“Papachalampeios Hellenic American Municipal Library” was founded on March 3rd 1954 with no. 7852 contract made by the notary Mr. Andreas Athanasiou. Andreas Kozonis had donated land plot for the construction of public services and utilities buildings as well as the library. According to the contract Dimitrios Papacharalambous stated “willing to dedicate part of his savings to the embellishment of the city, to welfare projects and the intellectual promotion of the people…and decided to construct a building”. Ground floor of the building would be used for conferences, lectures, dances, and theatre. Revenues of this activity should then reach “Agia Paraskevi” charity fund in order to serve their mission concerning needy students and other. Upper floor would house “Papachalampeios Hellenic American Municipal Library” which Dimitrios Papacharalambous would provide with furnishes and books in Greek, English and French, useful for students, scholars and people of the city. A café was also built in the foreyard of the building.
After some years the entire building was dedicated to serve the purpose of the library and came under Ministry of Education authority. Particularly, Mr. Papacharalambous with his letter on October 1st 1956 transfers the ownership of the building to the State along with 800.000 drachmas fund to “Papacharalambeios Public Library of Nafpaktos” for equipment and books.
The local community and especially the youth embraced the library for the first day of operation. The youth was above all helped in a time that free education was not yet established.
Today Papacharalambeios Library continues to meet the requirements of the local community and students of the region who visit to acquire information about their work and to borrow books, magazines, CD-ROM etc. In 1981 the State appointed “Papacharalambeios” to be the central library of the area and equipped it with a mobile library in order to visit and lend books to schools, municipal libraries and cultural associations in small towns and villages of Nafpaktia and Dorida provinces. The Library’s collection currently consists of 60,000 titles approximately that are classified by Dewey system, with alphabetical lists of authors and topics in digital format, local press files and magazines with literary, social, historical and educational content. A Public Informational Center operates on the ground floor since 2003 equipped with 9 computer units that residents and visitors can use for free access on the web. The library also very often organizes several cultural events and book exhibitions.
The operation of the Library is monitored by a Council designated from the Minister of National Education. The Council has five members and is comprised of people who live in the city or the area and they come from the fields of culture, education, administration, church or science. Members serve for three years.
More info: http://www.vivl-nafpakt.westnet.gr/
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