Story time
This year 2021, which is slipping through our fingers, with the uneasiness that has accompanied us since the beginning of the pandemic, an event has passed almost unnoticed: the 25th anniversary of what is considered the flagship of local culture, the Regional Library of Murcia (BRMU). During this time, the institution has had eight directors (Fernando Armario, Caridad Montero, José Pablo Gayo, Javier Castillo, Antonio Prats, Juan Carlos Argente, Juana María García and Juan José Lara). As Gontzal Díez recounted in LA VERDAD, “the new State Library”, designed by the Ciezano architect José María Torres Nadal, was
‘inaugurated’ with controversy on February 2, 1996.
When the then Minister of Culture and Education, Carmen Alborch, visited her that day, in “definitely pre-electoral time,” the journalist remarked, she had no books. The only one that could be seen was the act signed by the minister and the minister Cristina Gutiérrez-Cortines. “Now the 82,000 volumes are missing, plus a newspaper library, which must be transferred from the House of Culture of Alfonso X to the new facilities, which have the capacity to house half a million volumes. The deadline for the Library to open its doors to the public is estimated in two or four months. ”
President Carlos Collado laid the first stone in 1991; the Community ceded public land. A bizarre act, as Gonztal Díez made known and readers of the Newspaper Library of LA VERDAD can recall: «Ramón Luis Valcárcel [PP] He only made a slip: he called Minister Carmen Alborch [PSOE] Ballester when his second last name is Bataller. In fact, he had two lapses, arrived ten minutes late and made the minister wait on Avenida Juan Carlos I during that time, accompanied by the Government Delegate, Eugenio Faraco.
The State invested “1,415 million pesetas (1,200 million has cost only the construction of the building)”, and the minister assured then that this investment would “make a reality the right of citizens to have full access to information and culture ». The users, however, were to receive “a training course to learn how to use the facilities.” In this quarter of a century it has become one of the most valued cultural spaces. His comic library, with 24,000 copies, is the largest in the country. There are 160 reading stations, 25 for researchers and all kinds of services and funds, as well as an assembly hall and 5 library buses.
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