A reason to go to the beach dressed

BarcelonaI wonder who picks up a book at a beach library or pool library (and what book) and I dedicate myself to discovering it by visiting the service that every summer, since 1992, opens on Castelldefels beach. I don't want to be mysterious, spoiler alert: nobody. I didn't see any book loans this Thursday afternoon. However, all the other things that happen in libraries and are often invisible and as appreciated as this torrid breeze coming from the sea happen here: knowledge, community, and Catalan. The three Cs that matter to us.

You have to imagine the landscape like this: a prefabricated module with air conditioning where there are newspapers, magazines, and a selection of books, more than half of them for children and young people (this year, with a special focus on the eclipse and the universe), and a shady beach bar at the foot of the dune with tables and chairs and a good repertoire of board games. Now there are three or four families playing, and a retired couple. Everyone is dressed. The offer is more playful than in a conventional library but it is not a toy library, people don't come dripping after swimming, nor are there children escaping from parents who are slacking off.

This afternoon it's Marc Martí's turn to go down to the Biblioplatja Carme Romaní, one of the librarians at the Ramon Fernàndez Jurado Library. "There are books, otherwise it wouldn't be a library, but the main attraction is the games, newspapers, and cultural activities – he confirms –. Tuesday, astronomy. Wednesday, storytelling and magic. Thursday, environment. The selection of books is more informal, it's aimed at children, there are illustrated knowledge books and tasty little things. Also novels for adults, I wouldn't say light but we don't have theUlysses of Joyce". I see Anna Gavalda, Ken Follett, Jonas Jonasson, House on fire, Empar Moliner. This said, whoever takes a book here will have to return it to the same place before a month, because interlibrary loan does not work here, which conditions potential users, who are more local people than summer visitors or spontaneous beachgoers. It is surprising that on the table he has the complete works of the playwright Josep Maria Miró from the Arola publishing house. "This is mine. In the autumn I will do the Reading Theatre book club about the work The puppy [which will see the TNC] and I'm reading the other works", explains Martí. That's diligence, I think. "Here I have time to be a librarian: I can read!", he celebrates.

At seven o'clock, a meter and a half dolphin arrives along the Maritime Promenade. For a good while, the sky gifts us the roar of a plane every minute and a half, a noise that drowns out the voice of the CRAM veterinarian, the Foundation for the Conservation and Recovery of Marine Animals, who is holding a workshop on marine fauna and conservation. She is so good with children that she even attracts passers-by, and we become about sixty people. There are four friends from Castelldefels who have met here with their children. Some holidaymakers from Berga. A family from Madrid who has an apartment on the beach and asks –"Let's see if they understand you in Spanish", says the mother to the child, as a warning to the librarian– if games are lent out. A mother who needs resources to finish the afternoon with her son after summer camp. As La Ludwig Band sings, "summer is as long as a summer afternoon, that's how long summer is".