Is the Vatican Library public or private?

[Kotte]

Being a religious entity one would think it's public but with all the secrets and valuable rare books it holds I'd say private, so I'm not sure. Please, help?

[teejayniles]

Vatican City -- actually that is a state/nation that is bordered on all sides by the Italian capital city (Rome)

The library holdings are administered by the "Vatican" and curia and the current Pope (Benedict XVI) is himself by background a professor and academic theologian. The wealth of the Vatican is of course held PRIVATELY -- whatever policy they put in place is not to open all kinds of sensitive records for the world's peoples and individuals with good motives and bad ones. There have over the decades been thriller novels and movie screenplays about the "secrets and conspiracies" -- it would have materials of importance for those with foreign language and ancient cultures - societies knowledge

Ask at your local Roman Catholic church about how they relate to the Pope and to the Vatican itself -- there is a lot to learn about how Americans can understand how a 21st Century set of expectations are being tested and "opened" for those with Twitter and Facebook expectations . . .

[davidjohnston29]

The Vatican Library is open to scholars who can document their credentials and research needs. It is not open to the public at large. There is also the Vatican Secret Archive, which despite the name is not a secret and doesn't contain anything particularly secret these days. It contains church documents over the centuries, and outside scholars are allowed to peruse it with permission as well.

[Advice]

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[Naz F]

It holds a lot of rare books, so is open to scholars who request it. Since some of the books are hundreds of years old, access of course has to be restricted to serious study.

Such study would take a lot of patience. Since the library was organized before the modern idea of library science began, things can be hard to find. For example, an Aztec book was "discovered" on the shelves, in the 17th century.

The idea that parts of it are "secret" is a misunderstanding. All the word "secret" means is that the various acts proclaimed by the popes are the current pope's personal property--until at death they go to the next pope, of course. These acts are by no means hidden; in fact you can read them all online.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Secret_Archives

[Grayson B.]

privately held by the curia and Vatican state officials