New rooms in the library - Barents Library Conference gathered field’s professionals to Umeå in September 2009
More than 50 library field’s professionals listened with smiling faces nostalgic and fun speech by Lars Hansen Juvik from Norway about the first library conference in the Arctic area of the Scandinavian countries and the Kola Peninsula. The library professionals at the Barents Area have gathered together every other year since that year 1971. Now, in September 2009, 38 years later, the theme of the conference was New Rooms in the Library. This theme was covered in many different aspects, as physical and virtual spaces and from every four country’s point of view. In this article I present you some titbits of the library conference.
Many of the challenges of the libraries are very similar all around the area. Through the cooperation many good ideas are shared and network of Barents area libraries is nowadays very extensive.
Lifelong learning centers in London
Added to Barents area libraries, the conference had a guest speaker from Britain, Sergio Dogliani from East London. Dogliani presented a fresh model of branding library to a lifetime learning centre with low threshold. Idea Store (www.ideastore.co.uk) library concept has learned from the commerce sector and changed the image of libraries in Tower Hamlets district. Some interesting ideas were for example to put the libraries to places where people move daily: shopping centers and near underground’s, design the library to look more like a bookshop and make less rules so that customer can buy a coffee from the library café, sit down and read a book without fearing the angry look of a librarian. "They read the library book with coffee cup at home too", says Dogliani.
Presidental Library
Deputy Director of Information, Galina Issar from Russia presented at the conference a Presidential Library website www.prlib.ru. The book storage will bear the name of the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin. The website is founded by former president Putin and its mission is to build up open e-library for information about Russian history and present day. 43 millions of files and almost 40 000 of storage units. At present only ten percent of the collection is in open access through internet. To get to know the documents in full the customer can use the reading room. The unique electronic library situated in the building of Synod on Senate place of St. Petersburg welcomed its first visitors in September 2009.
More flexible and customer orientated service in county libraries as well as at universities
Aud Taga from Troms County Library told about their experiences of giving library keys to residents of a small Norwegian village. This enabled villagers to use the library services more flexible. At the Umeå district in Sweden many municipalities have joined forces and built a virtual library: www.minabibliotek.se. The site has more than 60 000 visitors per month.
University Libraries’ new rooms were presented by Umeå and Luleå Universitys’ libraries. Advising and instructing students with the search of information from electric as well as traditional collections has growing demand. Electric databases have taken space from the shelves and customer point of view has emphasized, like in all the libraries, communal and universities.
Barents Euro-Arctic Cooperation - forum for intergovernmental and interregional cooperation
I presented at the conference the Barents Euro-Arctic Cooperation. Web portal www.barentsinfo.org, hosted by the Arctic Centre is a window to the Barents region, with information e.g. about the people, environment, customs as well as photos and news. Official BEAC website www.beac.st as well as internet news service www.barentsobserver.com are great links to get more information about the Barents area’s cooperation and current news of the Barents area.
Play by the book
Before the final workshop, we got to know a music library project in Rovaniemi, Finland. Special librarian Marko Niemelä from the Regional Library of Lapland and Regional artist at the Arts Council of Lapland Hannu Raudaskoski told and showed in an exhilarating way how easy it is to play by the book. Through the project three musicians and one librarian are visiting libraries all around the Lapland to introduce, play and sing the sheet music, music guides and play along sets offered by the library. What an effective way - made at least me to dust of my guitar!
Thank you for all of the participants and speakers of the conference and espesially for the organizers, Länsbiblioteket i Västerbotten, Umeå!
Best regards from Rovaniemi,
Jenni Lintula
Communications Officer at the Science Communications
Arctic Centre
University of Lapland
email: firstname.surname@ulapland.fi