Chios counts with one of the largest libraries in Greece, the “Adamantios Korais” Library. Established in 1792 as a department of the Great Chian School, today it stores a significant collection of over 130,000 volumes.

Apart from its size, one of the features that makes this library interesting is the origin of its books. The first ones were donated by Adamantios Korais, the founder of the library, and many of his friends (mostly Greek living abroad). Later, the Argenti family, the major donator, were responsible of important upgrades and additions during the late 70s. Many other Chians have donated their personal book collections to the library, such as the important contributions made by Ioannis Andreadis, Zorzis and Tarse Dromokaitou, Alex. Pachnos, Georgios Michalinos, Alex. Votsanis, Leonis Kalvokoresis and Georgios Theotokas.

Before the Massacre of Chios in 1822, this library was the most important one of the whole region. Then, after the major earthquake in 1881, it was moved into a new building where it has remained ever since, and whose second floor was added after 1948 by Philip Argenti.

Today the Adamantios Korais library reports to the Libraries Department of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. It also publishes a comprehensive catalogue and archives of the Library’s book collections, has a lending department, and it has a mobile library van for the villages of Chios. During the last years, it has been working on the modernization of its storage and access systems to ensure the usefulness and efficiency of the Library both with users, visitors and researchers.

For more information visit: www.koraeslibrary.gr