The Library System of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru comprises all the University's libraries, five within the campus and three outside of it, and provides infrastructure, resources, and services for learning, research, and teaching in the university community. We have one of the most extensive collections in the country. Our catalog consists of more than 382,000 printed books, 23,000 theses, 194,000 magazines, 10,000 newspapers, and around 110,000 online resources (magazines, newspapers, monographs, books and conferences).

Our Special Collections, located in the Central Library, preserve valuable bibliographic material. Among them is Libro de la vida y milagros de Nuestro Señor Iesu Christo en dos lenguas: aymara y romance (1612), also known as Vita Christi, one of the first books printed in Peru. It holds the collection of the Peruvian historian and bibliophile David Colmenares, which contains 3,364 titles, many of which are first editions of Peruvian and foreign books published between the 16th and 20th centuries. Among these are Tercero Catecismo y exposición de la doctrina cristiana (1585), the second part of El Quijote de Cervantes (1615), and La Florida del Inca de Garcilaso de la Vega (1723).

In 1986, Special Collections received a donation of manuscripts collected by the editor of poet Rafael de la Fuente Benavides (Martín Adán). Since then, we have incorporated a new collection approach: heuristic analysis of documents in historical archives.

Presently, Special Collections safeguard 13 bibliographic collections and 44 historical archives, most of them received as donations. The entire collection spans over 16,000 objects (books, brochures, magazines, and newspapers) and 50,000 documents from the historical archive.

Contact: https://biblioteca.pucp.edu.pe/sobre-el-sistema-de-bibliotecas/colecciones-especiales