COMMUNITY LIBRARIES AND ACCESS TO EDUCATION IN THE TERRITORIES

Abstract

This work aims to reflect on the social role of community libraries in providing access to education in a continuous and lifelong manner, especially in the communities and territories where they are located and prove to be essential. This occurs because, frequently, the State neglects the peripheral areas of cities, either through precariousness or the absence of cultural, educational, and recreational spaces, such as libraries, museums, and theaters. In this context, the concepts of territory and citizenship emerge and interconnect, being addressed from different perspectives and levels of complexity. The collective, by asserting its identities, identifies gaps such as the lack of access to reading and information, and, through various movements, organizes and acts in pursuit of emancipation and social transformation, as well as the guarantee of its rights and citizenship. The social role of community libraries is highlighted as spaces of belonging and as promoters of equity in access to reading and information. In this process, educational practices, through non-formal education, are based on the proposal of a permanent and continuous education that transcends school boundaries, where the reading of the world precedes the reading of the word, shaping itself as an education for life.