Madriďané can borrow books in the subway

Madrid - When the reader does not come to the library, the library must come to the reader, the councilors in the Spanish metropolis of Madrid must have thought. They organized mobile libraries in buses and at metro stations. According to the DPA agency, they want to awaken interest in reading among local residents.
    Spain is known as a television country - 90 percent of the population watches TV daily. In contrast, only 37 percent of Spaniards admit to reading regularly. And this is what the enlightened authorities want to change.
    "We are meeting people where they spend a lot of time every day," says trained librarian Marta, who works at the metro library branch at Canal station. This is one of eight facilities labeled BiblioMetro, installed a year ago in the Madrid subway. The libraries look futuristic: elongated wavy glass modules illuminated by white light - supposedly so that people notice them. The number of potential readers is high. 2.5 million people ride the Madrid metro every day.
    One of the passengers who was captivated by the new feature is thirty-six-year-old Ana. "I passed by a few times, and curiosity got the better of me," says the native Madrilenian. For the past six months, she has been regularly stopping at the underground shelves - after all, she spends an hour in the metro every day. "Now I can combine the pleasant with the useful," she says, boasting that she now reads about one book a week - "as much as I never have before."
    It seems that the city's strategy to spark interest in reading is successful. Ana is among more than 25,000 readers who have registered in the metro so far. "The actual number is even higher," claims Milagros Gosálvez from the Madrid cultural office. Public library cards are also valid in the metro. "We are working on being even more visible and better," emphasizes Milagros. New branches will open this year.
    "Once someone is here, they will keep coming back," assures Marta. Her branch offers more than 500 books. Overall, the underground libraries provide 60,000 titles, and 300 more titles will be added this year. Books can be borrowed for 15 days, but the period can be extended.
    The selection is quite broad. The illuminated shelves are lined with collections of poetry, horror, science fiction literature, biographies, children's books, and classics of world literature.
    "Very few people will eagerly read Tolstoy or Homer in the metro," Marta deduces from her experiences. Therefore, new acquisitions should include more popular literature. Nevertheless, the hit of this summer is the classic by German writer Lion Feuchtwanger, "The Jewess of Toledo," alongside the detective novel "The Poet" by popular American writer Michael Connelly.
    In addition to BiblioMetro, there are also bibliobuses in Madrid, which were pioneers of mobile libraries decades ago. Their first version existed in the suburbs of Madrid as early as 1953.
    Today, 13 specially adapted buses deliver books throughout the Spanish metropolis and its surroundings. There are 65 of them operating across Spain. Bibliobuses have regular stops, where they are available to readers for several hours at a time. Over 100,000 people in Madrid and the surrounding area use the services of bibliobuses.
    In the interest of further boosting reading interest, a campaign called "Books to the Streets" has been taking place in the capital since the beginning of July. 22,000 posters with excerpts from literary works have been posted in public transport. In the subway cars, buses, and trains, passengers can currently devour 16 texts by both Spanish and foreign authors. And for those who enjoy it, there is surely a library nearby.