Slovenian library in Carinthia left without EUR 20,000 in subsidies

Klagenfurt, 20 February - The Slovenian Study Library in Klagenfurt, the largest library with Slovenian books in Austria, is faced with more financial problems as it has lost around EUR 20,000 in subsidies in an open call of the Austrian Education Ministry, public broadcaster TV Slovenija has reported.

Avstrija, Celovec.
Slovenska študijska knjižnica v Celovcu.
Foto: Anže Malovrh/STA

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The conditions of the open call were changed without agreement with the library, Mitja Rovšek, head of the Slovenian Education Association, which owns the library, told TV Slovenija.

He said the subsidy was a major source of financing, so the library will now have to cut the employees' working hours and the opening hours while adjusting its projects.

The library's head, Dragana Laketić, said that their library, the second largest in the Austrian state of Carinthia, has two and a half employees and 145,000 books.

For comparison, the Workers' Library in Carinthia, which has only around 35,000 books, has seven employees.

The Slovenian Study Library, founded in 1927, has two units in Eberndorf (Dobrla Vas) and Eisenkappel (Železna Kapla), while it has been understaffed for years.

As part of a mobile library, it supplied bilingual schools and Slovenian associations in Carinthia with books while carrying out a number of projects to encourage young Slovenians to read in Slovenian.

Its unit in Eberndorf opened in 2022 and in Eisenkappel in 2023.

The Slovenian Education Association, whose beginnings go back to 1907, is one of the two umbrellas for Slovenian minority cultural organisations in Carinthia.

Feb 20, 2025, 13:36 eho/mlj/mab