The ‘corner’ has a kind of café atmosphere
and good seating arrangements,
new materials and something to appeal
to the senses. There is a comfortable
sofa, study seats around an organic
long table with an attractive water
lamp, and in the window area you get
the chance to test new games on Play
station 2 and PC. One wall features a
large TV screen, showing amongst
other things information about what is
on offer in ‘the corner’. What we want
to do is to encourage the young to stay
and enjoy the room and to give them
the chance to be social and to network
with other young people. Two ‘listening
posts’ are on the cards, where one can
listen to the very latest music, even if it
is still on hold and therefore cannot be
borrowed until four months later. ‘On
hold’ is an agreement the Ministry of
Culture has made with the record
companies with a view to encourage
the sale of CDs.

In ‘the corner’ we have chosen to focus
on new materials - often things that the
library has not previously owned. We
have made several purchases especially
within such areas as graphic novels and
fiction in English, and we also try to
provide a wide selection of games for
Xbox, Play station 2 and PC, and the
latest DVDs. Young people are normally
very interested in English
language materials, and we have therefore
decided to cater for their wishes.
We have purchased more copies than
we normally do to make them quickly
available to more borrowers. The aim is
for a greater rotation of materials so
that the news are not only ‘fresh’ for
the first two borrowers, and we are
therefore experimenting with a shorter
loan period for certain types of material,
which means that you can borrow
periodicals for seven days, while the
period is three days for DVDs. Equally,
it is not possible to reserve materials
from ‘the corner’, as we would like to
attract the young to the library and
therefore the materials must be readily
available.

Although ‘the corner’ is not completely
finished yet, it has already proved a
great success. Most of the new materials
are out on loan, and young as well
as older people enjoy – and use – the
new furniture frequently.

Mads Mejer Frederiksen
Librarian, Randers Library
mf@randersbib.dk

Rasmus Riishøj Jensen
Librarian, Randers Library
rrj@randersbib.dk

Translated by Vibeke Cranfield