One of such institutions is the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura (Royal Portuguese Reading Room), which was first established by the Portuguese in 1822, and holds around 350,000 volumes, including many rare and precious texts. It functions as a study and reference center for students, researchers and enthusiasts - What defines this establishment as a Cultural Center is its highly specialized materials and the fact that, beyond a conventional public library, it runs research, courses, exhibitions and produces materials for the dissemination of its collection. Visitors of library-focused cultural centers are invited to engage actively in the linguistic and textual world, exploring its history, development and potentialities.

the city is home to some remarkable literature focussed cultural centers, many of them housed inside libraries, offering free access to rich collections of books about science, technology, history, arts. and many more specialized genres.