Cervantine Library

Cervantine Library

The Cervantine Library is located on the third floor of the Rectoría Hall, adjacent to the President´s main office. On the entrance wall, the original artwork from Jorge González Camarena hangs. There are four halls with different collections focusing on several topics.

Carlos Prieto Collection

With a total of 544 works, made up by thousands of volumes, this collection includes 268 examples of the classic Spanish novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of la Mancha (El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha), including the Spanish edition and more than sixty translations to English, Japanese, Hebrew, Latin, among others. Some old Mexican editions of this novel, such as a translation from 1607 done in Brussels and another one from Milan done in 1610, are shelved together with other minor works from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

Conde-Zambrano Collection

A valuable collection with more than 1,000 documents, hundreds of colonial prints, about 3,500 photographs on Mexico´s history and nineteen characters, all available at the Photography Library.

Salvador Ugarte Collection

The Salvador Ugarte´s Mexican Library made its way to Tecnológico de Monterrey in 1955. It is considered as one of the richest and best organized collections in the world on Mexico´s indigenous culture. The 16th Century Mexican Print Collection includes 62 different titles. Another treasure is the second letter from Christopher Columbus, edited in Basel in 1494. The most complete collection of The Mexico Gazette (1722-1822) also has its place there.

Hermanos Guajardo Collection

This is a compendium of more than 500 books written by foreign writers, during their trip to Mexico in colonial times. It is located inside the Cervantina Library.

Ceramic Collection and Pre-Hispanic objects

This compilation of more than 13,000 items can be traced back to different pre-Hispanic Mexican cultures with examples of Mexica, Mayan, Olmec, Totonac and Huastec civilizations.

Artifacts from the Conquest Collection

This assembly of 358 pieces includes the wrought iron artifacts for daily use during the Conquest (16th to 18th century) such as seals, swords, scissors, knives and other tools.

Pedro Robredo Collection

This compilation of the Spanish bibliographer Pedro Robredo covers more than 6,000 volumes on historic topics, including manuscripts and rare editions. With special emphasis on history of Mexico, the collection focuses on areas like Mexican bibliography, history of churches in Mexico, the Virgin of Guadalupe worship, etc. It has more than important and unpublished manuscripts such as the Lafora´s Diary and Pedro José Márquez´ architectural sketches. Other examples include a compendium of 19th Century Mexican lithographs, an assortment of very rare brochures, complete collections of the General National Archive, and Annals of National Museum.

Conway Collection

This is an assortment of engravings and manuscripts in English and Spanish on different subjects like history, geography and anthropology. It also stores the complete collection in English of the annual reports of the Department of Ethnology of America.

Agustin Basave Photography and Autograph Collection

The collection has more than 750 autographs and around 1,200 documents on the most important celebrities of the 20th century.

Microfilm Collection

7,000 microfilm rolls contain all the regional documentation from the 16th to the 20th century, including parish, civil and municipal records, among a variety of state documents from Nuevo León, Candela, Coahuila and the city of Zacatecas.

Alfonso Junco Collection

The Alfonso Junco library contains nearly 8,000 books on poetry, 20th century literature, and a small section on religion, plus 113 boxes of letters, from Junco´s personal archives.

Personal Correspondence from 19th Century Collection

The Cervantine Library also preserves the epistolary archives of three of the most influential characters in Northern Mexico: Jesús Fernández, León Ortigosa y Valentín Rivero, from the 18th and 20th century.

Méndez Plancarte Collection

This collection stores approximately 8,500 volumes on a wide range of topics, mostly literature from Mexico. It also contains classical Greek and Latin authors, including a section on Spanish literature. There are also some other outstanding works on Mexican philosophers, Virgin of Guadalupe worship, assorted bibliography and cultural magazines. Several valuable items in this collection are European prints from the 16th century and manuscripts from Mexican authors such as the poets Amado Nervo and Concha Urquiza. It is located on the second floor of the main library, inside the Campus of Monterrey.

Ignacio Bernal Collection

This is one of the most important collections on Mexican indigenous languages worldwide, with a series of essays on archeology and field research notes from the first European explorers of Mexico. Its catalogue, lists editions prior to 1601, including original books and manuscripts depicting colonial life.

Glass Plates Negatives Collection

The greatest achievement of this collection is preserving a remarkable photographic process that captured the beauty of Monterrey at the end of the 19th century.

Michel Antochiw Collection

Thanks to Antochiw’s contribution, a great part of Mexico’s colonial and Yucatan’s regional histories is available for study, as well as an account on Mesoamerica’s languages and Mexican cartography. With plenty of manuscripts, brochures, maps and lithographs, the collection comprises a total of nearly 9 300 titles and 14 000 volumes.

Photography Library

This library constitutes one of the most valuable departments in Tecnológico de Monterrey, as it includes nine photographic archives, collected throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. It contains photos from interesting periods in history depicting the lifestyle, nature and architectural beauty of those times.

Agustin Basave Photography Collection

Over 750 autographed photographs from some of the most important celebrities of the 20th century.

Conde-Zambrano Photography Collection

With a remarkable number of nearly 3,500 photographs, this is a very valuable testimony of historical figures from the Russian Imperial, French courts, and from the history of Mexico (such as Porfirio Díaz, Benito Juárez, and former emperor and empress Maximilian and Charlotte among important members of the Mexican clergy and society from 17th and 19th centuries.)

Jesús R. Sandoval Photography Collection

Monterrey social lifestyle during 1896 and 1940 is depicted in more than 4,000 photographs and 8,000 negatives from this collection.

Isauro Villarreal García Photography Collection

With more than two hundreds photos shot between 1920 and 1960, the collection portrays the natural and urban landscape of Nuevo León.

Aureliano Tapia Photography Collection

Mostly focused on the religious and Catholic lifestyle, this compendium of more than three hundreds photos dates back from the 1920s to present day.

Desiderio Lagrange Photography Collection

This collection of more than one hundred images from the 1880 era depicts the natural and urban landscape of Nuevo León.

Alberto Flores Varela Photography Collection

Created at the turn of the 20th century, this is a collection of beautiful religious-themed postcards of Catholic churches.

Tecnológico de Monterrey Photography Collection

Several photographs have contributed with more than 2,000 images to recreate the story of our institute from its very beginning.

Mario Pani Photography Collection

This is the visual legacy of the great urban architect Mario Pani. This treasure is a testimony to the great diversity of projects Pani undertook, like houses, schools, public and commercial buildings, hospitals, offices, airports and an assortment of blueprints.

Map Library

This collection stores about 1100 maps (in different formats, various dimension and topics) from 1570 to 1989 making it an important resource for researchers. The access to this collection is through the Ignacio Bernal Library, located inside Campus Monterrey Main/Central Library.