Patras Municipal Library - Art Gallery

The organization "Municipal Library of Patras", was founded in 1908 under the mayorship of Dimitrios Votsis and is the first municipal library in Greece. The initial core of books was the donated library of the Craft Company. Initially it was housed in the dormitory that existed on Gounari and Karaiskaki streets, while its inauguration took place two years later, ie in 1910 (It was inaugurated on 28-6-1910).

In 1944, thanks to the movement of a group of book lovers, among whom: K. Triantafyllou, M. Prapopoulos, A. Bendermacher-Gerousis, K. Kyriakopoulos, etc., the boxes with the volumes of the Library were transferred from the basements of the City Hall. , where they were initially kept due to the Second World War, where they remained in relative obscurity, in the house of the Mayor Ioannis Vlachos and then in the Karamandani mansion, at 42 Maizonos Street.

After many months of preparation and organization of the material, the post-war Municipal Library was reopened, during the mayoralty of Zafeiropoulou, in 1947, with a capacity of more than 18,200 volumes, enriched with donations from notable libraries such as A. Michalakopoulou, D.Mou .

A year later, the Municipal Library of Patras was established as a Legal Entity under Public Law, following a Royal Decree. Finally, due to its significant expansion, in 1955 the Library was moved to its current facilities, at 110 Maizonos Street, with May 20, 1957, being the opening day of its new and permanent space.

Today the Municipal Library of Patras has about 200,000 volumes of books, magazines & newspapers. Much of the collection comes from donations from citizens of Patras who had served in high state positions, such as Dimitrios Gounaris and Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, but also from purchases which amount to an average of 2,500 to 3,000 volumes per year.

It also has a significant number of valuable and rare books from the 16th century, as well as many important personal archives of important personalities of Achaia.