Sant Joan de les Abadesses inaugurated on Saturday the new headquarters of the Municipal Library, now located in the former Abdessa Emma school, a Neo-Renaissance building by the Catalan architect Raimon Duran i Reynals that was disused. The rehabilitation and adaptation works of the building began in September and have had a cost of 264,730 euros. The work has been financed thanks to various subsidies from the Provincial Government of Girona, the Department of Culture and the Catalan Institute of Energy of the Generalitat de Catalunya, and with own funds from the Sant Joan de les Abadesses Town Council.
The action has made it possible to repair the damage caused by the leaks, renew the carpentry and the enclosures, redo the sunken and deteriorated pavements, create interior openings to create open spaces and acquire the appropriate furniture.
With the new location, The Josep Picola Municipal Library will have 325 m2 and will be a first step to reach the 520 m2 described in the functional plan drawn up in 2014, those suitable for municipalities with more than 3,000 inhabitants, as specified in the Generalitat de Catalunya Public Reading Map. The surface that is missing to reach the final figure will be achieved thanks to the second floor and with the adaptation of the rest of the building, which has not been reformed in this phase of the works.
The new library has an entrance porch, three lobbies, two rooms for internal services, three reading areas and one for magazines, and a back porch. Its former location, on Calle Pere Rovira, of 63 m2, had become too small due to the number of loaned copies available, as well as the activities that libraries offer today.
Citizen collaboration
The transfer of the library fund was done days ago with a human chain, taking advantage of the proximity between the old location and the new one. Students from the Institut Escola Mestre Andreu, members of the reading club and residents of Sant Joan de les Abadesses participated.
The municipality has public library since 1963, created by the “la Caixa” Library Network. From the year 2000, it became the property of the Sant Joan de les Abadesses City Council and was integrated into the Public Reading System (LPC). Since then, it has received support from the Library Service of the Diputació de Girona and the Library Service of the Generalitat.
Also, on the occasion of the inauguration, the library has published a small collection of four bookmarks that users can collect with their loans.