Libraries in Skåne cooperate on adult learning
“We need a different infrastructure for learning from the one that exists today. This is where Swedish public libraries can assume a central role in local as well as regional development”. These are the words of Roland Persson, Skåne county library and Christer Bergqvist, regional library of Kalmar. Together they have published the report Extended library cooperation in northeastern Skåne as a result of the wish for a library plan with focus on adult learning.

The authors suggest that citizens should be able to further educate themselves without having to move away from their region. More intense cooperation and flexibility between libraries and educational institutions is necessary, and the libraries must be involved at managerial level in the planning of media- and information supply in the local authorities. The main purpose of these activities is for more adults to join education programmes and to increase the level of education in the local authorities.

NORWAY

Book and Blues House at Notodden becomes blues capital of Norway
There are great plans for the future for the small south Norwegian town Notodden with about 13,000 inhabitants.
The Storting has in 2003 granted 30 mil. NOK for a new combined library and blues ‘house’ in the small town whose development was being threatened by large price fluctuations. Now it is just a question of finding another 30 mil. to get the project launched. The building process is supposed to commence in 2007.

It all started when the local librarian, Ragnhild Kraugerud, was a volunteer in the local blues festival and here discovered the great potential for cooperation between library and music. Back in the library, Ragnhild Kraugerud introduced this challenge. Together with Jostein Forsberg, project manager in the blues festival project ‘Cooperation makes waves’, she founded the Blues Library of Europe which is housed in Notodden Public Library. The blues festival is locally anchored with more than 600 volunteers, and the whole project has provided a ‘lift’ to the small town, also in financial terms. Ragnhild Kraugerud is still the driving force.

DENMARK

The libraries’ net music
A major project starts in Denmark in September 2004 where a number of public libraries all over the country will be able to lend online music to their patrons. This is completely legal, says Susanne Buus-Pedersen from Copenhagen Municipal Libraries, as the copyright owners will be compensated for the loans. It all takes place in cooperation with Phonofile Denmark who has signed agreements with 30 Danish record companies. It will also be possible to buy the music by being transferred to the commercial net shops that are going to sell Phonofile’s music.

In the first instance it is a question of Danish music which broadly covers the musical genres: classic, jazz, rock, light music. The intention is in the long term also to include foreign music and that multinational record companies will realise that libraries are an excellent advertisement for the music industry.

Translated by Vibeke Cranfield