DENMARK

Bookstart and Communitycenters in DK

The Danish government has allocated means for communitycenters and Bookstart programmes for children in
disadvantaged residential areas.

A communitycenter is often placed in connection with a library and is an offer to families who have difficulty in
seizing the opportunities that society offers. The center provides e.g. advice on health, children’s welfare and participation in networks. Apart from that mentor schemes are available for maintaining trainee positions and jobs,
homework help, language courses and other language-stimulating activities.

Bookstart is a programme that provides children with a free book pack adapted to their age groups in four stages – until the child reaches the age of six. In connection with the book packs there are a number of activities, supplementary materials and information to parents about children’s
language and reading. Bookstart programmes are particularly aimed at families with few traditions for reading
at home. Experiences from the UK where Bookstart has been running for many years are unequivocally positive.

DKK 16 million have been set aside for Bookstart programmes and DKK 32 million for communicenters in fouryear programmes which are to be coordinated by the Danish Agency for Libraries and Media and launched in autumn 2008.

Anna Enemark Brandt
Children’s Library Consultant
Danish Agency for Libraries and Media

aeb@bs.dk

Translated by Vibeke Cranfield

Benchmarking the usage
of library web sites

For several years Danish Agency for Libraries and Media has been working on how to ensure a more uniform and
fair survey of the libraries’ web sites and digital services. Statistics of the use of the libraries’ homepages are important, because relatively many resources are spent on the running and further development of homepages. Towards the end of September 2007 a three-year
agreement was made with KPIIndex. KPIIndex is based on a system called Webtrends, which is a very popular
commercial product. The system collects statistics from homepages, catalogues and net libraries through a script placed at the relevant web sites. On the basis of the information collected a number of reports are generated,
which contain the most general information about the usage. The agreement means that smaller public libraries are offered a comprehensive and comparable reporting on the use of own homepage. Larger public libraries are offered a more flexible solution which makes it possible to regulate configuration and various parameters for statistics. Finally, the system provides a few comparable key figures for usage, which will be published on
(http://bib.kpiindex.com/). The index is expected to be updated with the first key figures from 1. June 2008.

Ulla Kvist
Library Consultant
Danish Agency for Libraries and Media

ukv@bs.dk

Translated by Vibeke Cranfield