (audio recordings of Chilean intellectuals and writers); the digital newspaper and periodicals archive (Hemeroteca Digital); digital maps (Mapoteca); the Colección Samper Ortega; and materials deposited under Chile's Electronic Legal Deposit law.

Notable Materials Related to Journalism and Media

The Hemeroteca Digital provides access to historical Chilean newspapers and periodicals, including the Aurora de Chile, the country's first newspaper from 1812. The Memoria Chilena platform averages close to 500,000 monthly visitors and includes research on Chilean print media history, literature, and cultural identity.

Access and Usage

The BNd is freely accessible to all users online without registration for most collections. It also accepts electronic legal deposit submissions from Chilean publishers and authors. The physical National Library is located at Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins 651 in Santiago.