The 121st anniversary of the José Martí National Library, a National Monument, will be commemorated with a ceremony at the Hart Theater on 20 October.

During the ceremony, the Félix Varela Order will be awarded to Dr. Araceli García-Carranza for her 85 years of age, the first Cuban bibliographer, who accumulates six decades of dedication to librarianship and research work in this prestigious center.

The outstanding professional held various positions, including head of the Cuban Collection Department and simultaneously advising the country's network of public libraries; head of Research, and of the institution's Journal.  She is the author of important works and an experienced consultant. She was awarded the Raúl Gómez García Medal, as well as the 2003 National Cultural Research Prize, the Emilio Setién Librarianship Prize, and the Carlos J. Finlay Order, among other awards.

The José Martí National Library was founded in the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, in Havana, by the military order of the American Governor Leonard Wood; and appointed as its first director the notable encyclopedist, bibliographer, and journalist Domingo Figarola Caneda, who served as its director until 1920.

It is currently located on Avenida Independencia y 20 de Mayo, in Plaza de la Revolución municipality, and is considered the most important archive in Cuba. Its collection exceeds four million documents for consultation and holds unique deposits that are available to users.

The Rare and Valuable Collection, with some 2,000 items, most of which are of great heritage value, is of particular interest to the reader.  One of the manuscripts treasured in the library is a Codex from 1433, which contains a transcription of a work by St Thomas Aquinas on the education of kings and princes. 

It publishes the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, which also has 18 copies printed between 1450 and 1500 (incunabula). It also has the Tarifa General de Precios de Medicina from 1723 (the oldest Cuban print), an edition of the Gazeta de La Habana from 1782, and the Libro de los Peces o Descripción de diferentes piezas de historia natural, from 1787 (the first illustrated book and the first science book published in Cuba).