The first six weeks in the Hovedbiblioteket
Who thinks the library closes at 7 pm and goes to sleep, is completely wrong. There are not just the two hours of self-service from 7 to 9 pm. The library never sleeps. There is always something going on. In the past two weeks, there were many events with different topics.
Last Friday was the “Personaledag” (employees day) at the Hovedbiblioteket. It started at 1 pm with a long lecture about the main tasks of libraries and librarians, followed by one hour of group discussion on the topic. At 4 pm, the professional part was over and we split up in six groups to participate on a scavenger hunt, which leaded us through the windy city of Aalborg. Gone with the wind we returned to the library at six and there we had a cosy evening eating, chatting and playing Bingo in the big library hall.
On Monday, two women gave a lecture. They have written a book about the history of “Spritten”, a schnapps factory in Aalborg. Therefore, one hour before the lecture started, we went down to the big library hall to help with the setting up. From the expected 30 visitors there came 24. Because of the very specific topic, we expected them to be all more or less pensioners who maybe once worked at Spritten. This was not the case. There seemed to be also some visitors who joined the lecture by hazard. We were impressed how easy it is, to catch peoples´ attention, when you give them the inducement and the chance to it.
Tuesday evening we went back to the library after work at 7 pm. As we already knew from Friday, the atmosphere of the library at night, or at least when it is dark outside, is very homey. This evening was something more in the air. Something festive but also a little bit spooky. Strange vested people shooed around. They looked like fallen out of the Middle ages directly into the library. Instead of looking lost in the library, they all seemed to have a precise plan. At 7 pm, they all met together in front of a little audience. First, they talked a lot about the Renaissance in Aalborg and then they started singing as a choir. They sang old Renaissance songs. After some more songs and talk, they asked the audience to stand up and to do some Renaissance dancing to their singing. The whole scenery was awesome. We left the library after an hour and they were still floating through Aalborg in the Renaissance.
Thursday we went back to present age with a lecture from Svend Brinkman. He is a professor for psychology at the Aalborg University. In the past years, he wrote several books about our modern society. In his books, he deals with moral, philosophical and methodological matters in psychology and other human and social sciences. For his lecture, we prepared chairs, cookies and coffee in the auditorium of the library. Nearly all of the expected visitors came by and enjoyed his talk about his books and his topics in general.
Beside all these activities at the Hovedbiblioteket, we also had the possibility to nose some other library air. We went to see another Danish public library. Because many people told us about it, we went to the Hjørring Library. There we had the opportunity to speak with a very well versed and friendly librarian. She told us about the special location of the library, which is actually built in a shopping centre in the centre of Hjørring. We talked about the pros and cons of having a library in a shopping centre and she explained us the concept of the interior fittings and the facilities they have in the library. During a detailed tour through the library, we experienced the entire concept and the completely different atmosphere in this library impressed us.
That was a short report about some different activities we enjoyed the past two weeks.
Are you curious about the Hjørring Library? Go and find the pictures in the gallery and have a nice fortnight.