“This is a very important project; it aims to have the 17 municipalities, through their municipal libraries, provide legal access to the full range of existing print media, making it available to their readers,” Amadeu Albergaria, Vice-President of the AMP, told journalists.

Speaking after the Metropolitan Council meeting at the AMP headquarters, Albergaria, who is also the Mayor of Santa Maria da Feira, noted that while some municipalities already had this service, seven did not.

“From now on, all 17 municipalities will benefit from economies of scale and financial savings, enabling us to make the full range of press publications available to library readers across the entire metropolitan area, something that is also crucial for the stability and financial health of media outlets themselves,” he pointed out.

The agreement was signed on 24 July and will come into effect “soon,” he added.

Agostinho Branquinho, First Secretary of the AMP Executive Commission, also highlighted during the meeting that this serves as a way to “combat a form of piracy,” given the prevalence of illegal online distribution of press publications.

According to the presentation on the service given at today’s meeting, which Lusa reviewed, the service will provide access to over 7,000 publications “anytime, on any device” across the 17 libraries of the Metropolitan Public Library Network.

The total contract value is €77,300 plus VAT, distributed among the 17 municipalities; costs range from €2,572 for less populous municipalities like Arouca, São João da Madeira, and Vale de Cambra, to €7,507 for the most populous ones, such as Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia.

Today’s meeting also saw the presentation of the AMP Cultural Sector Mapping, conducted by POLOBS (the Observatory on Science, Communication, and Culture Policies at the University of Minho), which identified over seven thousand cultural assets.

This mapping precedes the development of the future Metropolitan Platform for Culture, which, according to the AMP, is “designed to promote knowledge of, appreciation for, and the coordination of the territory’s cultural resources.”