A library on the move! Making plans for the future library in Ulricehamn!

Last week Ulricehamn held its first international library conference bringing up issues surrounding the role of the future library and inspiring small libraries in Sweden and abroad. It was a successful two-day conference filled with interesting speakers. During more than a year we have been extending the international influence in Ulricehamn arranging a yearlong Nordic exchange project between librarians and looking at the content of our future library. Ulricehamn is in great need of a new library location but maybe the biggest challenge is to create the library of tomorrow.

What does this mean? Will we need libraries in the future and if so, why? I think libraries have a very important role to play in society but we need to understand that a library is not only a place where you go to borrow a book. It is so much more!

We are in the middle of a paradigm shift. Computing platforms in most organizations today are not able to deliver the goods or services needed and as more and more people use the new techniques new areas of need and business develop. The changes in the availability of information mean that we can all access information from wherever we want at wherever we are but to do so we need help. Libraries can help us organize these new resources so that they can be used by an increasingly mobile society. Furthermore, the library must take on the challenge of helping ordinary citizens make sense of the flood of information now overwhelming them. To meet these challenges, the traditional library must change.

At the conference Ragnar Audunson, Professor at Oslo university, Norway talked about libraries and the importance of them as bridges for social capital. Social capital involves social networks, trust, and norms of reciprocity. For many people the library as an institution is a public place which anyone can attend. Within our communities there are almost no other places that will attract people of different background, social class and from different cultures. The library has become a place with positive effects for community development, schooling, democracy, economic development, well-being etc. You go to the library not only to find information but maybe to meet people, take a class, experience culture, have a coffee with friends, spend some time alone, to use as a mobile office, to read magazines etc. At the conference we heard our Dutch speakers from Pijnacker tell us about the library as a place for improving integration, for helping people with a reading disorder and as a platform for political debates. In Denmark they challenge the children who attend the library by putting out interesting or unusual artefacts in the library or stimulating their creativity by showing them how to make animation and short films and more and more people attend the libraries.

In a multicultural, digital society with larger generation gaps we face new possibilities as well as new challenges. We need to look at these challenges and prepare for a library which takes on a role as a community bridge builder, which stimulate reading and creativity and which has an important social role in society. As changes in society will change the labour market the life long learning perspective has to be integrated in everyone’s life. We do not train for a career in only one field and we will most likely have several employers before we retire. The library is an excellent arena for life long learning.

More and more libraries are looking at partnership possibilities with businesses or local associations. I think we will see much more of this in the future and I think this can lead to very fruitful co operations. Imagine a library where you can buy art or local products. Imagine a library where you have a permanent clothing exhibition which will attract visitors from outside Ulricehamn. Imagine a library filled with activity outside the current opening house as local associations use the premises.

I think that librarians, other stakeholders and local politicians found the conference interesting and inspiring. It was great to see the effects of the international approach. There are so many interesting things going on in the world when it comes to library development and suddenly we had a mix of many different perspectives! I hope that the future library in Ulricehamn can be a place to borrow books, being helped in finding the right information on the internet, where films and music can be downloaded, where you can sit down with a nice cup of coffee, enjoy a course, participate in a book club, use as a workspace, look for jobs, watch an interesting exhibition or learn more about our local history and culture, get civic information etc.

We have an active library in Ulricehamn and if they just get the premises they need and support in taking on the new role of the librarian I think we will have a great place to hang out and enjoy!

PS: Do you know library lovers? Check it out!