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'The Bibliobús Peregrino', an initiative of CORREOS and the Diputación de León
The initiative 'The Bibliobús Peregrino' was presented this week in León and aims to facilitate access to reading for all pilgrims who pass through León during their trip to Compostela. The presentation of ‘The Bibliobús Peregrino’ was attended by the president of the Provincial Council of León, Juan Martínez Majo, the director of Correos Galicia, Asturias and Castilla y León, Ángel Pérez and the mayors of 15 municipalities of the province.
Thus, Martínez Majo explained that "there will be two bibliobuses [library-bus], one based in León and other in Ponferrada, which will focus on the Camino de Santiago and its variants, to also provide a public library service to pilgrims who make the Jacobean Route; an initiative that will be carried out with the CORREOS service and with the shelters that are on the Camino ".
Bibliobuses service, which was already established in the province to give access to reading to those locations that by their particularities, did not have a library, adds to the services that pilgrims can enjoy during their visit to the 210 kilometres of Jacobean Route in the province of León.
The operation of the initiative for pilgrims is simple: the Bibliobuses service provides the books and CORREOS takes charge of returning them to the Library Coordinator center. The bibliobuses will initially carry a collection of 33 titles, of which it is calculated there will be 23 copies for each one. There are publications of thematic areas related to the interests of pilgrims such as the Camino, specific populations of the Camino, León or Spanish and hiking manuals. All of them will be small and there are options in Spanish and English.
Thus, the two Bibliobuses of this initiative will visit 15 shelters, which will be divided into 8 areas of the route, which have been established based on the kilometres that pilgrims usually average on a day (between 20 and 30). Pilgrims who purchase a book in the participating hostels may return it at any of the offices of CORREOS in the Camino, a total of 17.
It is a totally free service for the pilgrim and is part of the initiatives carried out by the Diputación de León to enhance the stretches of the Camino in the province, for which they plan to dedicate this year a budget of more than 500,000 euros.