A total of two reading animation projects presented by municipal libraries of La Rioja have been awarded by the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), in the XXV edition of the María Moliner Awards.
In particular, the proposals presented by the libraries of the municipalities of Cenicero and Pradejón have been recognized, which are awarded a prize of 2,777.77 euros each. The total amount with which they have been awarded amounts to 5,555.54 euros.
The objective is to reward the best reading animation projects aimed at all the neighbors, especially groups with difficulties in accessing it, in any of the official languages of the respective autonomous community and with special attention to the municipalities of less than 5,000 inhabitants.
Of the 562 municipalities throughout Spain that participated in this year’s edition, 331 libraries have been awarded 2,777.77 euros and, among them, the ten best projects will increase the amount to 10,000 euros. The prize will be intended primarily for the purchase of books and/or periodicals by public libraries.
The program, funded by the Ministry of Culture through the General Directorate of Books, Comics and Reading, has a total investment of 1.1 million euros.
This initiative is of great strategic importance in access to books and reading, since approximately half of the Spanish population resides in municipalities with less than 50,000 inhabitants. The goal of the campaign is, following the ideal of María Moliner herself, that any reader anywhere can get the book that interests her.
Ten best projects
The María Moliner Awards for the ten best reading animation projects are as follows:
- Muro de Alcoy (Alicante), for the project ‘Esteem’m entre Lletres/ Quiéreme entre letras’.
- Villafranca de los Caballeros (Toledo), for the project ‘Orality and classic tales bring us into the magic of forests’.
- Ugena (Toledo), for the project ‘Words that unite’.
- Suances (Cantabria), for the project ‘Biblioteca de Suances, país de las maravillas’.
- Horche (Guadalajara), for the project ‘Biblioteca de Horche: Library In-Story-Fairy’.
- Alagón (Zaragoza), for the ‘RecoREADERS’ project.
- Gata de Gorgos (Alicante), for the project ‘All roads lead to the library’.
- Ares (A Coruña), for the project ‘Read for pleasure… so it has to be!’.
- Lliria (Valencia), for the project ‘Participation creates library and community’.
- Gelsa (Zaragoza), for the project ‘The infinite verbs of the book’.
The selection of the projects has been carried out according to criteria such as the clarity and interest of the project for reading animation, good planning and feasibility, as well as originality and innovation and social integration activities contained in the proposal and with special attention to the municipalities of less than 5,000 inhabitants.
