While Vox counts books in Palma, Sa Pobla creates the first social library

PalmLibraries have once again made headlines, and this time, for reasons that have little or nothing to do with their function or operation. The latest issue is the report that the Palma City Council will produce—at the suggestion of Vox and with the support of the People's Party (PP)—to determine how many books in the municipal catalog are in Spanish and how many are in Catalan. According to the far-right party, Spanish books are in the minority in Palma's libraries, especially in the children's and young adult sections, an anomaly that should be corrected, they say, to protect users' linguistic rights. This is the same argument the PP has used to justify including Spanish in literary competitions, to guarantee "the freedom of local authors" who wish to participate. However, of the six prizes in Spanish awarded at the Palma City Awards since 2023, none have gone to a local author, and only one out of five in the Mallorca Prizes has been awarded.

Regarding the presence of books in Spanish in Palma's libraries, the data shows a significant difference between languages: the municipal collection has 150,004 books in Spanish, almost double the number in Catalan (86,945). Purchases in 2025 also maintained this difference: 5,973 in Spanish and 3,065 in Catalan.

"There are more books in Spanish because more books are published than in Catalan, both original works and translations. When choosing the titles we acquire, we use technical criteria related to subject matter, content, whether it's a new release or a classic, the quality of the translation, and questioning the collections of those responsible for that work." This is the assessment of Catalina Quetglas, head of the Libraries and Archives Service of the Consell de Mallorca, which, among other responsibilities, coordinates the Mallorca Library Network.

The Association of Librarians, Archivists, and Documentalists of the Balearic Islands (ABADIB) expressed a similar sentiment, issuing a statement rejecting the use of libraries for political confrontation and demanding respect for professional criteria. Vox's proposal in the Palma City Council, in fact, included the establishment of linguistic criteria for future acquisitions, although the People's Party (PP) voted against this point because, in the words of Javier Bonet, Councilor for Culture of Palma, "it would go against the work that librarians do." Currently, purchases are made according to an initial selection by the heads of the different libraries, as Margalida Plomer, head of the Municipal Library Network, explains: "We usually respect their suggestions because, after all, they know both the collection and the users. They suggest bestsellers, classics, or books to expand the collections." In the Mallorca Library Network, the titles acquired for reading clubs are mostly in Catalan: 23 in Catalan and 7 in Spanish. "But you can't reduce everything to a number; you have to understand and know the reality of the libraries." “This shouldn’t be politicized,” says Catalina Quetglas. Neither the 22 libraries in Palma nor the 70 that fall under the umbrella of the Mallorca Library Network have their own collection policies—documents that would establish the frameworks and conditions to be considered when designing and updating each library's collection. All the professionals consulted agree that if they don't have these policies, it's due to the main problem they face every day: a lack of staff.

Assistants acting as technicians

"It's our Achilles' heel," says Quetglas, who is calling for greater involvement from local councils, not only to increase the number of staff assigned to libraries but, above all, to improve working conditions. "Many libraries in Mallorca are run by a single person, who is usually considered and paid as an assistant, but is required to perform the work of a technician. Sometimes, they are even burdened with the cultural management of the municipality, which they should be doing in their appropriate job category. When we hold meetings, we see that everyone is very happy with the work they do,"

Beyond the conditions of each municipal library, the Mallorca Library Network itself also suffers from staffing shortages: of the 38 positions available in the Library and Archives Service of the Consell de Mallorca, eight are currently unfilled. In Palma's libraries, including coordination staff, there are about 50 people working, meaning that the vast majority of libraries have only one librarian. "And if everything is working, in many of them there's no problem because there's only one librarian. The problem arises when there are staff absences or vacations, or when they want to implement complementary services, such as home delivery," explains one of them.

This problem, in fact, has led to the current situation of the Son Cladera library, closed since last April, as Miquel Àngel Contreras, councilor for Més per Palma, recalled at the press conference he held in response to the initiative proposed by Vox. "It's a smokescreen to cover up the real neglect suffered by neighborhood libraries," stated Contreras, who pointed to other sources of conflict between the libraries and the current Culture team at City Hall, such as the complete lack of stability in the interlibrary loan service, essential for the operation of many of these libraries, and the changes to the process. For approximately two years now, all requests for activities must be directed to the Department of Culture before any response is given; previously, this function depended exclusively on the librarians.

Community Libraries

The programming of activities has become one of the fundamental pillars of the vast majority of libraries on the islands, which strive daily to refute the still widespread notion among a significant part of society that a library is simply a book warehouse. "Ideological battles like the one being waged by the PP and Vox parties in Palma don't help," explains a librarian with ten years of experience. "But often it's the politicians themselves who know nothing about what we do. They congratulate you on having the books well organized when they come to ask for information about an activity they want to do, and then they don't set foot in the library again for four years," she adds. The library in Sa Pobla, Es Rafal, is always bustling, a true benchmark for many libraries in the Balearic Islands, and in recent years it has begun taking steps to become the archipelago's first community library. In fact, its librarian, Maria Magdalena Tugores, better known in the town as Malena, will finish her degree in Social Education this year, and it will also be in the Sa Pobla library where a student from the same program will begin their internship this February. It will be the first time that future social educators have been able to complete their professional internships in a library; this has been made possible thanks to the collaboration of both the Council of Mallorca and the University of the Balearic Islands.

"Here it seems very new to us, but for years in the north of the Peninsula and in Catalonia they have been doing a lot of work with the concept of the social library," shares Tugores, "which is fundamental nowadays. Libraries should be places where interculturalism can be fostered, just as socialists should be able to do their job effectively. Social educators can complement this. Libraries are agents of change." Tugores estimates that between 150 and 200 people visit Es Rafal each afternoon, and attendance at activities has increased from 2,700 in 2022 to over 7,000 last year. "We have everyone from children who come for storytelling to senior citizens who come to learn about digital tools. What we do is stay in touch with local associations, as well as schools and other centers, to understand the needs of our users and find out how the library can contribute," explains the Es Rafal librarian. The building's layout, spread over three floors, allows it to serve multiple functions: the ground floor, where there are always people and conversations, is dedicated to activities, while the top floor, the only place where silence is requested, is used as a study room. “A young woman who had just arrived from Morocco and didn’t speak a word of Catalan offered to help us. Now, she teaches computer skills to a group of elderly people who, in return, teach her the language,” the librarian explains, citing one of the many examples of the work being done. Another example is the Human Library, an initiative that brings together groups of people who, like books, share their stories. “At our last event, at the end of January, we had someone from Pakistan, someone from Chile, and someone from Ecuador. They told us their stories and the myths and legends of their cultures, as did Isabel Crespí Font, head of the Sa Pobla archive, with those from here. This should also apply to people,” Tugores summarizes. As Doris Lessing said, public libraries are the most democratic institutions in the world. “Libraries make us free,” the author of The Golden Notebook"and allow us to escape the confinement caused by the current political climate."