On Vicente García Street, many people discover you, septuagenarian, open to knowledge. Your shelves tell a story. You bear the name of the National Hero of Cuba and you were born on January 28, just like him.

Sheltered by an eclectic facade, you seduce people. From the student who dreams of the perfect grade to the one who gets lost in the horizons of Minerva between science, poetry, narrative...

Today, a new management system exalts you in the country; a result of the efforts of your workers since 2013. This is how you managed to digitize all the catalogs, with about 30 thousand records.

Although the pandemic has limited your visits to prisons, maternity and nursing homes, among other institutions, it has not been able to turn off that light that began to shine 70 calendars ago when the first public library of the then Victoria de Las Tunas opened.

Throughout time, we have seen you at the Cucalambeana Fiesta, the Book Fair, exploring digital formats and other spaces. You lend documents, you stay active in the promotion, you share bibliographic samples, you contribute to the Cuban encyclopedia EcuRed, you gain ground in user services...

Your ten service rooms honor you with their constant work. There is something for all tastes and needs. There is the José Martí Hall, a newspaper library, an art library, a patrimonial one, that for people with disabilities, and others that also safeguard the teachings of the author of The Golden Age. That is why we are happy that Internet browsing services were reinstated after three years without these benefits.

You have also cultivated the teachings of the Apostle for three decades through the La Muñeca Negra contest; even now, when the circumstances of the pandemic forced them to move to cyberspace, you did not stop and made the audience participate in the voting of the contest. It is difficult to know how many infants you have instilled with Piedad's pure love for Leonor, but thanks to the efforts of human beings like those in your staff, their dreams are not made of porcelain.

Looking at the shelves, the first donations are remembered, that Bible that the Union of Young Baptists put in your care, that History of Music, by H. Lavoix, that Mr. Aldo Peña Paneque facilitated. But today, your maternal instinct is not very different when it comes to books, because the group led by Carmen Velázquez Quintana protects more than 70 thousand titles, including important copies such as the three volumes of The Book of Constitutions, donated by the National Prize of History Eduardo Torres Cuevas.

Although modest now, because of the COVID-19, your birthday could not be ignored. The photographic exhibition La biblioteca cuenta su historia (The Library tells its history), teaches us through 70 snapshots. Thus the curtains of time are drawn and we look, for example, to that founding moment, where valuable people like Pedro Verdecie Pérez, your first director; José Ávila Reyes, President of the City Council; and Mayor José Hernández Cruz looked at you with pride. Other initiatives are on the program; the homage is guaranteed.

Although January 28, 1951, seems distant, it is not. The footprints of those who defended you travel back in time and are transmuted into the young man who expands his vocabulary by your side, into the one who dreams of being a writer and takes his “escapades” towards the magical enclosure, in all those who have discovered that books allow growing and know the world. And just as El Eco de Las Tunas reflected your genesis, 26 is proud to honor you nowadays. Happy birthday, guardian of knowledge!