City library receives new bookmobile
At its meeting today, the city council decided to purchase a new environmentally friendly, electric-powered book bus for the Chemnitz City Library.
This means that a mobile library service can once again be offered to numerous neighbourhoods, schools and social institutions. The new book bus will provide users in their immediate neighbourhood with services from the current stock and advice on the entire range of media offered by the city library as well as educational library events, especially at stops with schools.
The production period for the book bus, which is to be equipped to match the diesel vehicle, is approximately one year, meaning that the vehicle will not be in use until the 4th quarter of 2023 at the earliest.
The parking space for the book bus, including the charging station, will be located at the depot in the Vita Centre. There is also a district library at this location. An ideas competition is planned for the exterior design of the book bus.
The cost of the electric book bus is around 422,000 euros, which includes the cost of a wheelchair lift totalling 25,000 euros. Financial resources from the former GDR party assets, so-called PMO funds, are available for this purpose. This is the result of a resolution passed by the Saxon state parliament.
The background
PMO funds come from the assets of the parties and mass organisations of the former GDR, which were administered by the Treuhandanstalt after reunification. The Bundesanstalt für vereinigungsbedingte Sonderaufgaben (BvS), which was appointed by the Federal Ministry of Finance as the successor to the Treuhand, has also used legal means to obtain the return of assets that were wrongfully transferred to other accounts.
The available assets are distributed among the East German federal states on the basis of the number of inhabitants as at 31 December 1991. The Free State of Saxony thus receives just under 30 per cent of the funds.
The Unification Treaty stipulates that the eastern German states must use the money for economic restructuring measures or for investment or investment-promoting measures in the social and cultural sectors.