The library is currently a body of the Fundação Biblioteca Nacional (National Library Foundation). It is located on the 4th floor of the Palácio Gustavo Capanema (Gustavo Capanema Palace) in Centro, and houses around 150,000 works intended for the general public.

The collection consists predominantly of texts on general subjects, including national and international literature, dictionaries, newspaper clippings, encyclopedias, bibliographies and biographies, maps and atlases, as well as a special collection of Euclidean works, as well as a Rui Barbosa collection, which contains theses in the fields of the social sciences, literature, philosophy, and history, as well as scientific, informatics and recreational magazines.