Carlos Calderon’s Library will be public

The Ecuadorian historian Carlos Calderon Chico, after his death in the early hours of yesterday at Abel Gilbert Ponton Hospital due to a diabetic coma, left a literary legacy of great magnitude to Ecuadorians.

His friends said that his personal book collection consisted of nearly 22,000 books. However, his family confirmed that actually are more like 40,000 texts.

One of his sons, Angelo Calderon Salazar, stated about his father’s library: “We commit to take forward the Carlos Calderon Chico Foundation; the library will be placed at the service of the community and researchers.”

Carlos Calderon Chico next to his huge library

The National Academy of History drew attention to the “treasure” that represents the huge library of Carlos Calderon Chico. A treasure that the city “should preserve and be used by the citizenship,” said the institution.

Historian Rodolfo Perez Pimentel, Calderon Chico’s colleague, said his friend  was the greatest bibliographer in the city of Guayaquil, with a huge collection of history books. “It would be a shame not to seize such collection or let it torn apart, which is the death of any library,” he said and invited the authorities to think about the digitization of a great national library.