Libraries played a very important role during the Second Republic, they were key in the transformation of an illiterate and poor society. When the Civil War broke out priorities emerged. Soldiers, the sick, and the wounded needed books, not only to instruct and inform themselves, but also to entertain themselves during the long dead hours in the trenches. This is how the Library Service of the Front and the bibliobus of the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes were born, which made 18 trips, 18 routes lending books to the front line. And one last journey: that of exile. The most prestigious Catalan intellectuals and writers traveled to France in the library bus when the republican exodus took place.
75 years after the end of the Civil War, the Figueres Library recovers the memory of these episodes of our history through this virtual exhibition.
The exhibition includes fragments of diaries from the Popular Library of Figueres (1938), written by the director Adela Riera and the assistant Antònia Feixas, through which we know that the library bus passed through Figueres, at least, on four occasions throughout of the year 1938: May 12, June 27, September 4 and November 7, and the correspondence sent by Maria Felipa Espanyol, of the Library Service at the Front, and Jordi Rubió, of the Technical Directorate of Popular Libraries, to the Figueres librarians in relation to the bibliobus service.
You can also read the diary from 1936 to 1940 in this link:
http://www.bibliotecadefigueres.cat/Public/BancArxius/Dietaris1936-1940rr.pdf