The Plenary Hall of the Palace of the Guzmanes hosted this Monday the awards ceremony of the X Bookmark Contest held by the Library Bus service of the Provincial Council of León, in which the 527 students of rural schools. The winners have received the congratulations of the president of the provincial institution and the Leonese Institute of Culture (ILC), Eduardo Moranin the act on the occasion of the celebration of the Day of the Library Bus – on January 28 – and in which the service of the institution turns 49 years old.
Morán has stressed that this commemoration has a special meaning in the province of León because it is from where the idea of dedicating one day a year to this service that was born in 1974 was promoted. Today it constitutes the third largest fleet of Spain, only surpassed by Madrid and Barcelona. “We are proud of our bookmobiles and our users”, Morán said, “a province that reads, that is curious about the world, that wants to know something new every day, is a province that is advancing; Thank you to everyone here for contributing to this exciting work.” The president has stressed that with his work they fight the loneliness imposed by rural depopulation and has thanked the team of professionals from this service for his involvement. Morán was accompanied in this act and in the subsequent visit to one of the bookmobiles by deputies Matías Llorente, Carolina López, Nicanor Sen, Pablo López Presa, Marcelo Alonso, Luis Alberto Arias, Ana Arias and Francisco Castañón, as well as the coordinator of the bookbus service, Roberto Sotoand the coordinator of the Leonese Institute of Culture (ILC), Emilio Gancedo.
This event has served to emphasize the role of bookmobiles as active agents in favor of repopulation and population loyalty through personalized and highly humane services that serve the smallest towns in the province. In addition, they constitute a great support for rural schools, most of which lack a school library, with which collective reading services, classroom loans, center loans and support for teachers are designed.
Bookbuses in León currently serve a population of 117,849 people (about 19,600 inhabitants per bookmobile). Last year alone, the institution’s six mobile libraries traveled more than 101,000 kilometers, made 4,606 stops in 392 towns, received 32,214 visitors, reached 14,307 members and made a total of 108,448 loans. Data that, as the president celebrated, continue to increase year after year, confirming the importance of this service for the rural environment of Leon.
On the other hand, the Library Bus Service, framed in the Provincial Library Coordination Center, dependent on the ILC, organized in 2022 theater activities, storytelling, poetry set to music, magic, ecology workshops, comics, robotics and outreach to musical instruments, among others, in which 4,747 users participated.
Likewise, the Libraries of León, in collaboration with the Orfeón León, gave the program ‚Si yo te contara, si yo te cantara’, in which 597 people participated, and they collaborate with the Office of Consumption of the Diputación de León by extending their publications by the whole province.
In the same way, since September 2022, a bookmobile has visited the León prison every month to provide its services to the inmates, who are also provided with activities to encourage reading.
list of winners
Category up to 10 years:
– First prize: izan padilla rodriguez (10 years old), Tabuyo del Monte College. Bookmobile 6.
– Finalist: Virginia Serrano Fernandez (10 years), College of Brañuelas. Bookmobile 5.
– Finalist: Valentin Martinez Marcos (8 years old), Tabuyo del Monte School. Bookmobile 6.
Category from 11 to 16 years:
– First prize: Mark of the Crespo Church (11 years old), La Milla del Páramo School. Bookmobile 2.
– Finalist: Diego Carballo Bello (11 years old), Dehesas School. Bookmobile 5.
– Finalist: Eva Martínez López (11 years), Colegio de Huergas de Babia. Library bus 6.