The cultural treasure of the city
Municipal Library of Patra
Adress: 110 Maizonos Str., Patras
Tel. of Reading Room +30 2610 224813
mail: [email protected]
https://patraslibrary.weebly.com
Municipal Library of Patra
The origins of the Municipal Library of Patras lie in the donation of the library of the “Patra Craft Company” to the Municipality of Patras in 1903.
Δημοτική Βιβλιοθήκη Πατρών – Αναγνωστήριο / Municipal Library of Patras – Reading Room
In 1908, after petitions through the local Press, the Municipal Library of Patras was founded, and the first Supervisory Committee was elected. The Library was housed in the school on the corner of Gounari and Karaiskaki Streets. Two years later, in 1910, the official opening ceremony took place.
The Library closed in 1926, abandoned, and its contents were stored in the basement of the Municipality until 1944, when a group of book lovers transported them to the house of former mayor Ioannis Vlachos and subsequently to the Karamandani Mansion, on 42 Maizonos Street.
Δημοτική Βιβλιοθήκη Πατρών – Αρχιτεκτονικό σχέδιο / Municipal Library of Patra – Floorplan
In 1947 the postwar Municipal Library was inaugurated, with 18,200 books, mostly donated by the public. In 1948, by royal decree, the Library became a legal entity governed by public law. In 1955 the new building was inaugurated, and the books transported there.
Since 2011, the Library is part of a newly founded legal entity governed by public law, under the name “Municipal Library-Cultural Organization of the Municipality of Patras”. It comprises the Central Library (110 Maizonos Street) and the Annex (Eleftheria Square, 26 Fokaias Street). The ground floor houses the Children’s Department and the Municipal Gallery. Visitors can use the reading room, borrow books, access the Internet, use the computers for research purposes, and there are workstations for people with disabilities.
Head of the Library is the librarion Ms. Aikaterini Kourou
Future plans
The Municipal Library of Patras falls under the category of public libraries. Within this framework, its plans include the restoration of the buildings and the upgrading of services and functions, in order to develop into a large central public library that will support the right to self-education and public education, providing access to every resident of the city. Furthermore, it may also become the centre of a network of municipal/public libraries in the neighbouring municipalities and regions.
Δημοτική Βιβλιοθήκη Πατρών – Εκπαιδευτικό πρόγραμμα / Municipal Library of Patra − Educational programme
For the moment, a study for the creation of a modern section for children/teenagers, a department for digital technologies and an exhibition of rare books and documents is underway.
Moreover, funding is being sought for the installation of digital services through the use of radio-frequency identification technology (RFID).
ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ
Αcquisition of the Kordatos archive from the National Library of Greece
Two interesting private archives donated by the heirs of their creators, along with their respective family libraries, have recently been catalogued and are available to scholars of the EBE: The archive of Demetrios S. Psycha and his children (Catherine, Agi and Idomenias) and the archive of the pioneer of Greek Marxist historiography, John Cordatos (1891-1961). Β. Cordatos Archive (Ψ 68) In the autumn of 2020, the granddaughter of Yannis Kordatos, Katia Barakou, donated about a thousand books from his library to the EBE. The recording of this book collection (as well as the previous one) has ...More
Αcquisition of the Psycha archive from the National Library of Greece
Two interesting private archives donated by the heirs of their creators, along with their respective family libraries, have recently been catalogued and are available to scholars of the EBE: The archive of Demetrios S. Psycha and his children (Catherine, Agi and Idomenias) and the archive of the pioneer of Greek Marxist historiography, John Cordatos (1891-1961). Α. Psycha Archive (Ψχ) In the summer of 2020, Mr. Marios Psyhas donated 130 remarkable Greek, Latin, French, Italian and English books of the 16th-19th centuries, which were the legacy of his forefathers. Among them he had included some notebooks or ...More
Hellmut Flashar. Antiquity on stage. Ancient Greek drama in the theatre from early modernity to the present day
Title: Antiquity on stage. Ancient Greek drama in the theatre from early modernity to the present day Author: Flashar Helmut Translation : Ioanna Meitani Editor: Yiorgos Diamantis Genre: Theatre Publisher: MIET Language: Greek Year of publication: 2022 Pages : 488 Ancient Greek tragedy raised in its time, through the mirror of myth, the burning issues concerning man in society. It described conflictual situations, showed how people dealt with violence, ritual and worship; it depicted the fall of great figures and the fears of the people. All the problematic situations and conflicts dealt with in ancient ...More
Exhibition “Places non places of the East” from the Municipal Gallery of Thessaloniki
The exhibition "Places non places of the East" deals with the element of memory, as it has been engraved on the visual artists who are second-generation refugees from Asia Minor, Pontus, Propontis and Eastern Thrace. Contemporary visual artists, descendants of refugees, record their own history and create visual narratives from their places of origin, such as Odemisi, Sokia, Kathario, Limniski, Chouchlia, Gallipoli. The works of the seven participating artists create intangible monumental landmarks. They form reconstructions of images, narratives, sounds, sounds, sensations, in general everything that was experienced by the artists through the narratives of their ...More
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