Instituto Histórico e Geográfico do Rio Grande do Sul

About 150,000 volumes on the history and geography of Rio Grande do Sul make up the two large bibliographic collections of the Historic and Geographic Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (Instituto Histórico e Geográfico do Rio Grande do Sul, or IHGRGS). The institute is a private non-profit learned society founded in Porto Alegre in 1920, and its holdings also cover anthropology, paleontology and folklore.

After several moves, the institute settled in its current building, opened in 1972. It contains a research room, the Tomás Carlos Duarte Library, a general library, an archive room, a map library and an auditorium seating 150 people. These facilities suit researchers and readers of regional history more than casual sightseers.

Until the 1950s, the institute was the state's main producer and diffuser of historical knowledge, ahead even of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). It reached its peak in the 1930s and 1940s, around the centennial of the Ragamuffin War. Its journal, the Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico do Rio Grande do Sul, first appeared in 1921 and is now published every six months within the UFRGS academic journal system.