Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal August 2007 Volume 5(4)

Conferences: Twin Cities

Young people - and cats - help show the way

A joint Finnish and Estonian Study Tour revealed innovative approaches to libraries and provided a chance to exchange ideas with Scottish colleagues from a variety of sectors. Silvija Crook reports on an excellent trip.

Ten Scots were invited by the Ministry of Education in Finland to participate in Making a Difference: Towards Library 2.0, a joint Finnish and Estonian Study Tour and Conference. During the trip, 7-10 May, Finland was in a frenzy of excitement in the lead up to the Eurovision Song Contest and Estonia was extremely tense with civic unrest following the removal of a Russian memorial from a square outside the National Library of Estonia. The delegates came from Finland, Estonia, Scotland, Latvia and Lithuania and the common concerns of small nations soon forged lively discussions and a useful exchange of ideas.

The key motivations for attending were to learn more about Scandinavian and Baltic libraries, to present papers and take part in discussions, and to look for new ideas and good practice. There was also a welcome opportunity to spend time with Scottish colleagues from different sectors. We saw very different provision in a varied range of services, often more advanced than here.

Finland’s Parliament buildings were the first stop. The Library 2.0 conference discussed the second generation of services on the Web which lets people work together and share information online. Many of the papers related back to a range of social networking sites including Amazon, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, and Wikipedia, which all depend on high levels of user participation to expand the value of the website. Kimmo Tuominen from the Finnish Parliament Library recognised that sociotechnical changes afford us the opportunity to engage more and more in collective information literate practices and that ordinary people, as well as the experts, are able to function as components in a collective information ecology. Kai Ekholm, Director of the National Library of Finland spoke about the developing European Digital Library. He noted that 89% of students bypass conventional library catalogues and web pages to go straight to search engines. The concept of customers as producers was ably illustrated by Kai Ekholm, Director of Library 10, Helsinki’s dynamic music and IT centre. This centre attracts 60% of its users from the 15-30 age ranges and they are supported by a staff 60% of whom are young men under the age of 35.

The City centre setting allows for evening concerts, comfortable browsing and borrowing and studios and editing suites so customers can record their own CDs leaving them for other library users to enjoy. Later in the week, a visit proved this to be a lively venue and European karaoke was in full flow with couples singing along to Eurovision entries (think Peters and Lee and you won’t be far off).

The Scots were ably represented on the platform with Karen Cunningham describing The Bridge in Easterhouse, the integrated public and college library and lifelong learning centre. Christopher Phillips spoke about Am Baile, the dual English and Gaelic website which helps capture the local memory in the Highlands and Islands, forming a digital archive to improve access to collections.

Although the conference required considerable concentration (following the presentations of speakers who are not native English speakers and busy days visiting libraries), the hosts were very generous. The first day culminated in a Reception hosted by the Finnish Parliament. Rather than the expected one glass and three speeches, it turned out to be three courses and one speech. It was hard to prise me away from the Deputy Director, one of the Departmental Heads of the Latvian National Library, discussing political, economic and library-related issues in my native Latvian.

On day two, seven presentations and a library visit meant a packed day before our Seacat journey south over the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn. Vallo Kelder, Chair of Librarianship Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia spoke about being ready and relevant for users, pointing out that a good librarian is constantly aware and knows what is happening and actively participates. Martyn Wade spoke enthusiastically about the need to use our staff effectively as they form 50 % of our costs and to learn skills from retailing, warehousing, marketing and leisure. Anne Poulson from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London gave an inspiring presentation on strategic leadership skill, noting “the role of leaders is to lead, motivate, support, innovate, take risks and inspire”. Anne Lehtu from the Ministry of Education in Finland and Rhona Arthur shared their concerns about information literacy and developing online tools and key skills. The final two papers addressed reading, with Asko Tamme Director of Tartu City Library in Estonia discussing the motivation behind reading and Tuija Maki from Tampere City Library in Finland who introduced us all to the Library Cat – a simple idea for encouraging children into reading through a website, with Kirjatti, the library cat answering questions and familiarising children with the library through its adventures.

The study tour went first to Aralis, a co-located service housing a Helsinki City Library branch and three university art libraries. This was formed in a redundant factory complex, including the roofing over of an internal courtyard. In general we found that the libraries in Finland and Estonia are beautifully designed, built and furnished. However, stock and display work is a different standard from here. We also found many lovely ideas which health and safety, data-protection or the DDA would never see implemented here – like the open glass walkways in the schools, coat hooks hanging from wires for outdoor clothing and systems which display the names, status and addresses of the current user (and the previous four as well). Libraries were all self-issue, but had good staffing levels and high-quality Wi-fi and broadband connections.

The conference moved south to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. A fantastic walled city, Tallinn is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and during our visit it was the scene of escalated security in the light of riots and looting on the part of the Russian minority that had taken place a week or so beforehand. This made for an exciting visit to the National Library of Estonia, as it was cordoned off by police, a precaution against anticipated unrest on this, the National Day for ethnic Russian people.

Tiiu Valm, the Director of the National Library of Estonia, introduced her service and her staff conducted tours later. The Library was built under Soviet rule but has adapted to Estonian democracy and is full of open spaces, public art and a rich collection which makes it the largest library in the Baltic. Aira Lepik, Professor, Department of Information Studies, Tallinn University, spoke about relationship marketing which had all the Scots on the edge of their seats thinking of where to begin with the ideas generated. Hela Ojasaar, National Library of Estonia, put it all into a context of user education and a training programme which forges a link between the librarian and the library user and acts as a marketing tool.

Library tours in Estonia followed, including two integrated library/school/pool/leisure centres, two branch libraries and the Tallinn Central Library. Just before departure, some managed to fit in a visit to Library 10 in Helsinki.

This was an excellent trip, with many memorable moments and significant learning both from the formal inputs and from the informal discussions with colleagues from home and abroad. As well as spending time with Scottish colleagues it was impressive and at times inspiring to hear from the contributors from four nations. Discussing what we heard with international colleagues was both challenging and reassuring. All in all, this was a ‘chance of a lifetime’ and one undertaken with great relish.

Silvija Crook is Library and Information Services Manager, Shetland Library

Information Scotland Vol. 5(4) August 2007

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.