Farewell Don Antonio!

We received the news that our beloved don Antonio Vílchez Chávez had passed away on 9 February 2025. With these words we would like to pay homage to our friend, to the veteran librarian, to the one who with determination and patience did his voluntary work as coordinator of the José Sabogal Zone in San Marcos.

Antonio Vílchez Chávez joined the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca in 1994, after he met one of the coordinators of the Rural Libraries, who invited him to take part in this voluntary work with books. This is how he described it:

‘I was going to Coyón, and on the way I met Mr. Juan Garay, the coordinator at that time. I asked him what the Libraries were and how they worked. He said to me, ‘We lend books so that the community knows how to read, because some older people know how to read and forget, there are some children who know how to read, they are lent a little book. In your community, could you be a librarian? - So, I told him I was going to think about it, -call me when I think about it-, the next day they sent the request to the house and Don Fidencio, Don Pascualito, Gonzalo left with books. It didn't take long.

(Antonio Vílchez, veterans debate, 2009).

For Don Antonio, being part of the Rural Library Network meant a process of training, self-education and a change in his life:

I first read the books in order to be able to lend them to the community, I carried the books in a little bag and took it to every house, going from house to house, saying: ‘Look at the books so that you can be informed, here are stories, they are made this way’, and so I got readers. And the library educated me one hundred percent. Here in libraries, thank God I stopped drinking, and I'm fighting this way [...] thank God I learned a lot from here and I'm learning.

(Antonio Vílchez, veteran debate, 2009).

Don Antonio will be forever in our hearts and we will follow his teachings, his tenacity, his commitment to rural libraries. Goodbye, Don Antonio!

Nathalia Quintero Castro

Medellín, Colombia