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Xavier Benguerel Library reopens amid celebration and protest
Sant Martí regains one of its most eagerly awaited cultural spaces this Monday. Xavier Benguerel Library reopens after nearly two years of closure for refurbishment, a significant reopening for residents, students, families and regular users who had lost a point of reference in the neighbourhood's everyday life.
The return, however, does not come in an entirely calm atmosphere. The reopening coincides with a period of labour tension in the municipal library network, with staff mobilised and criticism directed at the management of the Consorci de Biblioteques de Barcelona.
The event will take place this Monday, 22 June, from 15:30 at the library headquarters, located at 17 Avinguda del Bogatell. The Works Committee has called on local residents, users and local organisations to take part in a popular reopening that will combine celebration and advocacy.
The idea is to make the library's return more than a simple opening of doors. For the neighbourhood, it means recovering reading rooms, activities, study spaces and cultural programming. For the workers, it will also be an opportunity to make visible the discontent that staff have been carrying.
The Biblioteca Xavier Benguerel had been closed since the start of improvement works, a long period for an area where such facilities serve a function that goes far beyond lending books. They are places to meet, quiet refuges, educational support and free access to culture.
The event will therefore have a dual tone. On the one hand, the satisfaction of recovering a refurbished building and a much-needed service in Sant Martí. On the other, the desire to remember that libraries also depend on the working conditions of those who keep them open every day.
Opened in the 1990s, the Xavier Benguerel has established itself as a leading library in the district. Its programme has included reading clubs, children's workshops, exhibitions and activities for very different audiences, with a location close to the coast and to thoroughfares in the neighbourhood.
The reopening leaves a clear picture of what libraries mean in Barcelona. They are not merely renovated buildings or isolated cultural services: they are neighbourhood spaces, networks of everyday care and places where neighbours of very different ages share tables, reading and public life.