Sever do Vouga Municipal Library
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's Fixed Library No. 130 was installed in Sever do Vouga on 2 April 1969, occupying a small room on the ground floor of the Town Hall. The library was set up as part of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation's (FCG) Fixed Libraries Service, which began in 1960 and was run by Branquinho da Fonseca, in which local councils provided the premises for the service and the FCG paid all the other costs. This service already incorporated the basic principles of modern public reading, i.e. free service for all, home loans and free access to bookshelves. For many years this was the only contact the people of Severa had with books.
In December 1992, the City Council moved the library collection to a new space, the old GNR barracks, at Avenida Comendador Augusto Martins Pereira, no. 40. From then on, the Fixed Library operated with longer opening hours, open from Monday to Friday.
With the gradual implementation of the National Public Reading Programme by the then Portuguese Book and Reading Institute from 1987 onwards, which aimed to build more modern libraries in line with the principles of the UNESCO Manifesto, the FCG's itinerant and fixed libraries gradually declined until they were extinguished.
On 13 December 2002, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation donated the library collection to the town council, which was already working on the implementation of what would become the Sever do Vouga Municipal Library, part of the National Public Reading Network (RNLP).
On 25 July 2009, the Municipal Library of Sever do Vouga was inaugurated, located in the town's Urban Park, as part of the National Network of Public Libraries promoted by the Directorate-General for Books, Archives and Libraries.
