The Slovak region of Banska Bystrica has been paying special heed to its municipalities’ libraries over the past couple of years. Local authorities have been devising new and improved ways to get people engaged in reading and their efforts have certainly been paying off.
In 2019, the region allocated 90,000 euros from its budget for the renovation and renewal of libraries within its cities and municipalities. Furthermore, it also created a unified library and information system that established a direct link and connection between all such institutions in the region.
The new system allows users to easily navigate the vast book databases and provides them with improved access to everything that’s on hand in the municipality’s libraries. Not only that, but thanks to the system, searching for books have been made even easier – which in turn has eased the burden on the municipal libraries and librarians, who have also greatly benefitted from the new high-tech system.
The Banska Bystrica integrated library system is nicknamed “Dawinci” and was developed over the course of 2019 thanks to an investment made by regional authorities amounting to just over 67,000 euros.
Looking towards the future
But local authorities are far from done with improvements to libraries. The region’s budget for their renovation and renewal has been expanded for 2020, reaching 120,000 euros.
Over the course of the year, six libraries will undergo drastic improvements. They are as follows: the Regional Library of Ľudovít Štúr in Zvolen, the Public Library of Mikuláš Kováč Banská Bystrica, the Ján Kollár Libraryin Kremnica, Novohradská library, Matej Hrebend Library in Rimavská Sobota and finally the Hontian-novohrad library of the AH Škultétyho Veľký Krtíš.
All improvement efforts that were started in 2019 but are not yet complete will also be finalized sometime during 2020.
