Theme:

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

No. 4. 2010

Eight types of professional skills - badly needed in public libraries. Jens Thorhauge 3

Competence building in Norwegian libraries. Arne Gundersen 4

Finnish policy on staff qualifications and recruitment. Kirsti Kekki 6

Future competence needs in public libraries. Ingelise Konrad 8

Room for curiosity. Tom Ahlberg 10

Measure correctly or to do the right thing? Christine Lindmark 12

No man is an island. Päivi Jokitalo 17

Extreme makeover at Lier upper secondary school. Jannicke Røgler 18

Library professionals amidst change. Pirkko Lindberg 20

Core business and core competences in libraries. Johnny Roj-Larsen 22

Measure and evaluate. Malin Ögland 24

Homework assistance on the internet. Ann Poulsen 26

Scandinavian Shortcuts 26

Cover photo: Librarians have a professional skill as readers on behalf of the public. They decide what to keep and what not to keep in the local

library collection. Cover photo shows with a touch of humour the ‘weed-crew’ looking for possible ‘Awfulllibrarybooks’ at Vestfossen Library in

Buskerud County.

Correction: SPLQ 3. 2010 page 3: Mats Hansson is Senior Advisor, Swedish Arts Council, and has written the article in english.

Professional skills

Libraries are patron-oriented, part of citizens’ every day life, they have to adapt to changing user expectations andsocietal change. There is a continuous need for developing services, with a view also to measuring and evaluatingperformances.A qualified staff is a prerequisite for relevant library development, but excactly what competences and skills wouldactally be needed these days?In this issue we look at education and competence building in the library and information field. Library directors givetheir views on essentials when recruiting new staff. On the other hand, the library manager is a central actor, whatqualities would be of importance when recruiting new managers?Current national reports address the qualification requirements in national legislation and visions of competenciesneeded at present and in the future, but this is also a topic being keenly discussed at the moment among libraryprofessionals.

Barbro Wigell-RyynänenEditor-in-chief

barbro.wigell-ryynanen@minedu.fi

Viewp int

Edit rial

Barbro Wigell-RyynänenEditor-in-chief.Counsellor for LibraryAffairs, Ministry of Educa-tion and Culture, Finland

3SPLQ:4 2010

From book containers to communitycentres with focus on the needs of users interms of lifelong learning, e- inclusion andcultural inspiration and citizenship – thismarks a change of scope for the public li-braries. A change that has been broadlyaccepted in the library communities andalso among the general public in the Nor-dic countries. Decades ago it was recognized that tra-ditional collection management corecompetences, as within cataloguing andclassification, were no longer sufficientto run a library with an ambition toplay a role in bridging the digital di-vide, in social inclusion and basically inpresenting today’s media to the citi-zens. Actually the traditional professi-onal librarian skills are becomingclearly inadequate or at least insuffi-cient.

In the Nordic countries at least oneagenda has had to be adopted early inthe transformation process, namely theagenda of continuing education thathas been and continues to be essentialin order to handle the new conditionsin a digitally oriented knowledge so-ciety. The average age of librarians inpublic libraries tells us that the majo-rity of staff have their roots in the oldbook and card catalogue paradigm.It is thanks to a systematic focus ontraining and building new competencesthat we are today prepared to take thelast steps into library concepts basedon the digital paradigm.

What then are the competences neededto create the ultimate library of theknowledge society? A Danish govern-ment report on the concept of the pub-lic library in the knowledge society waslaunched earlier this year (see SPLQ no2, 2010), which was based on a year’swork in a committee that I had the pri-

vilege to chair. Overall the report re-commends the establishment of a nati-onal digital library, new concepts forthe library space with a focus on therole of community centre with learningand cultural activities and partnershipsas a model for relations to users. Tofulfil this vision we need staff with so-called meta-competences in particu-larly three fields. These are competen-cies that are general prerequisites formore specific subject-oriented compe-tences to develop. The three meta-competences are:

1) The ability to acquire knowledge and use it for change and development.

2) The ability to handle the many relations in-volved in creating a dedicated and relevant service profile.

3) The ability to handle a dialogue between a multitude of attitudes and values and establish and communicate a platform for the library services recognized by staff as well as by the public.

In addition to those meta-competenceswe identified five competence fieldsthat we agreed are particularly neededin the process of transforming the clas-sical library into the library of theknowledge society – and competencesthat in recent years have proved to benecessary:

4) Skills in instruction, teaching and interme-diary activities. These skills should be seen in relation to the growing need for sup-porting media and digital literacy on many levels, for supporting the ongoing process of transforming the library space in ap-pealing and inclusive ways.

5) Skills in marketing are generally recognizedas necessary, and public libraries’ marke-ting have developed in recent years, but there is still room for improvement.

6) Updated competences in ICT for all staff members will in the coming years be cru-cial for the transformation of the library in away that matches new services competing with library services.

7) Professional competences in various sub- ject fields are traditionally core competen-ces in libraries and will still be needed.

8) Skills in leadership and management are becoming more important the faster the conditions for running library services change.

The competences that we focus on re-flect, of course, our vision for the newpublic library that is accessible on theweb as well in the traditional space,that is constantly offering services thathelp citizens to cope with their lives,that inspire them to use and learn fromall the different kinds of media pre-sented to us.In consequence of these ideas we sug-gest that each and every library planscompetence-building for all its staffmembers, has a policy for recruitmentof new competences and for the main-tenance and development of services.The plans must relate to the givenconditions for continuing educationand training. Generally the needs areendless, so the good library leadershipwill work with a variety of means frominternal knowledge sharing to masterprogrammes at library schools anduniversities.

There is always something that can bedone – do it.

Jens ThorhaugeDirector General

Danish Agency for Libraries and Mediajth@bibliotekogmedier.dk

Translated by Vibeke Cranfield

Jens Thorhauge

Edit rial

Eight types of professional skills - badly needed in public libraries

Archive, Library and Museum Autho-rity was assisted by the consultancy en-terprise Human Factors to conduct anumber of focus group interviews withlibrary managers and library owners,with a view to discussing and identi-fying needs pertaining to competencedevelopment in the libraries. Partici-pants were encouraged to provideinput associated with seven issue areas:

• In what thematic fields should the libraries enhance their competence?

• In what ways could a possible reallo-cation of the existing resources of thelibrary or libraries contribute to enhancing competence development?

• In what ways could a facilitation ofthe conditions of the libraries and library staff help to encourage parti-cipation in competence-enhancing programmes?

• In what ways could new working methods help strengthen competencebuilding?

• In addition to ordinary training courses, what kind of specific de-velopment initiatives could help strengthen competence building in the libraries?

• Is there a need for new training courses for further and continuing education of library staff?

• What is expected of the library au-thorities and the library owners with regard to competence building in thelibraries?

Framework documentThe report from the focus group inter-views constituted an important basisfor the document Competence buildingin libraries – framework and priorities,published by The Norwegian Archive,

Library and Museum Authority in thespring of 2009. This publication wasissued shortly after the Governmentsubmitted its report on libraries to theStorting. The term framework docu-ment was chosen because this docu-ment outlines a framework for compe-tence building in the library sector, i.e.preconditions and needs, forms ofcompetence building, distribution ofresponsibility, instruments and areas ofpriority.

Objectives of the documentThe general objective of the frameworkdocument is to contribute to the re-newal of the libraries. Digitisation andtechnological development require newskills among staff and call for newworking methods. The framework do-cument is intended to provide a com-mon platform for library owners, trai-ning providers and the professionalcommunities for their planning, facili-tation and cooperation pertaining tocompetence-building activities. Thedocument is also intended as a basisfor a national programme for compe-tence building in the library sector.

Preconditions for successful competence buildingThe framework document emphasizesthat purposeful competence buildingmust be based on a plan drawn up bythe library owner and grounded in themain challenges and requirements ofthe library. The libraries need to beaware of the strengths and weaknessesof their activities and of the measuresthat can be taken to improve the situa-tion. The libraries further need to de-velop a culture that is conducive tocontinued learning, in which all those

Competence building in Norwegian librariesFramework and priorities

The leaflet Competence building in Norwe-gian libraries – framework and prioritiesgives library owners, training providersand the library community a common basisfor their competence development efforts.The leaflet is the result of a thorough pre-paratory process, and public developmentfunds have been granted for its follow-upin 2010.

Library Reform 2014 – the starting pointThe national report on libraries from2006, Library Reform 2014, addressedthe future challenges facing the librarysector, and proposed strategies andmeasures to meet these challenges. Thereport was produced by The Norwe-gian Archive, Library and MuseumAuthority under a mandate from theGovernment. The proposals weregrouped in three target areas: contentand services, structure and organiza-tion, and competence and research.The strategies outlined by the two firsttarget areas had competence buildingin the libraries as a precondition, andthe strategies identified in the thirdtarget area represented responses tothese challenges. The key proposal inthis target area was to establish a nati-onal programme for developing com-petence, with a view to strengtheningthe total library network and the indi-vidual libraries.Library Reform 2014 was followed by acomprehensive round of consultationsthat gave widespread support to theproposal for a programme for compe-tence development.

Focus group interviews with librarymanagers and library ownersIn its follow-up of the report duringthe spring of 2008, The Norwegian

NORWAY

4 SPLQ:4 2010

involved assume responsibility formaking an effort to achieve commongoals.

Development needsThe document encompasses the entirelibrary sector. It describes the currentstatus with regard to competence in thevarious types of libraries and identifiesneeds for further development. TheNorwegian Library Act stipulates thatall municipalities shall have a publiclibrary headed by a professionallyqualified library manager. Nevertheless,close to thirty per cent of the munici-palities have a library manager withoutprofessional qualifications.

Forms of competence buildingThe document discusses key conceptsassociated with competence building,reviews opportunities for further andcontinuing education and workplacelearning, describes prevailing regula-tions and agreements, and reviews theposition of research and developmentactivities in this context.

Responsibilities and tasksA concerted effort to enhance the levelof competence in the libraries willrequire a clear division of responsibili-ties between the various actors in thisfield. The framework document de-scribes the particular tasks of these ac-tors. The actors comprise library ma-nagers and library staff, library owners,county administrations, educationalinstitutions offering training in libraryand information science, governmentauthorities and the social partners.

Competence areasA key purpose of the focus group in-

terviews was to identify areas in whichthe library managers and owners per-ceived a particular need for compe-tence building. Six areas were identi-fied: management training, promotionof the libraries’ services, communica-tion, digital skills, the library as anarena for learning and cultural diver-sity.

InstrumentsWith regard to competence building,focus tends to be put on formal furtherand continuing education program-mes. These are important, but not ex-clusive instruments. A programme forcompetence building in libraries coulddraw on a combination of several in-struments. The framework documentpoints out research, developmentfunds, further education, continuingeducation and short training courses,county administrations in their role aspromoters of regional development,networking and measures that arecoordinated at a national level.

The parliamentary report on libraries and competence buildingThe parliamentary report on libraries,Report No. 23 (2008-2009) to theStorting, Libraries: Knowledge Com-mons, Meeting Place and Cultural Arenain a Digital Age, which was submittedby the Government in the spring of2009, underscores the need for compe-tence building in the public libraries.The report refers to multiculturalism,promotion of literature, digital servicesand management as specific areaswhere competence building is required.The report also maintains that a know-ledge gap is evident in the structure ofthe public libraries and needs to be

5SPLQ:4 2010

Arne Gundersen

filled, for example through bettercooperation between the public libra-ries.According to the report, the Ministryof Culture (which is responsible for thepublic libraries) and the Ministry ofEducation and Research (which is re-sponsible for the university and collegelibraries) will jointly assess the need forfurther measures, including a jointprogramme for competence building inthe entire library sector.

The Competence Million 2010In the state budget for 2010, the Go-vernment granted NOK 1 million tocompetence building in the publiclibraries, in the form of an allocation toThe Norwegian Archive, Library andMuseum Authority. Half of these fundshave been allocated to the Faculty ofJournalism, Library and InformationScience at Oslo University College,which partly will develop an expandedprogramme for distance learning atbachelor level, and partly assess thefeasibility of an experience-basedmaster’s degree focusing on librarymanagement.The remaining funds will be devoted toThe Year of Reading 2010 and theplanned efforts to promote reading inthe period until 2014. The remainingfunds will be allocated to county libra-ries to be used for measures that aim toenhance the ability of the public libra-ries to encourage reading and promoteliterature to adults with little readingexperience.

Arne GundersenSenior Advisor

The National Library of NorwayArne.gundersen@nb.no

Translated by Akasie språktjenester AS

Photo: Bjørn Djupvik

upcoming years. There are only a fewschool libraries in Finland. Teacherspossess master’s degrees, but their trai-ning lacks instruction in informationretrieval. The aim is to develop publiclibraries into inspiring learning envi-ronments.

At best, library activities support theentire cycle of information use, fromacquiring information to the utilizationof it and further to the creation of newinformation. Through their online ser-vices, developed libraries utilize the op-portunities rendered by ubiquitoustechnology and become an integralpart in the community’s life.

A good library institution creates a good societyThe ability to see the library’s positionin the larger picture and to react quick-ly to societal changes as well as thehigh level of education in the field arethe prerequisites for its success. Educa-tion, lifelong learning and the valuingof knowledge and information placelibraries in a context according towhich society and libraries have beenconsciously developed in the last de-cades. Learning and applying informa-tion is still seen as a precondition forFinland’s competitiveness.

Libraries that have an up-to-date infor-mation management infrastructureand that offer personal consultationboost the competitive edge, success andwell-being of the regions. Qualitylibrary and information services onlocation and on the internet have animpact on the positive, sustainabledevelopment of society. The ability tocooperate and the skill in identifying

and evaluating the needs of citizens arenecessary for the development of thelibrary institution. It is good to stepaway a little, contest issues and findnew types of solutions.

Qualification requirements, recruitmentand managementIt is my experience that obtainingfunding in municipalities for techno-logy and new innovations is easier thanfor skilled staff irrespective of the timeperiod and economic situation. Thequalifications requirements were in-cluded in library enactments very earlyon as was the requirement that 2/3 ofthe staff should have training in thelibrary field. Libraries had to have atleast one man-year for every onethousand residents. All of this wasnecessary because there were morethan 350 small municipalities.

The premise behind the qualificationsrequirements for the year 2010 is thedesire to bring to a halt the dissolvingof job positions requiring higher edu-cation or the lowering of the educati-onal requirements for those positions.Not only was there an economic down-swing taking place, but also municipalreforms and the retirement of the so-called baby boomers. There was a si-milar situation in Finland during the

6 SPLQ:4 2010

FINLAND

The aim of the Ministry of Education andCulture is to raise the level of the library’score expertise. The revised requirementsfor qualifications call for an increase in thepercentage of highly educated library staffto 45 %. According to the quality recom-mendations being drafted in the Ministry,the prerequisites for quality services in-clude an ample amount of staff, an exten-sive level of general knowledge, a high le-vel of expertise and systematic, goal-oriented development, management andrecruitment of staff.

The foundation of activities lies in thequality assurance of services, includingcustomer service. The underlying fac-tors are the increase in the level of edu-cation in general, increasing demandsand the shift in learning processes andteaching methods toward an emphasison independent information manage-ment.

The basic mission determines the type of staff More and more, the work carried outin libraries is marked by comprehen-sive information management, whichtraditionally refers to the organizationof information and consultation thatpromotes information retrieval. In thefuture, services will be based on therefining, applying and combining ofinformation to generate added valuefor the patrons. Finding quality infor-mation in the masses requires expertisein advanced information retrieval andthe evaluation of information.

The task of instructing municipal resi-dents, learners of all ages and teachersin information management will beone of the core duties in libraries in

Finnish policy on staff qualifications

Future services will be based on the refin

A three-year programme in the libraryfield at the university of appliedsciences level was not offered in Fin-land until the 1990s. Education at thislevel emphasizes not only the core ex-pertise needed in the library field, butalso considers the needs of the workingworld. A two-year programme for li-brary clerks began in 1981. In addition,staff already working in the library hasthe opportunity to qualify as libraryclerks by completing a vocational de-gree. Students can smoothly progressfrom one level of education to the next.All of the levels of education offer con-tact teaching as well as online andremote teaching. This is the only wayto acquire up-to-date training in allparts of the country in a sparsely po-pulated country such as Finland.A person who has acquired solid voca-tional education needs continuous up-dating. Further education is offeredlocally, regionally and nationally bothin a university setting and online. Aperpetual problem is, however, that noteveryone wants to participate in fur-ther education. When drafting qualityrecommendations, the recommenda-tions for participating in further edu-cation are also revised.

New generations Good service involves exceeding the

customer’s expectations. Even thoughthe Ministry of Education and Cultureemphasizes higher-level education inthe field, it does not mean that thesame services and expertise need to beoffered in all libraries and locations.Creating self-service, online and multi-service libraries is an equally good wayto produce services. What is most im-portant is that the patrons know whereand from whom they can obtain theservices and expertise they need. Li-brary services and expertise must bemade transparent.

That, which is done, should be doneconsciously to avoid being driven intoa situation without a plan. Not doingsomething is also a form of actionwhen building the future. Library staffwill be renewed in the upcoming years.In just a few years, there will be newgenerations in the libraries, and forthese generations network skills anddigital services are self-evident. To safe-guard the period of transition, the 2010qualifications requirements may nolonger be feasible. The way in whichinstitutions of higher education answerto the challenges of the future also hasan impact on this issue. Then we willalso see how well libraries answer tothe goals presented here.

Kirsti KekkiCounsellor for Cultural Affairs,

Ministry of Education and Culturekirsti.kekki@minedu.fi

The author has worked as a human resourcesmanager and supervisor, among others,

in municipalities of various sizes as well as in theState Regional Administration

Translated by Turun Täyskäännös

7SPLQ:4 2010

recession of the 1990s. At the time, the1993 library decree was in force fromwhich nearly all of the regulationspertaining to staff had been removed.With the help of the Parliament, thequalifications requirements andmaster’s degree required of directorswere included in the 1998 librarydecree.

Recruitment is the director’s most im-portant duty. Each recruitment situa-tion is a building block for the libraryof the future. Staff is not recruitedmerely for the present situation, but forupcoming duties. Among other things,it is the director’s job to make the li-brary’s basic mission crystal clear andto commit the staff to the commongoals.

Quality and flexibility in field-related educationOffering studies in the library field atuniversity level, beginning in1971, pro-vided an opportunity for interestedstudents to receive extensive, overalltraining. For the most part, graduateshave found jobs as directors, supervi-sors and specialists for demanding du-ties. Students can complete a three-yearbachelor’s degree or a five-year master’sdegree in information research. Thereare also doctoral programs in the field.

Kirsti Kekki

and recruitment

ing, applying and combining of information to generate added value for the patrons

DENMARK

The libraries of the future need leaderswho are continuously able to work withprocesses of change and development inan interaction with the organisation and itsenvironment, and staff who are able to as-sume responsibility in relation to projectsetc. And then both members of staff andleaders must possess strong meta compe-tences.

Professional development is a centraltheme in the report The public librariesin the knowledge society, published bythe Committee on Public Libraries inthe Knowledge Society in spring 2010.As a member of the working group,who has been concentrating on thistheme, it is very gratifying to see thatthe committee has taken heed of theworking group’s proposals. The Com-mittee has even been very precise in-deed in its recommendations for thepublic libraries’ future work in terms ofprofessional development.

The fundamental premise for the en-deavours concerning future professi-onal development is that the explicitpoint of reference must be the needs ofthe library users when consideringmeeting future competence needs –

and not those of the individual mem-ber of staff or leader. The necessarystrategic perspective of this premise isfurther underlined when competencedevelopment and organisation de-velopment are viewed in context: nocompetence development without anorganisational development perspective– and vice versa.

The report points out a number ofconcrete professional competences,which must currently be developed andenforced in the public libraries. Notsurprisingly, good IT skills are singledout, as information technology anddigitisation provide the framework andrequirements in terms of professionaldevelopment in the libraries. Apartfrom that, the report stresses the needfor competencies in relation to marke-ting and teaching.

Important meta competencesFurthermore – and perhaps even moreimportant – the Committee recom-mends that the libraries, apart from thestrengthening of professional compe-tences, ensure the development of anumber of meta competences in mem-bers of staff as well as management:• Learning and transformation compe-

tence, i.e. the competence to acquire knowledge and be able to transform this into value-creating action

• Relation competence, i.e. the indivi-dual’s and the organisation’s compe-tence to handle many different per-spectives and perceptions of library tasks, internally as well as externally

• Dialogue and meaning competence,i.e. the competence to meet the demands of the outside world in

order to see and create meaning between a multitude of values and understandings.

When the libraries act in a world ofconstant changes, these competences,which in a classical sense can be per-ceived as formal management compe-tences, become important to a librarysystem that wishes to develop in har-mony with its surroundings. It is alibrary system where- focus has moved from collection to

user- the ‘Bildung-ideal’ has to do with

facilitating the individual user’s path through a diversity of cultural offers and information – not with shaping the user into a normative, static ideal

- the library’s staff work with many kinds of learning and inspiration activities and join in a number ofinter-institutional partnerships inside and outside the organisation.

New interdisciplinary partnerships establishedIn the report the Committee puts for-ward the concrete suggestion thattailor-made modules be established inThe Public training of Leaders pro-gramme targeted at leaders in the cul-tural sector. At the Centre for Leader-ship and Governance, which is part ofthe Metropolitan University College,we have picked up the gauntlet andformed a partnership with the Unionof Danish Librarians and the Associa-tion of Library Leaders in order tooffer targeted competence developmentto the culture and library sector.Through their thorough knowledge ofthe sector the professional organisa-

Future competence needs in public libraries

8 SPLQ:4 2010

Ingelise Konrad has for many years worked asleader in the library and culture sector, but nowworks as a senior consultant with leadership andgovernance.

Centre for Leadership and Governance compilesknowledge about practical, operational leadershipwith the latest theory and research on leadership –to the benefit of the large welfare areas. CLG is aknowledge centre with educations, courses, consul-tancy and advisory services as well as knowledgedevelopment and research on leadership.

selves and their individual organisa-tions in the interaction with the largenumber of stakeholders as well as theirpersonal perspectives on the concept ofculture.

Management of processes of changewhere focus is directed at how cultureand library management succeed inhandling the dual pressure and appa-rently conflicting demands betweenbeing the attractive work place and atthe same time developing, prioritisingand functioning effectively in a multi-tude of management rationales andconcepts. In the module the studentswill through both theory and practiceacquire knowledge, skills and compe-tences in how political and administra-tive management unfold in the publicsector. Just as they will be able to ana-lyse and understand conditions andpossibilities in the interplay betweencitizens, users, specialist professions,administration and politicians.

Ingelise KonradSenior consultant

Centre for Leadership and Governance,Metropolitan University College

inko@phmetropol.dk

Translated by Vibeke Cranfield

concept of leadership which applies tothe formal leaders, but also to what onemight term co-leaders, being employe-es who actually assume professionalmanaging of a great number of tasksthat have to be dealt with every day.This would typically be project mana-gers, process managers, coordinators ininterdisciplinary work etc. These areroles and tasks that take up more spaceand time in the day-to-day work thanbefore and demonstrate how leadershipand management happen at severallevels in large, decentralized organisa-tions. Therefore the target group forthe new competency initiatives inclu-des both formal leaders and co-leaders(professional leaders).

Together with the professional organi-sations we have chosen to apply forcertification to offer two qualifyingmodules to the culture and librarysector – under The Public training ofLeaders programme. The modules havebeen selected among about 20 possiblesin the course regulations of the pro-gramme and are professionally de-signed specifically to meet the cultureand library sector’s actual challenges.An important point is that both mo-dules are carried through in a pedago-gical-didactical way so that studentssimultaneously develop the sought-after meta competences. The two mo-dules are:

Team and network leadership wherethe students through theory and prac-tice acquire knowledge, skills and com-petences for working in teams andnetworks, and where they are equippedto orientate and develop both them-

tions have helped to identify the twomost pressing leadership challenges inthe culture and library sector:

1. To be able to work in new types oforganisation (team, network, project organisation etc.) as an ever increas-ing amount of library and cultural-professional development work takesplace in interdisciplinary teams and networks. It is apparent that the area of culture in a municipal context increasingly is being invited into for example prevention initiatives, inte-gration, business and tourism policy,health initiatives, children’s area etc.The interaction with other specialist professions, with citizens, politicians and other stakeholders within the field of culture therefore becomes absolutely essential in the cultural sector’s work.

2. To be able to embrace processes ofchange and development as a perma-nent condition for the sector, which following the municipal reform operates with fewer and larger units and also experience increased pres-sure in the shape of- users and politicians who want

more choices in terms of services- the technological development

that challenges and in part super-sedes existing offers and services

- greater focus on non-users- requests for entering into partner-

ships.

Concrete initiatives in relation to leaders and co-leadersAt the Centre for Leadership and Go-vernance we operate with an extended

9SPLQ:4 2010

Ingelise Konrad

The fundamental premise for future professional development must be the needs of the library users

SPLQ:4 2010

lots of queues in front of authorssigning their books. But these authorpresentations do not dominate.

What really draws me to Bok & Bibli-otek is the ever-present zest for com-munication, the manifold literary ex-pressions, that each year I come awaywith books I had never in my wildestdreams imagined that I would one daypossess. I feel wiser to the world.

Bok & Bibliotek differs from the libra-ries by being a commercial fair whereselling books is a good idea. But it ismy own choice whether I just want towander around and listen, watch andinquire or whether I wish to buy.

I can easily sympathize with ALIS-prizewinner, author Bob Hansson’s declara-tion: “Even though I hate the consumersociety, you are very welcome to go andbuy my new book”.

The libraries’ most important function

10

is not to sell. Neither books, nor any-thing else. What they have to do, ismake room for curiosity.

The libraries are centres of public cul-tural education. Where all the othermeeting places in our time follow themantra about focus, focus, focus thelibraries can focus on spread, spread,spread. The world is absolutely enor-mous, and it is very good for us to bereminded of that.

In the library I glance with curiosityover the shoulder of other people tosee what they are borrowing. I look atnotice boards, and I try to understandwhy the librarians have placed exactlythese books in front of my wonderingeyes.

As far as I can see it is rather immate-rial whether the library has a certainphysical size or a so-called virtualroom. I appreciate being invited inside– and being challenged.

Once again I have attended Scandinavia’sgreatest literary event, Bok & Biblioteks-messen (Book and Library Fair) in Gothen-burg. Once again I return home filled withsensuous impressions and full of enthusi-asm for the world of diversity I have vi-sited.

To me Bok & Bibliotek means an an-nual journey back to a gigantic mani-festation of a shared space – wherethere is room for curiosity. This yearwith an impressive focus on Africanculture. But altogether with more than900 exhibitors and a total of 3,000programme items.

It is not for some spurious reason thatthe title of the fair contains the wordlibrary. There are library-professionalexhibitors, seminars and debates. Butfirst and foremost there is breadth anddepth. Admittedly, there are eventswhere authors are being questioned bysympathetic journalists. And there are

DENMARK

Room for CURIOSITY

Nearly all library homepages are puttogether by way of CMS systems. It ispractical and it is good – but they emitmore than a whiff of databases. Whereseveral pages are pre-defined for pre-dictable parts. But I like the unpredic-table. I like to be thrown helter-skelter.When leaving the physical libraries Ioften stop and flip through boxes withdiscarded books. I cannot quite explainwhy, but I do like the disorder, that thebook on football is placed in front of abook about Descartes, that a long-forgotten novel is lurking somewherebetween the cartoons. That is what Imiss on the homepages – the jumble.

Along with the homepages we also getthe libraries’ new electronic services.The libraries are seen as suppliers ofservices – and I use the word servicesadvisedly - not as the starting point forcommunication. E-books, music, jour-nals and audio books are to be foundamong the new library offers. Noticethe word offer – it originates from themarket, not from the public sector.

It is convenient to be able to sit athome in front of your personal PC andpick and choose between the culturalproducts. The Danish libraries’ netmusic gives access to more than 3 mil.

pieces of music. On the ordinary mar-ket a consumer ombudsman wouldinterfere in case of such an excess as “3mil. pieces”. The same song can countas many tracks if it appears on manycompilation albums etc.

Unlike other commodities, however,there are no requirements as to infor-mative labelling of the libraries’ elec-tronic products. Instead the wonderinguser is informed about which choiceshave been made and the preconditionsfor the database that is made availableto the users. Important artists aremissing – and you are not being toldthat this is due to lack of agreementswith the rights owners. Decidedly lousymusic is included – and you are notbeing informed that this is because onecan only buy rights in great quantities,without quality assessment.

The digital cultural market opens upcompletely new vistas. The libraries canplay a vital role as our guides. Buttoday the only important formal diffe-rence between Spotify and the librariesmay well be the geographical border-lines and the concrete license agree-ments. Spotify communicates bothwith us as consumers and as part of aweb 2.0 community. The libraries’

network communicates with us asconsumers in the large market square.

There are lots of good reasons for thelibraries to be keen to test new digitalpossibilities. But it has to happen basedon the fundamental values that under-pin the physical libraries: communityspirit, breadth, openness in every sense.Also in a digital world we need roomfor curiosity.

The libraries’ spaces should be open toall of us. We must feel welcome and thelibraries must live up to our commongoal of diversity and neutrality. Justimagine if the libraries had a visionabout creating a digital cultural fair –and the chaos this would entail.

Tom Ahlberg

Editor of cultural political newsletter Søndag Aften (Sunday Evening) www.cultur.com.

Director of the publishing firm Underskoven and former Mayor of Education and Culture

in City of Copenhagen

Translated by Vibeke CranfieldPhoto: Adam Lundquist

11

Tom Ahlberg

Viewp int

SWEDEN

Measure correctly or do the right thA national perspective on statistics and indicators

means unique to Sweden, but part ofthe general trend among the Nordiccountries and in Europe. The Swedishresearch libraries' statistics for loansindicated an upward trend over a pe-riod of years, but a closer analysis actu-ally reveals that it is renewals that haveincreased rather than new loans. Newloans have actually declined year byyear.

More has often been considered betterand libraries have in some cases beenpressurized from their heads of organi-sation to increase number of loans andvisitors. When the data for a core busi-ness starts declining, the existence oflibraries tends to be disputed. Butmore is perhaps not always betterand what has previously beenmeasured at libraries perhaps nolonger constitutes a library's coreactivities. If the case is that otheractivities have replaced traditionalones, the question is what thoseother activities consist of, whatscales of measurements applyand can we compare new activi-ties with old ones.

We are measuring the wrong thingsIn an interview project duringthe spring of 2010 there werequestions included aboutlibrary statistics aimed atheads of libraries and deci-sion makers at universities.The study was aimed at theresearch library directorsto encapsulate viewsconcerning the value andusefulness of the national

statistics currently produced and inwhat respects it could be improved. Itbecame quite apparent that the inter-viewed library directors felt that thenational statistics were too traditional.They were not felt to be indicative ofactivities taking place in libraries todayand that the reality of the surveyedlibraries was well beyond the traditi-onal scales of statistical measurements

which constitutethe national

statistics.

In one of the Swedish dailies, during thespring of 2010, one could read that evalu-ation processes had gone “from being ice-cold to luke-warm”. In other words, frombeing considered a grey dreary fact of ex-istence to evolving into something useful,at least within state and municipal activi-ties. Indicative of this is that a number ofauthorities have been established in Swe-den during the past 10 years for the solepurpose of monitoring and producing eva-luations. 2011 will also see the establish-ment of a government authority on culturalanalysis.

It is not evaluation in general, but theuse of indicators in particular whichhas become popular. A search enquiryin the proposal from the Swedish Nati-onal Agency for Higher Education for anew national quality assurance systemprovides more than 30 hits on theword ‘indicator’. What is the reason?Why do we want to measure more?

A long tradition of gathering statistics We have a long tradition of gatheringstatistics from the library sector. Bothpublic library statistics and researchlibrary statistics have data from the1950s. These time sequences of datareflect what we traditionally considerto be the core functions of a library:loans, user visits, and collection andreference questions.

What is it we can take into accountwhen applying present scales of mea-surement regarding core activities of li-braries? We have seen that the numberof loans, visits and reference questionshave declined, as have the collections ofprinted books. The results are by no

12 SPLQ:4 2010

hing?

The libraries' mission, operations,collections, and accessibility havechanged. Not least, user patterns andneeds have changed.

Statistics are not reliableIt also became apparent through theinterview project that library manage-ment felt there to be quality issues re-garding the national library statistics,and especially concerning the reliability

of statistics. The provision oflibrary statistics appears to be

caught in a vicious circle.Libraries fail to believe

that nationallibrary statistics

are reliable andare therefore

not as accuratewhen reporting data, and

they place even less faith in their ap-proach when gathering statistics, etc.

We compare the wrong thingsIn the national

library statis-tics compari-sons have forinstance

been madebetweenthenumber

of down-loads of e-

books andthe numberof new cir-culation sta-tistics ofprintedbooks.

Comparisons have also been made be-tween the number of physical visits tolibrary facilities and number of visits tolibraries’ web sites. Parallels have alsobeen drawn between the increase intuition and the decline in the numberof reference questions – all this in anattempt to reflect a library’s develop-ment. This line of reasoning has pro-voked reactions, and many believe thatthe comparisons rest on false groundsand that the use of e-resources is notequivalent to loans of printed mate-rials.

We know too littleA reason why comparative statistics areperceived as less appropriate is perhapsthat we in general know too little aboutour users and their behaviour patterns.Studies have been conducted, amongother places, in England as to howstudents use e-books – in Sweden weknow too little about how the act ofreading occurs and how readers maketheir way into printed and digital texts.

Quality and quantityThe interview project showed thatqualitative measures are needed ratherthan quantitative when communicatingwith management. Several librarieshave identified their work processesand thereby making a library's operati-onal activities visible to management.Stockholm University Library has im-plemented a major reorganisation, ba-sed on the library's main processes.This has increased awareness as to howscales of measurements can be appliedin various ways. Catherine Ericson-Roos, Head Librarian at the StockholmUniversity Library, noted in her report

that “The processes that can havemeasurable objectives also have them.This applies to processes such as identi-fying and placing books on shelves,interlibrary loans, acquisitions andcataloguing. Others are dependent oncustomer surveys and evaluations ofvarious kinds, such as education andinformation work.”

That scales of measurements in statis-tics are perceived as inadequate is per-haps because we are measuring what iseasy to measure whilst libraries arecurrently in a process of change. Thediscrepancy between what is developedand displayable and the traditionalaspects that have always been measuredhas simply become too large.

Are indicators the solution?If traditional statistical approaches failto describe library activities perhaps anindicator can do it. The term indicatoris widely used, but what do we put intothe notion? The Swedish National Fi-nancial Management Authority definesthe concept of performance indicatoras a “measurement that can be used inassessing the success of stated goals orpolicies.”The starting point is that there is atargeting system. At this stage, a librarythat makes use of indicators can runinto problems because libraries andtheir respective councils have notalways incorporated libraries in theirgoverning documents. Not all localcouncils mention libraries in their stra-tegic documents and for instance aspecial library might find it difficult toeven gain a clear mandate from itscouncil.

13SPLQ:4 2010

Christine Lindmark

When the data for a core business starts declining, the existence of

libraries tends to be disputed. But more is perhaps not always better

and what has previously been measured at libraries perhaps no longer

constitutes a library's core activities

• Number of children’s book loans per child 0-14 years

• Number of children’s books per child0-14 years

• Number of books per capita• New acquisitions per capita• AV collections per capita• Magazine subscriptions per 1,000

inhabitants• Library employees per 1,000 inhabi-

tants• Total operating cost per capita.

It has been made apparent in a numberof municipalities that the allocation offunds is based solely on some of theseindicators. Municipalities do an ana-lysis of library performance based onindicators and much is then under-stood as being better. Fewer loans orfewer visits can therefore in realitymean a decrease in acquisitions funds.It is the traditional core business,which makes an impact and it is diffi-cult for libraries to show that new acti-vities have been implemented and re-quire resources.

School librariesThe Swedish Arts Council gathersschool library statistics. The latestgathering of statistics was done in2008. Once again, the Library Associa-tion processed the material and

constructed an indicator for schoollibraries: The percentage rate ofschools with school libraries staffed ofa total number of school libraries. Staf-fing can in this case be either staffing atthe school library or that a school li-brary is integrated with a public libraryor that a school uses a library atanother school unit. The indicator isnew and has no correlation over timebut can safely be used in debates aboutthe existence of school libraries.

Hospital librariesHospital libraries have undergone achange. From being solely patientlibraries the hospital libraries of todayexist both as patient libraries and animportant information resource forhospital staff. The gathering of statis-tics, which the Swedish Arts Councildid in 2010, was based on a newsurvey-form, which was devised anddeveloped to better suit the present-dayactivities of hospital libraries. In ge-neral terms one can say that the ques-tions asked of hospital libraries in thisnew survey are more related to researchlibrary issues than, as before, publiclibrary issues. A new network has beeninstigated for the heads of hospitallibrary and there is now a solid foun-dation to proceed with for instancestatistics and quality issues.

We have no national library strategy inSweden today. We do however have theLibraries Act, which is currently subjectto revision. Nor do we have nationalindicators for libraries. The closest at-tempt was in a project by the SwedishLibrary Association several years ago.This was when the ISO standard 11 620Performance indicators for librarieswas translated and a number of libra-ries, both public and research librariesattempted to use indicators during aperiod of time to see how useful theywere and if the indicators could beused as a kind of benchmarking be-tween libraries. If we instead look atthe use of indicators among the diffe-rent library types and at individuallibraries, there are at least a couple ofexamples to highlight.

Public librariesEach year the Swedish Arts Councilgathers and compiles statistics for thepublic library sector. Subsequently, theSwedish Library Association, on itsown initiative, produces an adaptationof the data sorted by county and muni-cipality. In this way the Library Associ-ation produces 10 indicators for publiclibraries:

• Number of visits per capita• Total loans per capita

14 SPLQ:4 2010

We have no national library strategy in Sweden today... Nor do we have national indicators for libraries

cators divided into four areas: research,education, operational fundamentalsand growth potential. Among the indi-cators are the more traditional onessuch as “How much of the interlibraryloan volume consists of lending?” Inwhich the interpretation lies in the factthat the library has a good stock if thelending volume is greater than theloans to the library itself, and “ILL:time for book orders” whereby the timespan it takes between initiating a re-quest to when the user receives thematerial should be as short as possible.But there are also indicators which at-tempt to describe new activities such asvisits to library web sites in relation tothe number of students and staff at theuniversity. Attempts at reflecting thelibrary's development potential is setby the indicator "How many of a stra-tegy plan’s objectives have been metthroughout the year?" and the library’sdevelopments in collaborating withother organisations and finding ex-ternal customers have received theirown indicators.

Research librariesThe Swedish special research librariesreply to the same questions as thoseput to university and college libraries.It appears that a number of issues inthe national statistics are not relevantto special research libraries. The resultsare misleading and research librariesare virtually invisible when comparedto university and college libraries. In anewly written report, Kerstin Assars-son-Rizzi presents the situation whichspecial research libraries within thehumanities find themselves in, and itbecomes clear that special researchlibraries have difficulty maintainingtheir positions both in relation to theirprincipals as well as other researchlibraries. Resources are small at specialresearch libraries, while their collec-tions and expertise in many cases are

University and college librariesThe National Library has by traditionsupported the Swedish Arts Council inthe gathering of statistics for the re-search libraries. Questions and defini-tions of terms have largely been basedon international standards. The datacompiled are used by Urank, which is afree and independent association forthe study of and performance of theSwedish university and college rank-ings. Urank publishes an annual rank-ing of Swedish universities. This rank-ing included two indicators related tothe library:

• The libraries’ grants from the parent organisation as a share of the univer-sity’s total assets

• Acquisition (printed material and electronic resources) divided by the number of students.

Urank have five criteria and withineach criterion, there are a number ofindicators. The library is a separatecriterion; others are students, teachers,education and research. One can there-fore say that libraries are well repre-sented even if the indicators reflect atraditional image of the library.

One university library has gone furtherin using indicators and that is the MidSweden University Library who in closecollaboration with the university prin-ciples has developed a quality index.The aim is to show how library opera-tions work and how well the librarymeets the goals contained in the uni-versity's strategy plan. The library sawan opportunity to work through thequality index to reach a clearer under-standing of how integrated the library'sactivities are with other areas withinthe university.

The present quality index has 16 indi-

totally unique. In an attempt to betterreflect more precisely the uniqueness ofthe special research libraries the reportsuggests an indicator for special re-search libraries: the number of uniquetitles registered in the union catalogueLIBRIS, compared with the total num-ber of titles registered in the same cata-logue for a specific special researchlibrary. The interpretation of the indi-cator is that the larger the share ofunique titles in LIBRIS the moreimportant a collection is. With the helpof such an indicator a research librarycan emphasize its unique role to itsprincipal. It is also easier to present anational scenario in which the variousspecial research library collectionscomplement each other and also com-plement the collections of the NationalLibrary. The use of such an indicatorwould encourage research libraries toan even greater extent to cataloguetheir unique material in LIBRIS, ratherthan what is most in demand, as sooften is the case today. Another advan-tage is that the results of the indicatorcan be entirely machine generated.

The National LibraryThe National Library has been com-missioned by the Department of Edu-cation to develop indicators that betterdescribe the results of its operations.For instance, the department has re-quested suggestions for indicators topresent results from its provision. TheNational Library has taken part ininternational ventures within the ISOto develop indicators for national libra-ries and these recommendations havebeen the basis for its continued inter-nal work.

The National Library’s expert group on library statisticsThe responsibility for gathering officiallibrary statistics lies now with the Swe-dish Arts Council. The gathering of

15SPLQ:4 2010

of national indicators needed as inNorway? Should we in that case use theinternational indicators, developed byISO and which are in the process ofmodernization? Or should we createour own? Or collaborate with the otherNordic countries?

Are we closer to the truth with regardto the results of library operations if weuse the indicators compared to traditi-onal statistical approaches? Is it notrather the case that, in addition to pro-ducing better tangible results withinthe library community, we should alsoanalyze the impact of library activities?The question then is not about howmany books are borrowed per capita orper student. The question is ratherwhether children with access to aschool library achieve better educati-onal results? Does the student withaccess to a university library improvehis academic results? Do hospital libra-ries create better health care? Doesaccess to a public library increase adulteducation? Does the National Librarycontribute to the nation's collectivememory?

We measure, therefore we are – but thequestion is for how long. If we do notanalyze the impact of library activities,we will not be able to choose a pathand therefore not be able to justify theimportance of a library. Of course, it isa problem that we measure the wrongthings but the crucial question is: arewe doing the right things?

Christine LindmarkExecutive Officer: Statistics and Evaluation

National Library of SwedenEmail: christine.lindmark(@)kb.se

Translated by Jonathan Pearman

data made in January 2010 covering2009 is the first collection where thepublic libraries, research libraries andhospital libraries have responded to thequestionnaires in the same time periodand in which the results have been pro-cessed simultaneously. A degree ofharmonization of the questions foreach library type has been effectuatedwhile a few new issues have emerged.

The efforts to coordinate library stati-stics are based on the National Libra-ry’s expert group on library statistics.The Expert Group’s objective is torepresent all types of publicly fundedlibraries, and to gather all significantplayers in the field. The group studiesfuture scenarios and works in a longterm perspective. During the comingyear, the groups of experts have puttheir time to revising the questionnaireto accommodate the different librarytypes. The starting point are the ISOstandards that deal with library statis-tics and which are also under revision.The idea is that the added areas ofquestions included in the standards areto be used in the Swedish questionnaireand that all definitions are retrievedfrom the standards and thus are iden-tical regardless of library type.

There is a parallel, ongoing process indeveloping a common technical systemfor managing library statistics. To havea common reporting system in whichlibraries can also extract data and pro-cess it locally is something that infor-mation providers and library directorshave wanted. There is also an ongoingdialogue with suppliers of library sy-stems. Even here there is a need for aharmonization of terms used in librarysystems and definitions used for statis-tics to facilitate the withdrawal of sta-tistics from the systems. The idealwould of course be that some basicdata could be obtained directly from

the system and delivered to the nati-onal statistics without too much ma-nual intervention from the libraries. Itwould streamline the work conside-rably. If the basic data could be extrac-ted from the systems, time could in-stead be used to develop indicators andto produce thematic analyses.

In November 2009 the National Libra-ry was assigned with the task of formu-lating an overall national strategy planfor publically funded libraries. Theirresponse was a plan that was publishedin the spring of 2010. The plan de-scribes how the National Library invarious ways desires to work towards anational collaboration in the librarysector. Working on a national scalewith quality aspects and statistics areconsistent with the assignment and arewell in line with the ongoing work ofthe Expert Group on Statistics.

We measure – therefore we existThere is a sense of awareness amonglibraries that follow-ups of variouskinds are needed and that quality workis crucial, among other things, to en-able constructive dialogues with thosein management who are also respon-sible for funding. At present thereseems to be consensus on a nationallevel that we measure the wrong thingsin the library sector. The question iswhat we want to make available withour statistics. Is there a tangible resultthat can be applied for the purpose ofrequesting more funds? In this case,perhaps a number of indicators mightbe a useful tool. Who shall then actu-ally determine the content of an indi-cator then becomes a crucial point.Who has the power to put together adisplay and to determine the level ofachievement? And what is then con-nected to the outcome of the indicator?Is it the allocation of funds, number ofstaff or something else? Are a number

16 SPLQ:4 2010

We measure – therefore we exist. But the question is for how long

As the response to the two-year project in Iniöwas positive and even enthusiastic, the librarydecided to broaden out the service to the otherregular ferries in the nearby villages. Thearrangement means the library does not haveto hire or let alone acquire a boat or pay forfuel but can still offer a library service for thehundreds of people living regularly in thearchipelago. The staff on the ferries havewelcomed the service onboard and have evenmade acquistion suggestions of their own. Theservice is popular and the library is planning tomake it a regular part of the supply ofservices.

The users, old and new, are a satisfied lot.When reading, or at least borrowing books,was thirty years age seen as something for thewomen and children to do while the menmostly compared notes with the boatswain onthe pier, today many men are regular custo-mers. Librarian Gerd Backman-Pettersson whohas been involved wth the book boat almostfrom the first day notes that the highlights ofthe job are the moments when you’ve beenable to choose the user a book which theydidn’t even know they wanted. That is some-thing you cannot measure in euros.

Päivi JokitaloCoordinator

National Library Network Services paivi.jokitalo@helsinki.fi

17SPLQ:4 2010

No man is an island(When there is a book boat service available)In the Åboland archipelago in WesternFinland a book boat has been serving theinhabitants on the small islands around thetown of Pargas for over 30 years. The boathas not been built for library service - it isactually an operating sea rescue boatwhich can be called out anytime, also du-ring library service hours - and the serviceonly runs during the summer months, but itis still both popular and invaluable. It hasalso up until the recent years been the onlybook boat in Finland, in spite of the factthat 46 000 kilometres of the country’s cir-cumference is made up of coastal line withover 73 000 islands.

The book boat service run in Pargas haseleven stops every four weeks from May toSeptember. Some of the users request certainbooks from the library beforehand but manyrely on the librarians’ recommendations. If thecustomer is not at home, sometimes the is-sued material is left at their front door or onthe pier for the user to pick up later.

The boat carries 20 to 25 boxes of materialswhich have been carefully selected by thestaff with the needs of the customers in mind.The library staff needs to be familiar with notonly the library collections but also the targetgroup consisting of three generations of islan-ders. The preparations take about a week andeach and every one of the 600 books hasbeen thoroughly weighed and considerednecessary for the users as space is scarce.

The book boat collection includes a great dealof non-fiction: gardening, handicraft, fishingand hunting are popular topics. Books onhistory and environmental protection are alsobeing widely read. Fiction, large print andtalking books are part of the collections, as amatter of course, and children’s books havetheir own audience in the youngest generation.

After the 30-year-celebrations of the book boatservice in 2006, Tiina Viik, the library directorof Pargas Public Library and the rest of thestaff started to work towards expanding thesphere of the maritime library service to theneighbouring municipalities. As the libraries inthe region had long been cooperating acrossmunicipal borders, it was a natural progres-sion, even more so when five of the municipa-lities were consolidated in 2008 to form thenew town of Väståboland.

Today the service operates in three other ofthe former municipalities. The ferry servicingthe islands around Iniö was the first to carryfive boxes of books, which are changed everymonth during the winter months by the libra-rian from the local library. With a grant fromthe Ministry of Education and Culture in 2007,Iniö was able to expand the hours of the libra-rian and buy new material for loan. Unlike onthe boat in Pargas, there is no regular personalservice available but a booklet where the bor-rowers can record their inter-library loan re-quests and ask for any additional materialfrom the local library.

Books left on the pier with

the message: “We’re out

fishing. Thanks for the

service this summer.”

The librarian will leave new

books in place of the

returned ones

FINLAND

Päivi Jokitalo

They contended that learning shouldbe seen in relation to the context inwhich it occurs. These learning com-munities were termed Communities ofPractice (CoP). The term CoP denotesinformal learning cooperative groupsas a basis for skills development. Wen-ger defines Communities of Practice as:“groups of people who share a concernor a passion for something they do andlearn how to do it better as they inter-act regularly.”

Case Lier Upper Secondary SchoolBefore the summer holiday started,school librarian Birgithe Schumann-Olsen called for both ideas and prac-tical efforts to contribute to the re-newal of the library. The Buskerudbandits turned out with the objectiveof renewing as much as possible in thecourse of one day.

The library at Lier Upper SecondarySchool is relatively new and has an areaof 180 square metres. It is situated inan annexe, which links two buildingstogether. The library occupies a centralposition on the second floor betweenthe staff room and the classrooms. Thisensures good relationships betweenstaff and pupils. The library is veryattractive with a lot of natural lightcoming from the windows on bothlong sides of the building. The endpanels on several of the bookshelvesare decorated with old photos of Lier,which gives the library a distinctivecharacter.

What we did• Removed bookshelves totalling 20

metres of shelf space• Discarded 497 books, both fiction

and non-fiction• Moved bookshelves to create more

space for reading and meeting areas• Placed three bookshelves at an angle

to break up the space and provide new sight lines within the library

• Moved the PC worktables up to the windows to provide more space for free movement of users through the library.

Reflections on the processIt is actually possible to create a newlibrary in one day. Creative work ishard, process-oriented, intensive andfun. We started the day quite literallyby turning over a new leaf and startingafresh. Ideas and practical solutionsfollowed each other in close succession.This type of change requires a veryopen, secure and broad-minded libra-rian, who can work out solutionstogether with those who do not workin the library on a daily basis. It is adistinct advantage that those who par-ticipate have concrete work experiencefrom different types of library. In ourcase we had experience from professi-onal, public, county and school libra-ries. Diverse backgrounds provide abroader discussion and experiencebasis, which gives greater weight to thearguments, while the solutions arebased on solid practical experience. Allthe participants were enthusiastic andpositive. Being attentive and showing

NORWAY

18 SPLQ:4 2010

In 2007 Buskerud County Library Servicedecided to focus on weeding and librarycollection development. The people en-gaged in this work were soon dubbed theBuskerud bandits. By becoming involved inpractical and creative change in the libra-ries in Buskerud, the county library servicewishes to foster a common practice ofweeding, collection development and reor-ganising the physical library space. Thestarting point for the practical work is a‘weeding stunt’ and physical reorganisa-tion of the library. Fewer books on theshelves provide more room for changes tothe actual library space.

Why weed? Many librarians find it difficult to‘abandon’ books in decent physicalshape. The lack of weeding results inlow turnover rates and creates publicareas dominated by shelves rather thanspace for browsing, reading and otherin-house activities. When we weed wemake sure that we maintain a collec-tion that is vital, relevant, and useful.The Buskerud bandits base their weed-ing on the American manual: Crew: AWeeding Manual for Modern Libraries(www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew). Thishas been in use for over 30 years and isbeing translated into Norwegian byJannicke Røgler.

Communities of practiceThe theory of communities of practiceis rooted in the work of Etienne Wen-ger and Jean Lave, done at the begin-ning of the 1990s on situated learning.

Extreme makeover at Lier upper secondary school

Jannicke Røgler

19SPLQ:4 2010

respect for the opinions of others inturn created a culture characterised byhumour, curiosity, generosity andopenness. These are useful qualities inworking with change.

One goal to strive towards would be togather a group of weeders and interiordesigners, who have a particular in-terest in the subject. This group ofpeople, by all means call them a com-munity of practice, will be able to helpother libraries. One thing the Buskerudbandits have discovered is that it isoften easier to weed books in librariesother than one’s own. There will be lessof a personal relationship to the collec-tion and one can more easily give upone’s ‘darlings’. However it is necessaryto have good local knowledge of thelibrary users and the collections.

Reactions from school librarian, teachersand pupils to the extreme makeoverThe school librarian has received no-thing but positive reactions to thechanges. She hears comments from the

teachers that the reorganisation hasprovided more space, more light and agreater feeling of openness. It was alsosaid that the photos on the end panelscame more into their own, now thatthe shelves are standing at an angle.

Nobody has noticed that 500 bookshave gone, but then no one has askedfor any of these discarded books either.More space between the shelves hasgiven more room to display books andhas reduced the need to reshuffle thecollection. The fact that a whole shelfsection was removed has increased theopenness. Even if people do not noticeit has gone, they recognize the effect itsremoval has produced.

It was on the librarian’s own initiativethat the extreme makeover took place,but immediate superiors were in-formed ahead of time. Afterwards shereceived very positive feedback fromboth her immediate superior and thehead teacher. The librarian referred tophotos and articles on the whole pro-cess. The work attracted commentsboth orally and on Face book by theHead.

Sharing the experienceThe results of the stunts are docu-mented in various forms, as pictureson Flickr (flickr.com/photos/buskfyb/collections/72157623334641144), asfilm on vimeo (vimeo.com/12968916),as reports on our web pages and a blog,as well as in the news media. By show-ing examples of what we do, we in-

crease the focus on collections and thephysical library space.

Crammed on the shelves?Taking “Awfullibrarybooks” as a model,I have started a blog “Trangtihylla”(Norwegian for: crammed on theshelves) to present good candidates forweeding. By focusing on outdatedbooks in a humorous way we havesucceeded in drawing many librarystaff into the discussion. The blog re-ceives many comments and is relativelywell visited. This is one of many waysto create reflection and discussionaround the topic of discarding books.

ConclusionThe Buskerud bandits are one exampleof change happening over time. Long-term priorities have the greatest effecton change. We have found that theconcept of communities of practice canlead to useful and effective methods fordeveloping skills.

The Buskerud bandits’ work and resul-ting success has become an exportcommodity. Three other counties havehad or will have whole day seminars onweeding and collection developmentwhere the undersigned will be lectu-ring.

Jannicke RøglerResearch fellow at Oslo University College

and Library advisor at Buskerud county libraryJannicke.rogler@bfk.no

Translated by Akasie språktjenester AS

The weed-crew looking for possible

“Awfulllibrarybooks” at Vestfossen

Library in Buskerud County

20 SPLQ:4 2010

skills in teamwork, computer skills(including social media), and theability to adjust to change. They shouldalso have some degree of extroversionand the desire and skills to act andperform or make presentations. Otherimportant attributes nowadays alsoinclude knowledge of the financialsector and the ability to create varioustypes of agreements, etc. using soft-ware.

Being able to teach people how to lookfor information in an interesting way isalso an ability that requires more thanjust walking through the library andsurfing through homepages from onelink to the other. Studies pertaining topedagogy and the guidance and em-powerment of youth would also beuseful for library professionals.Likewise, being able to introduce andmarket library materials using the la-test equipment as well as the ability towrite for various media about thematerial in question, knowledge ofother cultures, and skills in communi-cation and languages to use in a glo-balizing environment are also skillsneeded in today’s libraries.

I must admit, it all sounds rather de-manding when considering the level ofthe wages in the field. This is an issuethat is sometimes problematic. Forexample, there are about 100 job appli-cants for each professional position inthe library in Oulu (excluding manage-ment positions). However, there areonly a few among the 100 applicantswho fulfil the qualifications, althoughthey may be formally qualified other-wise. Municipalities that offer trainingin the library field have a better chanceof finding the desired types of appli-cants than municipalities where suchtraining is not available. However,

despite the low rate of wages for muni-cipal jobs, they are becoming more andmore valued because, for example, thegrowing unemployment of youngpeople in Finland is a serious threat.Municipalities are still good employers,and it can be said that, to a youngperson, obtaining a permanent job islike winning the lottery. Young people,and why not older ones, who are usedto working in temporary positions,value permanent jobs despite the lowwages.

In the future, the library will employan increasing number of professionalswhose skills are related to youth andsocial work or the production of otherservices in the city or municipality, forexample. Nowadays, libraries oftenhouse facilities where young people canspend time, information service deskswhere people can obtain advice andguidance about the community, orfacilities for community gatherings tomeet other people, read the newspaper,have cup of coffee, etc. Offering thesetypes of activities in the library engen-ders fluctuation in the boundariesbetween professions and library staffmust learn or have the pleasure oflearning new ways of working and evenof learning the issues involved in adifferent profession. These types ofmulti-professional workplaces alsoprovide an opportunity for representa-tives of other professions to learn thetasks carried out in libraries. Traditi-onal job descriptions will change, andthis is an area on which training mustconcentrate. Dialogue concerning thechanges in library professions shouldtake place between employers andeducational institutions more often.

The principle substance of libraries willalso change. Smaller libraries, which

FINLAND

Library professionals amidst changeThe notion of change has been a topic ofconversation in the library field for sometime now; change pertaining to content,collections, services and facilities. Natu-rally, all of this concerns the people whowork in libraries. Library staff has listenedto lectures about change, how they shouldreact to it, how they experience changeand how things change in the library. Indeed the profession is also changing,whether we want it or not.

In 2009, the average age of the staff inthe Oulu Central Library was 48.5. Inthe next five years, 27 people will retire;that is 24.3 % of the entire staff. This isa rather normal situation for most ofthe libraries in Finland, as the BabyBoom generation will be retiring fromthe public sector around the sametime. Although the economic down-swing has resulted in many changes inthe municipal labour market situation,job positions will need to be filled inthe future as well, albeit the number ofthose positions will probably decrease.

What types of professionals will libra-ries need in the future? The image of asteadfast library professional still holdsstrong, although it too is in the processof change. An interest in literature andreading is one very favourable, and de-sirable characteristic for library profes-sionals, but it is not enough. However,for many people, it still is one motivefor entering into the library field,which often surfaces during the re-cruitment process.

Today’s library professionals are re-quired to have not only an interest inliterature, but they also need to becreative, possess professional flexibility,knowledge of literature, social skills, abroad range of general knowledge,

online; where then is a library clerkneeded, for example? The professionsof library clerks and librarians aremerging and no longer will as muchstaff be needed to do routine work. Inthe future, the increase of online mate-rial will reduce the amount of physicalloans, something that is already evi-dent. For example, loans of music ma-terial in libraries have steadily de-creased. The organisational structuresin libraries and municipalities and thedifferent regulations and restrictionsinfluencing permanent job posts andduties make it difficult to answer to theneed to renew library staff. Thereshould be courage enough to take thestep to change job titles and reform thestructure of the staff. For example,publicist, marketing manager, eventsservices producer, systems specialist,development manager, project planneror manager or coordinator, electronicservices specialist, and content specia-list would be necessary duties in libra-ries. Of course, the titles as such haveno meaning, but keeping the old libra-rian and library clerk titles may have aconfining effect and prevent the expan-sion of job descriptions to meet today’sneeds. Once again, it is a question ofwages and training, the level and con-tent of which should meet the needs ofemployers.

The concept of pro-action has reachedthe library as well. Hopefully the timeswhen the staff sat behind their deskstaring at the computer doing ‘their

own work’ while patrons humblyapologized for disturbing them arebehind us, and part of the history ofthe library. Library professionals needto come out from behind their desk, orat least the desks should be loweredand converted into electronic terminalsto make it as easy as possible forpatrons to approach members of staffto ask questions when needed. Thereare numerous on-going customer-ser-vice projects in Finland, which strive toencourage staff to come out from be-hind the barricade and advise patronsas they browse through the shelves andin other areas where communicatingwith others is easy. The material in thelibrary needs to be marketed, and whowould be better at it than a libraryprofessional.

Library management is also faced withchallenges – a crystal ball and the giftof foreseeing the future would be awelcome perk in the director’s toolarsenal, but there is hardly trainingavailable for those types of things. Theaging and retirement of the staff, to-gether with a weakening municipaleconomy, fluctuating costs, municipalmergers, and a decrease in the amountof loans are just a few of the challengesdirectors must deal with. Good mana-gement is the sum total of manythings, and not just anyone is suitablefor the position. Different trends inmanagement theory come and go, butwith a compassionate, people-friendlyyet assertive approach and a knack forcost calculation, identifying worldlyphenomena and lobbying, one can getquite far.

Pirkko LindbergLibrary Director

Oulu City and Provincial Library pirkko.lindberg@ouka.fi

Translated by Turun Täyskäännös

21SPLQ:4 2010

Pirkko Lindberg

are profiled toward a certain type ofpatron group or area, will emerge. Thistype of development is already evidentin some municipalities in Finland.Library 10 in conjunction with theHelsinki City Library and Entresse,which is a part of the library in Espoo,are good examples of well-profiledlibraries. The boundaries betweenschool libraries and public libraries willalso fade; the Ritaharju combo-libraryin Oulu, which just opened its doors, isa good example. It also merged admi-nistratively. The information specialistthere is employed by both the schooland the library and in this way crossesprofessional boundaries. The library’soperations concept has been plannedtogether with the school. These typesof solutions once again pose challengesto library professions. In the future,there will no longer be just one jobdescription for librarians or libraryclerks; rather, each job description willbe tailored personally according to theduties in question and with considera-tion to the person’s skills and characte-ristics. Recruitment has become a chal-lenging endeavour and will becomeincreasingly challenging in the futureas well.

The introduction of automation inlibraries has also changed library pro-fessions. The borrowing, and nowadaysreturning of material, is self-service.Next, material reservations will bemade self-service. Patrons alreadyrenew their loans and pay their fees

DENMARK

Core business and core competences in libraries

change from agricultural society toindustrial and urban society. He em-phasized the fact that the professionsshould endeavour to keep a societytogether where traditions had becomeredundant. Today we observe similarlybig changes in society where the needfor specialist knowledge by no meansdiminishes.

There has been quite a lot of debate inDenmark about whether the increasingnumber of academics or ‘academizing’is a sign of increasing bureaucratisa-tion. Personally, I don’t believe that.The public sector is challenged by thedemands for more services from amore and more well-educated popula-tion. This requires employees whoknow how to apply the new technologyin order to create better and cheaperaccess to public services. At the sametime employees must deal with ever-more complex questions and commu-nicate on the basis of the customer’s orcitizen’s needs. Since 2000 about 5,000new academic jobs have been createdannually in both the private and publicsector, many of which are related to thedevelopment of information techno-logy and not least to the use of IT innew contexts.

The number of academics in the libra-ries has likewise increased – more and

more, particularly MAs in libraryscience and MAs in culture and media-tion, have found their way to the libra-ries.

The new professionals and the academizationWe have moved from a collective so-ciety to a society where the individualhas got far greater economic and per-sonal freedom than ever before. Thismeans that we now have the opportu-nity to make demands on our ownbehalf, and that our own life projecthas moved into the centre to a muchlarger degree.Where previously the professionals inthe public sector pontificated valuesand attitudes this has now been re-placed by debate and dialogue. Today itis a question of making resourcesavailable or acting as service provider.You can for example read this in 9principles for good public service, whereit is being emphasized that servicemust be delivered on the citizen’spremisses. The principles were formu-lated in 2008 in a collaborationbetween Danish Regions, the NationalAssociation of Local Authorities inDenmark and the State.

This does not mean that the professio-nals should forget their professionalcompetence – on the contrary. Thedoctor, who asks his patient what hebelieves is the matter with him, disre-gards his own professionalism. Thelibrarian likewise disregards his profes-sional competence, if he asks about theuser’s knowledge of library systems.The librarian must activate his know-ledge and competence in order toobtain the best possible result.

22 SPLQ:4 2010

Today the libraries are facing at leasttwo major challenges. The larger of thetwo has to do with a gigantic process ofchange, where Danish libraries have toadapt to functioning as both a physicaland a virtual library. The process ofchange means a completely differentorganisation and new services whichperhaps are unknown to us at themoment.The second challenge is demographic.Within just a few years about 30 per-cent of the librarians will be leaving thelabour market. It is first and foremostin the public libraries and research li-braries that members of staff are gene-rally older than in the rest of the la-bour market. In a very short time thelibrary system will be 1,500 librariansshort. The library educations produce– in a good year – about 150 qualifiedlibrarians, so we are talking about amassive ‘bloodletting’. It must be said,though, that a recent positive turn inthe admittance number of the Danishlibrary educations, partly at The RoyalSchool of Library and InformationScience, partly at the recently estab-lished library education at the Univer-sity of Southern Denmark augurs wellfor an increase in this number in a fewyears.

This leaves us with the question: Whatwill the future library organisationlook like? Do we need academic/libra-rianship competence in the library ofthe future?

Growing need for academic labour forceAround the year 1900 Max Weberdescribed the professions and theirfunction in a society, which at thattime was undergoing a profound

In a very short time thelibrary system will be1,500 librarians short

We need all the innovative power thatcan be generated in order to success-fully deal with the changes which arehappening due to new technology, newforms of communication, new forms ofdialogue, new organisations, etc.A strong core professionalism mustcreate the vision of the future libraryservice. Targeted and applied research,knowledge and method are essentialelements when running and developinglibraries, solutions centres, communitycentres, faculty support centres orwhatever designations we choose toapply to the future physical or virtualspace, but which must represent thecore business in a future library organi-sation.

Core business and core competences in the libraryThe most important factor in thisdevelopment of new library services isthat one knows one’s core business andone’s core competences. Core compe-tences are necessary when attemptingto develop value-creating and usefulservices for the citizens. Over the pastfew years this has typically been ac-complished via specific developmentdepartments or indeed as part of aninnovative culture.

New generations seek answers from theprofessionals, but also challenge theirknowledge and expect a dialogue aboutthe solution of a given problem. At thesame time the professionals’ knowledgeis seen as a commodity to be sold onthe market just like other goods andservices. The direct product is today –as opposed to previously – characteri-zed by the user/customer being co-producer. The librarian’s competences

should therefore be combined withgeneral, mediatory competences. Butthat also means that core professiona-lism must be even sharper.

A library does not compromise profes-sional competence by involving theusers as co-producers, whether thishappens by e.g. asking the patrons toadd subject words to articles or write areview. Many libraries increasingly in-volve the customer as co-producer andmany exciting experiments are goingon.

But libraries and librarians are under-going a development, which cannot besaid to be unique, being general formost professions. The meeting with thecitizen, the student, the client, the useror the customer is gaining in impor-tance. This is due to the fact that thecitizen has become more competentand very often has a ready answer, butat the same time wants to discuss hispoint of view with a professional. Theprofessional has suddenly become a‘second opinion’, which can be some-thing of a challenge for the professio-nal’s own self-image.

The subject-specific professional aca-demic must be able to speak to the userand the customer and mediate his corecompetence in a language they under-stand. This does not mean that com-munication and mediation are corecompetences, but rather that these arenecessary in the development of amodern library. But the raw materialstems from the information-scientificcompetence inherent in the librarians,which will ensure that the library alsohas a future tomorrow!

Public service production and the new academic professionalismThe libraries are facing major strategicdeliberations as to a future library or-ganisation that must be based on otherpremisses than the ones we observetoday. That is why development of anacademic tradition and professionalismin the libraries is vital, where newdiscourses can be nurtured.

It is necessary to introduce the aca-demic professionalism when one has towork systematically with new forms oflearning and the public’s interest inreading, citizens’ use of public portals,development of the cultural urbanspace, digital management and busi-ness service to small and medium-sizedbusinesses. Or to move into the morehyper-professional element with cita-tion analyses, benchmarking, digitalsrights, research data, managementreporting, researcher reporting, datacollection. Just to illustrate the diversitypresent in development and produc-tion of library service.

To put it briefly – we need to sustainand develop the core competences inthe library – the academic competencesor the ones that characterize a librarian– if you like. Both for the sake of thelibrary and the profession, but first andforemost for the sake of the patronswho need to be able to navigate in anew world of knowledge and techno-logy.

Johnny Roj-Larsen, MADirector

The Danish Union of LibrariansJRL@bf.dk

Translated by Vibeke Cranfield

23SPLQ:4 2010

Johnny Roj-Larsen

SWEDEN

Measure and Evaluate About statistics and efficiency at public libraries

theoretical and discursive background.The reasoning in the book concernspublic library service in general yet oneof the chapters, written by Lena Lund-gren, deals specifically with existingand prospective statistics regarding theactivities of children.

Another chapter formulates some pro-posals for taxonomies. They are meantto be used as a basis for discussionswhen implementing partnerships withanother sector. Taxonomies can beused to categorize standards of quality.

In a previous project, called Goals andMeasures, four libraries in Region Väs-tra Götaland were involved in testingperformance indicators. Kerstin Woc-katz informs about the experience inone of the chapters.

Do statistics describe operational activities?To what extent do statistics describetoday's public library activities? Howdo measurements relate to stated ob-jectives? Do we have the key data weneed to pursue operational objectives?How should we interpret scenarios thatemerge from our results? Who shouldwe compare ourselves to in order toanswer whether the results are good orbad?

An important question in statistics iswhat platform for comparisons shouldprevail. Should one only compare dataon an annual basis and internally, one’sneighbouring municipality, the muni-cipalities included in the same muni-cipal group or among those of othercountries? Or should it be compared toother activities?

To a certain extent maybe, it is abouthow we view the concept of perfor-mance or what we mean by efficiency.Is an efficient operation by definitionof a higher standard? To use resourcesmore efficiently one has to deal withthe formulation of efficiency in termsof goals. To understand the purpose asto why scales of measurements arebeing used and linking those to objec-tives will determine whether statisticscan be used in operational develop-ments. It is crucial that by using thegoverning documents we actuallyformulate the intent or purpose of theactivities we perform in libraries.

Internal and external efficiencyThe project has partly been based onnotions of external and internal effici-ency:

External efficiency measures the per-formance of the right choices and thatthe operation is possible and utilizedby the projected target groups.

Internal efficiency can be translated asmeaning a description of daily opera-tions. The operation is supplied withresources and in a number of activitiesthese are converted into a result. Thisresult should preferably provide aneffect that is linked to the objectives.Internal efficiency measures whetherthings are being done the correct way.

We need parameters to describe bothinternal and external efficiency. Aboveall, it is necessary to consider whatindicators are saying and how they canbe combined. For example: If the circu-lation rate, circulation / inventory, in-creases so also should loans increase

24 SPLQ:4 2010

Measure and Evaluate is a project initiatedand administered by the Stockholm CountyLibrary during 2008-2010 with a grantfrom the Swedish National Arts Council.For many years, the national library statis-tics were criticized and discussed and va-rious initiatives have been undertaken toevolve statistical scales of measurementand despite these efforts, statistics haveshown only a marginal improvement.

The criticism lies in how statistics ofthis kind fail to present an accuratepicture of public library operations,how various areas of importance arenot measured at all and how defini-tions remain unclear. To complementthe national statistics, StockholmCounty Library has over a long periodcollected complementary data from thecounty libraries and compiled key datafor Stockholm County. In its work withcounty statistics, Stockholm County Li-brary showed a lack of coherent ana-lysis, which led to the initiation of theproject Measure and Evaluate. Thepurpose of Measure and Evaluate is:

“... to find new scales of measurementthat allow for a broad and reasonablepresentation of library programs andaccount for the scope, quality and effi-ciency as its basis of operational devel-opments. The result will be a paper onlibrary statistics, applying a theoreticaland discursive background, operablesuggestions and applications” (fromproject application to the Arts Council).

About the book Measure and EvaluateThe project resulted in a book, Measureand Evaluate - about statistics and effi-ciency at public libraries, (2010). Thebook’s emphasis has been placed on its

25SPLQ:4 2010

per capita in order to be able to saythat overall efficiency has increased.That is, the joint ratios of the internaland external efficiency together definethe balance between different types ofefficiency that interact to hopefullyform a quality-assured operationalactivity.

Efficiency analysis of reaction rate calculation modelsThere are numerous calculation mo-dels for measuring rates of efficiency.The Danish researcher Niels Ole Porshas constructed a model which is basedon the Balanced Scorecard model. Theproject Goals and Measures let fourmunicipal libraries in Västra Götalandapply some of the key data suggestedby Pors. The point of the BalancedScorecard is to measure and evaluatethe key data from all perspectives thatexist in the model so as to obtain thebalance of operational activities. VästraGötaland's experience clearly demon-strates that single measurements sayvery little about an operation in anoverall context.

It is challenging to draw any conclu-sions as to whether a particular modelis applicable or not merely by review-ing certain key data. Models are oftenbased on an image of the organisationas a stable environment where the effi-ciency criteria is measured at positionA are also expected to apply to positionB. It seems to be that we need otherways of looking at the effectiveness ofthe concept. Efficiency might includethe ability to manage conflicting in-terests and competing values. If oneuses this approach to view efficiency, itmeans that efficiency is not served by

optimizing a particular method, butinstead there is a balance between the(perhaps conflicting) values which overtime favours operational activities. Thechallenge facing an organisation is tofind such a balance and ways of work-ing whereby values relate favourably toeach other over time.

Measuring levels of quality using taxonomiesThe taxonomies presented in the bookdiffer from one another. While we havesought the same number of levels thereare discrepancies if you place taxono-mies next to each other. For example, itis not obvious that level 2 means thesame degree of interaction in all taxo-nomies. This is partly because we are atdifferent stages in terms of cooperationbetween different activities. Libraries,for example, collaborated together for along time with the school sector and inmany places around the country thereare ongoing formal agreements. Agree-ments concerning cooperation betweenlibraries and elderly care are less com-mon. As our activities evolve so hope-fully the highest levels evolve even more and maybe some of the levels willmerge.

Another difference between taxono-mies is the degree of a formalized poli-tical assignment. Public libraries carrymandate to collaborate and formulatemunicipal library strategic plans. Elder-ly care, child care centres and pre-schools have also formulated assign-ments where cooperation with librariescan benefit parts of their work. But thevoluntary sector of associations hasitself no mandate to cooperate with alibrary, although some organisations

would certainly benefit from collabora-tive ventures.

It is important to note that taxonomieshave been developed within a librarycontext, and from the library staff ’sdiverse experiences in cooperativeventures. Although the taxonomiesdescribe cooperation, their formula-tions nevertheless remain based on alibrary’s assignment. It remains un-certain whether they would look thesame if we increasingly cooperatedwith each respective activity when wehave developed taxonomies. Of coursethis is a troublesome fact and mayemphasize the project's ambition toinitiate a work process and to provide awarm welcome to all initiatives tofurther discussions and to the furtherdevelopment of taxonomies. This alsoapplies to the creation of new taxono-mies.

Expectations are that seminars andworkshops will be set up, applying ourknowledge to embrace the use of key-figures, how they can be combined andwhat they say about our activities. Wealso hope that libraries want to testdifferent models in their entirety. Wealso hope that national players such asSweden's County Librarians, LocalAuthorities and County Councils, theNational Library and the Swedish ArtsCouncil keep contributing to ideastaking root, their dissemination andchallenging them to further evolve-ment.

Malin ÖglandDevelopment Manager,

Stockholm County Librarymalin.ogland@kultur.stockholm.se

Translated by Jonathan Pearman

Malin Ögland

To what extent do statistics describe today's public library activities? How do measurements relate to stated objectives?

Do we have the key-data we need to pursue operational objectives?

DENMARK

Partying at the National LibraryNot all libraries, even national libraries,can accommodate 2 600 students on itspremises. The National Library of Den-mark can, and celebrated for the se-cond time the start of the academicyear with a party for Students Only,which is in fact the name of a culturalnetwork for college, polytechnic anduniversity students in Copenhagen butalso elsewhere in the country. Thelibrary building, called the Black Dia-mond, was transformed into a nightclub offering music, poetry, video andsound artists. The well-received arran-gement increased the number of net-work members by 25 percent.

Bibliotekspressen 19.10.2010

Would you like to hear a story?How can I help you? In Herning Libra-ry’s children’s department the staffhave thrown away the desk and instead,are strolling between the shelves andtalking with the users. While somepatrons were worried that the libra-rians had been sacked, children havewelcomed the closer interaction withthe staff. The goal of the project is tocreate links between staff and childrenat the children’s level. While the initialworries of ‘how will the users find us’or ‘what do I do when there are nochildren at the library’ have slowlyfaded, the staff have noticed how theextra attention the children get canmake a difference to the atmosphere atthe library - and in the lives of the children.

Bibliotekspressen 16/2010

FINLAND

The library of your dreamsEven if it is about one local library, themain public library in Helsinki, the

Homework Online is an innovative andexiting new offer to children and youngpeople in Denmark. Three times aweek, Sunday evening being one ofthem – six volunteer homework assistants (mostly university students)are ready at their computers lookingforward to receiving requests. Morethan 800 pupils have used the onlineoffer, which started in January 2010.Several of them have come back anumber of times.

Basically there are three componentsthat have to function and interact inhomework assistance online in orderfor it to be successful. First and fore-most the IT element must be workingsmoothly; secondly the homework as-sistants must be able to meet the needsof the pupils; finally the number ofhomework assistants on duty mustcorrespond to the number of pupilswho ask for assistance. Otherwise pu-pils will be queuing for too long. Untilnow it has been possible to combine allelements in a fruitful way, and in theremaining project period much effortwill be used to boost the number ofusers. That is why an intensive marke-

ting campaign has taken off this au-tumn. Various primary and lower se-condary schools are visited, and theproject managers introduce the home-work site and its possibilities to thepupils. As part of the presentation thepupils watch a short film, where theyoung rapper Chadi Alderbas showshow to use the site. Also You Tube andFace book are used in the marketingcampaign.

Homework Online is a three-year de-velopment project financed by govern-mental funds. The Danish Agency forLibraries and Media together with theMinistries of Integration and Educa-tion are overall responsible for the pro-ject while the State and University Li-brary carries out the project. The pri-mary target group is young pupils fromgrade seven to ten, living in disadvan-taged neighbourhoods. The project isrunning until the end of 2011.See a demonstration of HomeworkOnline: http://www.lektier-online.dk

Ann PoulsenLibrary Consultant

apo@bibliotekogmedier.dk

26 SPLQ:4 2010

ScandinavianShortcuts

Homework assistance on the internet

project of planning a new library building has attracted attention in thewhole of Finland. The library is meantbe ready in 2017, but already the userscan tell how they would like the libraryto look and function. The online ‘Treeof Dreams’ is hung with leaves describ-ing the hopes and dreams of libraryusers. All dreams will be harvested bythe library and some ideas will berealised in branches even before thenew library takes shape. “A quiet andpeaceful corner with comfy chairswhere you can take a nap listening tomusic.” “Silent areas.” “Short storyhours for the grown-ups.” “Arrange-ments for singles and the lonely” wereamong the wishes from the public.

www.keskustakirjasto.fi

Let them eat porridgeThe secret weapon against social exclu-sion at Enontekiö Public Library inLapland is porridge! Morning porridgeis served four days a week as part of theESR project, Step by step, which strivesto help people in danger of being mar-ginalised in society. The target groupsinclude the long-term unemployed,mental health rehabilitation patients,the mentally disabled and youngpeople without work or study place. Asthe library has long opening hours, alow threshold and friendly staff, it is aperfect addition to the project.

www.enontekio.fi/web/index.php?id=95

NORWAY

Literature festivalAll the libraries in the region of Akers-hus took part in the week-long litera-ture festival in October 2010. All in all,200 arrangements were organised aspart of the festival and the national‘Year of Reading’. The libraries hadbeen worried about the Norwegian re-sults in the Pisa study and strengthenedthe cooperation with the schools. As aresult, the use of the libraries has in-creased and in many cases the childrenhave brought their whole family withthem to the library. The festival weekconsisted of readings, exhibitions,author visits and a literature quiz. Onelibrary hosted a rap evening, a Hal-loween party and a teddy bear birthdayparty for the children. In line with thefun programme, the press conferencefor the festival was arranged in themobile library.

Romerikes Blad 20.10.2010

Nordic kickoff time at a library near youDozens of Norwegian (as well as Da-nish and Swedish) libraries offered allkinds of games for their users on the‘Nordic Game Day’ on 13th November.Library users were able to compete inthe Nordic championships in Wii-bowling, or for the local title in thecard game of Magic. SingStar and Gui-tarHero are already old favourites atlibraries but more traditional boardgames were also on the agenda.

http://spilldag.no/

SWEDEN

Book circles on the internet - a joint venture by Swedish librariesWhat started as the endeavour of oneenthusiastic librarian has luckily beenoffered a permanent home when theregional central libraries together takeover the maintenance of the BookCirc-les web site. BookCircles was created byNina Frid in 2007 and has developedinto a meeting place for book loverswith lively discussions and book tips.The libraries involved have got fundingfor a year which means that Frid cancontinue as editor on a part-time basis.She has also, together with two activeparticipants in BookCircles edited acollection of blog texts from the sitecalled ‘You Are Among Book Friends’.Literature is alive and kicking on theinternet.

Biblioteksbladet 8/2010

Culture to go gets a prize in StockholmStockholm Public Library, StockholmPublic Transport and the City of Stock-holm were awarded a prize by theChamber of Commerce for making thecity environment a better place to live.The jury commended the way the threesubway libraries at metro stations havebrought culture closer to the peoplewho gather and move about at thestations every day. As the prize in-cluded a fourth placard it may well bethat there will be more subway librariesin the future.

Biblioteksbladet 6-7/2010

Keep up with developments in the Nordic public libraries in Scandinavian Public Library Quarterly

Scandinavian Public Library QuarterlyVolume 43, no. 4, 2010SPLQMinistry of Education and CultureP.O.Box 29FI-00023 GovernmentFinland

Legally responsible publisher:Editor-in-chiefBarbro Wigell-Ryynänenbarbro.wigell-ryynanen@minedu.fiMinistry of Education and Culture

Co-editors in Denmark,Norway and SwedenJonna Holmgaard Larsenjhl@bibliotekogmedier.dkDanish Agency for Libraries and MediaTertit Knudsentertit.knudsen@nb.noNational Library of NorwayMats Hanssonmats.hansson@kulturradet.seSwedish Arts Council

Lay-out: Staehr Reklame & MarketingStaehr@staehrgrafisk.dkPrint: C.S.Grafisk A/SISSN 0036-5602Electronic ISSN: 1604-4843

Scandinavian Public Library Quarterly(SPLQ) is published by the NordicPublic Library Authorities

Selected byPäivi Jokitalo

www.splq.infoScandinavian Public Library Quarterly