Local Library Visit 11: The Library of the Hellenic Parliament and Benaki Museum – Library
Time: 09:30-13:30
The Library of the Hellenic Parliament
Type of library: research
Postal address: Hellenic Parliament, Syntagrma Square, POB 10021, Athens, Greece
Distance from Congress venue: 1.8 km
Meeting point: Syntagma Metro Station
Optimal route: Syntagma Metro Station, exit the Syntagma Square, climb up the stairs to the Hellenic Parliament, entrance at Vassilissis Sofias Ave.
A volunteer will be waiting for you at the proposed meeting point
The Library of the Hellenic Parliament was founded during the first Parliamentary Session following the 1844 Constitution. Since then its purpose has been to support the work of the Parliament.
For a series of years, the Parliament Library kept on being moved from one building to another, until 1934, when it was eventually housed at the second floor of the Old Palace building, freshly renovated to fit a modern Parliament.
Today, due to the large volume of its collections and its numerous activities, the Library of the Hellenic Parliament is housed in more than one buildings: a) the Main Library at the Parliament Building, b) Benakeios Library at 2 Anthimou Gazi Str., which is temporarily hosted at the former Public Tobacco Factory Building and c) the former Public Tobacco Factory at 218 Lenormant Str.
The Library of the Hellenic Parliament is a general library, aiming mainly to support the parliamentary work. It especially corroborates the MPs and their assistants, as well as all the departments of the Hellenic Parliament, offering:
- Information, research and documentation for parliamentary issues, in cooperation with other public Services
- Printed and digital material, accessible via general and specialized databases and electronic publications
- Loan and inter-loan services
- Information on European Union issues through its European Documentation Centre
- Training and support for search facilities throughout the extensive primary collection of the Library
The Library is also open to the public. People can visit its premises and consult its collections at the reading rooms. The Library staff guide and facilitate access to the printed and electronic collections. Library users can query our librarians via phone, fax and email.
Benaki Museum Library
Type of Library: special
Postal address: 1, Koumbari Str., 106 74 Athens, Greece
Distance from Congress venue: 1.6 km
The Benaki Museum Library was established in 1931, the year in which the Museum itself was donated and inaugurated. The Benaki Museum Library currently has more than 180,000 titles of books and periodicals and seems to have the largest collection of books operating in a Museum in Greece. The Library’s valuable collections cover the following topics: Greek history and art from antiquity to the 20th century, folklore, intellectual life and religion, especially during the period of Turkish rule and modern times. These include a group of Byzantine and post-Byzantine manuscripts (Benaki Museum collection, collection of Damianos Kyriazis and the Exchangeable Populations Fund collection) dating from the 10th to the 19th century, a section on travellers’ texts and a large section containing archetypes, monumental, old and rare editions, valuable folios and illustrated volumes, as well as rare and unique copies of books from the 15th to the 19th century. It also has significant collections of books on Islamic art and the art of the Far East.
