Readers' Day!

A few days ago, Readers' Day was celebrated in our country. Regardless of the reason and merit, this date is intended to promote reading as an essential and urgent activity for cultural and personal development. And, certainly, some institutions organise various activities to make this date visible.

It seems strange to us to set aside just one day to celebrate the tenacity of those who dare to be different, to delve into many worlds at once, to dig into the pages of a book to discover something interesting or simply to be entertained. It's good, but at the Rural Libraries Network we see reading as a permanent exercise, which goes beyond any format.

We read books, yes, and we also read the weather, the gestures and wrinkles on the faces of the elderly, the hands and feet of the peasant who tills the soil to give us the fruits of each day. Alfredo Mires said that the oldest book is the earth; it is certainly there that we do our first reading, long before we begin to read with letters and symbols.

Moreover, if it is a question of promoting reading in books, we cannot do it just for one day, because the readers of our Network read all the time. And they don't do it for the photo - even if we like to take a few snapshots of them from time to time. They don't do it for a competition, even though we love to encourage our best readers by gifting them more books. Our readers and our librarians who encourage reading do so spontaneously, with real appreciation for books and for those who write them.

We salute, then, those who always read: without pressure, without the need for call outs, competitions or photographs.