The librarians You are always welcome at the La Rural property. In such a critical socioeconomic context, with a Book Fair with a significant drop in sales ranging between 30 and 40 percent, the thousand representatives of popular libraries throughout the country, who will buy books this Friday and Saturday at the 19th edition of the Book Program, They are the last hope of reversing an edition that was anticipated to be complex for more than 220 editorials that will offer their catalogs with a 50 percent discount on the retail price.
The investment of the National State through the Conabip (National Commission of Popular Libraries), dependent on the Ministry of Culture, under the orbit of the Ministry of Human Capital, is $554,316,000 and reaches 744 popular libraries who will update their bibliographical collection to offer new readings in their communities. On this occasion, in addition, they add 230 popular member libraries with own funds, that they can buy with the discount, but have not accessed the subsidy.
In the world of La Libertad Avanza everything is expendable and adjustable through different more or less explicit strategies. The Book Program, whose continuity is so necessary, is extremely devalued due to the freezing of the national budget. The numbers and the official discourse do not close. The Ministry of Culture, which for the first time it is not present on the La Rural property, paradoxically sought to run to the left of the El Libro Foundation (FEL) when he said that the cost of the stand amounted to 300 million pesos and that about 150 million had to be added to that figure for the assembly and disassembly of the stand. stand. The presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, announced that he had chosen “to use the resources to collaborate with popular libraries so that they can renew and acquire new titles.” The FEL, through its president, Alejandro Vaccaro, who inaugurated the Fair with a very critical speech against the government of Javier Milei, denied that figure and clarified that The cost was 80 million pesos.
Last year the National State invested 356,529,000 million pesos, In what was the last year of the management of María del Carmen Bianchi, who was the president of Conabip between 2003 and 2011 and between 2019 and 2023, and creator of the Libro % Program. If the 300 million cost of the stand that the Ministry of Culture did not want to pay to collaborate with the purchase of books were added, the figure that should have been assigned to the program should be 656,529.00, that is, about 100 million are missing, without adding the 150 million assembly and disassembly of the stand.
Raúl Escandar, graduate in theology, journalist, editor, teacher and librarian, born in Rosario in 1957, is the current president of Conabip. He was director of the Miter Museum Library and the Alcon Laboratorios Library. He is a member of the Argentine Information Society (SAI), where he directs the Informative Bulletin, an electronic publication aimed at updating the library community. Professor of Cataloging and Information Sources at the Higher Technical Training Institute No. 13 of Buenos Aires, he was regional manager for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) between 2018 and 2019.
Page 12 He sent a couple of questions to Escandar. As he did last December, chose silence, a rather curious gesture for a cultural official who is a member of the Argentine Information Society (SAI). From the Conabip press area came an unusual answer: “Unfortunately, at the moment, officials are not giving statements to the press. The government decided to concentrate information and attention to the press on the presidential spokesperson so that this is the clear and concrete reference regarding the actions and decisions of the government.”
In this 19th edition with a devalued budget, which did not follow the inflation index, Libraries from the City of Buenos Aires, the provinces of Chaco, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Formosa, Jujuy, La Pampa, La Rioja, Mendoza, Misiones, Neuquén, Río Negro, Salta, San Juan will participate in the program , San Luis, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Tierra del Fuego to provide books to more than 8 million users throughout the country. The Argentine Post Office will offer a 30 percent discount for national shipments from libraries. The minimum amount allocated to the purchase of bibliographic material will be 600,000 pesos for each library. If the average price of a book is 16,000 thousand pesos, each book at 50 percent less would cost 8,000; then, with the assigned figure, You will be able to purchase approximately 75 books. Several exhibitors, who anxiously await the popular librarians, know that “the last hope” also arrives tight.
