If the way to the next district library is too long, especially for the youngest, then the book bus comes. The bus fulfills an important function, especially in the districts that do not yet have a local library. That is why the city was planning to buy another book bus before the pandemic, which would primarily serve the primary schools. However, the economic slump caused by Corona has also torn a deep hole in the city’s budget, so that new investments, important as they are, are being scrutinized.
This was also made clear in the most recent meeting of the District Committee (BA) Hadern. The cultural department announced that the Munich City Library has been forced to “honestly criticize its tasks” as a result of the pandemic and the slump in income. The aim is to ensure that children and young people do not or hardly have to suffer from the austerity measures. They in particular would have had to forego a lot in the lockdown. Corona had “robbed her of her social contacts and a large part of her educational opportunities” from one day to the next. They were not allowed to visit the city library for a long period of time, although this facility “plays a central role in the biographies of the youngest and young people in Munich”.
It is all the more important to maintain the four book buses so far and even to expand the range. “With our four book buses alone, we reach over 60 percent of the primary school students in the city; at no other point in time when they grow up and in any other of our offers is the ideal of educational justice more tangible,” says the letter from the cultural department. And that is precisely why it was planned to increase the book bus fleet for the youth “in order to go to even more elementary schools”. The financial hardship called this ancestor into question, but a solution has now been found.
The fifth book bus, which previously looked after the quarters without a library nearby, is being converted into a primary school bus. The decision was also made because the expansion of the library network was making good progress, for example the Messestadt Riem will also have its own district library in 2022. After much deliberation, the decision was made “in the interests of the Munich children”, “who need our reliable support today more than ever”.
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