NAPLE Forum
www.naple.info
The European NAPLE (National
Authorities on Public Libraries in
Europe) association, which was introduced
in the previous issue of SPLQ,
has changed its name to NAPLE
Forum.
So far 17 countries have joined the
Forum formally and the NAPLE web
site is launched this March, featuring
basic information such as statutes,
board members and meetings as well as
news, documents and links to information
on public libraries of relevance for
European national authorities.
All European countries are invited to
forward information on their public
library legislation, national information
policies and strategies in form of
either a link or a pdf-copy of any such
documents. Write to hnn@bs.dk or to
webmaster@bs.dk
Hellen Niegaard
Danish National Library Authority
New Finnish statistical
database for public libraries
Compiling official library statistics is
statutory in Finland. Library statistics
have been compiled manually up till
2002, when the new statistical database
was introduced. The database is purpose-
built for the Culture and Media
Division at the Ministry of Education,
legally responsible for library statistics
on a national level, by a small ITCcompany,
Sininen meteoriitti – the
Blue Meteorite (www.meteoriitti.com English version).
The municipalities fill in their data and
send it to the provincial governments
for checking and for compiling provincial
statistics, and in the end the national
statistics are checked and compiled
at the Ministry.
The benefits of the new system are, besides
the efficiency and the time saved,
the easiness by which different comparisons
now can be made and used for
purposes of information, evaluation
and development of services. For instance
are collection, lending and budget
figures in municipalities in a certain
area and with a certain amount of population
easily picked out and linked
with national average values and key
figures. One can compare the expenditure
of all the provincial libraries in
euros per capita, or acquisitions in
some of the biggest cities related to
national key figures.
Finnish public library statistics in Finnish,
Swedish and English at
http://tilastot.kirjastot.fi English
version.
Barbro Wigell-Ryynänen,
Finnish Ministry of Education
barbro.wigell-ryynanen@minedu.fi
Reading is fun
A radical, young politician is newly
appointed as director of the Norwegian
reading trust, Foreningen !les. It is now
up to Aslak Sira Myhre to follow up the
success of this young association established
in 1997. Children and young
people (10-19) are the main target
group.
The activity is mainly based on projects,
and most of them are taking
place during school hours in collaboration
with i.a. teachers and librarians.
Although the classroom is the setting
– Foreningen !les’ motto is: Reading is
fun! It is something you do because
you want to. As a man and a reader
Sira Myhre now hopes to encourage
especially boys to read more. In that
respect Lesestafetten (The Reading
Relay Race) may be helpful. The idea
behind this national project is that students
at secondary school select and
present literature to pupils at lower
grades (primary schools). Reading can
be cool when the ‘right’ persons are
doing it.
Sidsel Hindal
sidsel.hindal@abm-utvikling.no
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