The right-wing Spanish nationalist parties governing Palma City Council, the PP and Vox, have approved a "comprehensive study" of the book collections in the city's municipal libraries. Their stated reason is that they find "too few books in Spanish." The initiative to carry out this unusual audit of public libraries came from Vox, but the PP has joined in, once again, without hesitation. In reality, it's not that Vox and the PP find few books in Spanish in the public libraries, but rather that they believe there are too many in Catalan. Like everything these people say, this is also a lie, and it's easy to verify: Palma's municipal collections total 265,545 items, of which 150,004 are in Spanish and 86,945 in Catalan. as you can read in the information published by ARA Baleareswhich compiles the official data on this matter. Books in Spanish, therefore, constitute the overwhelming majority of Palma's municipal library catalog: 56.4% books in Spanish compared to 32.7% in Catalan (the rest are books in other languages).

Ana (73) and Enriqueta (she doesn't want to give her age, but admits she's close to 80) leave the Cultura Artesana library (La Misericordia) with a book by Susanna Tamaro in their bags. They are both part of a reading club that started recently, and which focuses especially on older people who don't have the habit of reading. When asked how it's going, they both chat nonstop, simultaneously, excited. "It's hard for me, but I understand more and more. I'll never give up," says Ana while happily kicking her boots. "You have to write that I've only missed it once because I had a Catalan exam," she adds proudly—she's from Córdoba—before heading off to yoga. These women exemplify what libraries are all about today. "They are a space for community around books, a place where we meet others," says Carolina Guayta, director of the Can Salas library.