Inspiration and skills development for libraries in Norrbotten

Library staff from Norrbotten gathered at the end of October at Kulturens Hus in Luleå for a day full of inspiration, knowledge and development on the theme of reading promotion.

The Reading Promotion Initiative is a mandate given to the Swedish Arts Council by the government. It aims to develop the skills of library staff in their work with literature dissemination and reading promotion. An extra focus will be on reading by children and young people.

Equal opportunities to access learning resources are an important part of the promotion of reading, and therefore Digiteket, the Royal Library's digital learning platform, has been further developed. Today, you can find a wide range of training courses and other material on reading promotion on the site, which the general public can also access. The material is produced by Digiteket, but library staff from all over the country also contribute content.

Digiteket was invited to the Reading Promotion Day to provide information about its activities and the national learning platform. This was followed up with workshops where participants shared how they work with the reading promotion mission in their municipality. Many inspiring examples were highlighted.

Agneta Norrgård, reading promoter, book reviewer, project manager for Bokstart Timrå and media profile.

The day ended with a lecture by Agneta Norrgård. Agneta became Book Awakener of the Year 2023 with the project Wake Up the Book Sundsvall. Through a collaboration between the library and preschool, they managed to playfully awaken the desire to read books in the children they worked with. During the course of the project, the number of children's books borrowed increased by a full 20 percent, and this was due, among other things, to thorough preparatory work together with the responsible educators about the children's different circumstances. Books were chosen with broad representation so that as many of the children as possible could recognize themselves, and the students were encouraged to dialogue and participate.

Text and photo: Linda Kvenås.

Want to know more?

Please contact Christina Stålnacke, coordinator for the Libraries in Norrbotten, if you have any questions.
anna.k.stalnacke@norrbotten.se 

Welcome to visit:
Digiteket
Agnetas Norrgård's website