Half of the 28 Children and Teenagers Public Libraries across Greece are threatened to close down due to lack of funding by the Ministry of Education. President of Children’s and Adolescents’ Libraries Institution, Stathis Potamitis, rang the alarm bell during a press conference on Wednesday, stressing that there is an immediate fund amounting 800,000 euros.
The libraries are located in Greek periphery in the prefectures of Aitoloakarnania, Samos, Ioannina, Syros, Kythira, Xanthi, for example.
The libraries have in total 43,000 books and serve 2,400 children that borrow 700 books on a daily basis.
The total budget for the libraries is 1,000,000 euro, where 200,000 euro come from private funding and the rest from the Ministry of Education.
The libraries are practically closed since March 2010, when employees were not paid for four months and proceededto ‘retention work’. The libraries have 38 employees in total.
