Rethymno Public Library

The Public Library of Rethymno is located at 6 Stavrianou Mpiri Street, close to the Old Town. Its collection consists of books from various fields, such as history, literature, children’s literature and books about Crete and Rethymno in particular. It includes about 200,000 volumes of books and magazines, while the reading area is big enough to accommodate 450 readers.

The Library also counts on two mobile libraries that visit primary and secondary schools throughout Crete and give priority to the schools that do not have their own library. There is also a Public Information Center, which was created to help citizens familiarize themselves with new technologies.

This center has twelve desks with multimedia computers, free Internet access, and a large number of educational and training CDs and DVDs. It also offers the possibility to access the electronic catalogs of the Library and other useful national and international databases. The Public Information Center is available to both residents and visitors.

This Library plays an important role for the people of Rethymno. In fact, the first attempt to create a library accessible to the population was made by the Educational Association of Rethymno in the late 19th century. At first, only a few books were donated to the library but, over time, the number of books acquired by donations or purchases increased.

In 1953, the library became public and its administration was granted to the Ministry of Culture. A difficult period followed, from 1953 to 1966, but the Library finally managed to survive and today it successfully serves 30,000 pupils, students, and private individuals every year.