CLACSO's solidarity with CONABIP

The Latin American Council of Social Sciences expresses its solidarity with the National Commission of Popular Libraries (CONABIP) of Argentina and highlights its importance as a space for social and cultural inclusion, encounter, knowledge, and education. CONABIP has approximately 1.500 libraries throughout the country and more than 4.000.000 readers.

In a statement, Karina Batthyány , Executive Director of CLACSO, emphasized that “it is essential that CONABIP maintain its federal and autonomous character and that its budget not be modified in a way that alters the mission of developing and promoting reading that it has been fulfilling since its founding more than 150 years ago by Domingo F. Sarmiento. We understand that Decrees 345/25 and 346/25, which directly attack CONABIP, jeopardize its operation.” With the new regulations, the National Commission of Popular Libraries will cease to be a decentralized federal agency with relative autonomy from the Executive Branch, becoming instead dependent on the National Secretariat of Culture.

“We are convinced ,” continues Karina Batthyány, “ that access to reading and culture is a right, and we defend community libraries as spaces of freedom, collective construction, and resistance.” She concludes: “Against austerity measures and the erosion of culture, we say NO to their defunding.”