Promoting reading 1
and reading buddies to accompany younger readers
to the library. Schools can also connect the students’ summer reading to the autumn term’s teaching programme by referring to the texts read as part of the summer reading programme. The eighth chapter of this book is about various ways of making literature available and accessible. This includes everything from providing easy-to-read literature to how to design the library space. The library space has evolved from having been a collection of books to becoming a much more alive and versatile institution, grouping together the individual user and media, culture, and other users – a development that has been summed up in the phrase from collection to connection. The library as a place to be means an expansion of the library’s function as purely a lender of books and other media. This expansion has been deemed necessary, not least due to the fact that the library’s lending function has shrunk in pace with information, knowledge and experiences being digitised. That the focus of children’s and young people’s libraries has shifted from content and collections to engagement with the library’s users has resulted an increased interest in the design and architecture of the library. The staging of the library in terms of its content can be counted as part of the library’s reading promotion efforts, that is, the library’s more active role in giving users advice and encouraging reading, broadening their reading horizons, or simply making it easier for readers to make choices. Traditionally, the library was largely designed for users who knew what they were looking for in advance. In the light of the fact that a significant proportion of visitors to public libraries are not goal-oriented borrowers – or borrowers at all – library research has begun to discuss the idea of serendipity, meaning opportunities for serendipitous discoveries in the material. Researchers have found that there is now more experimentation than ever before with both the space and new forms of mediation. A trend towards setting the stage in libraries in new ways has been identified, with everything from spectacular and lavish American “experiential” libraries in which books are combined with various attractions; to Danish “bookless” libraries in which ninety per cent of physical books have been relegated to a warehouse to make way for other types of media. However, it has been concluded that there is not much to suggest that users themselves have any great interest in the idea of the library as an experiential place. Users instead give priority to the more traditional aspects of the library’s basic functions and various forms of service. A Swedish study has shown that skilled staff and friendly reception are among the aspects that are valued the most highly by users. Furthermore, users tend to value the library’s most basic functions when it comes to accessibility, such as convenient opening hours, being easily able to find what you are looking for, and easy physical access to the library. Generally, users and the surveyed staff are in agreement in these evaluations but there are also notable differences. For instance, over half of the staff think it is very important that the library is a place where you can socialise with others, compared with less than 1/8 of users who were of the same opinion. In conclusion, users want the library to be within easy reach, offer a tranquil environment with a knowledgeable, helpful and friendly staff, as well as a rich selection of books. In parallel with the development of the library space as a meeting place for those interested in culture and literature, alternatives have also arisen in the form of what are termed literaturhus (literature centres). In the 1980s, the first Literaturhaus was esta112