Start the year with a book - Come to the „Aman” Library!
If you haven’t yet made your list of priorities for 2020, we advise you to create it and add, at the top, a visit to the County Library „Alexandru and Aristia Aman”. A prestigious institution, with lots of projects for people of all ages, the library has managed to bring its community closer, being always open and keeping the rhythm with the times of today.
Hosted by a magnificent house, which also has the memorial house of the poet Elena Farago attached, a museum also administered by the library, the institution has an impressive history dating back over a hundred years, from 1908. Its name is a tribute to the spouses Aman, who donated their entire fortune to the community, to set up a library, a gallery for paintings and a museum.
The projects of the „Aman” Library include citizens of all ages, and the more than successful cross-border collaborations make it a national renowned institution and not only. With four local branches, in the Craiova neighborhoods Craiovița Nouă, Brazda lui Novac Brazda, Rovine and Valea Roșie, as well as with several branches and cultural centers that are supported by it outside the country's borders, such as Canada, Serbia, Italy, Bulgaria or Greece, the library has over 628.000 units, of which 535 rare old and Romanian books from the 16th-19th centuries, as well as five valuable manuscripts.
To understand how important this institution is for the people of Dolj, we will tell you that the latest figures show that 250.000 documents were borrowed or consulted from the library. Impressive, isn't it?
Soon, it will be enriched with a premiere project for Romania: The Romanian Exile and Book Museum, unique in the country and organized in a valuable house, now under rehabilitation with the support of Dolj County Council. Also with the support of the county authority, the library already holds - or is in the process of obtaining - important documents from writers such as Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Basarab Nicolescu, Nae Ionescu, Benjamin Fundoianu and many others, so that the new museum will cover a wide palette of the Romanian writers in exile. Thus, this reference museum for Romania is catching life in Craiova.
The projects carried out in the urban area or in the rural area, where they set up „library corners” in the communities that do not have such institutions, the closeness to the elders who feel better within the library, the opening to children through the Toy Library, the magical Nights at the Library, book launches, movie screenings or just reading a book in one of the reading rooms make the „Aman” Library a story-like place, very important for the community in Dolj.
One that includes her younger brothers, among which we mention the Bechet City Library, the „George Şt. Marincu” Municipal Library from Calafat, „Anton Pann” Library in Filiași or „Mircea Radina” City Library from Segarcea.
The Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, said he imagines Paradise as a kind of library. We do not know how the others are, but „Aman” surely is one Paradise!
Photo: discoverdolj.ro, aman.ro