Library 2.0: Rapping, writing and gaming

Adrian and Leonard have made themselves comfortable. They are lounging on large beanbags, Adrian with «Greg's Diary» in his hand. He keeps giggling to himself so that Leonard looks up from his comic and asks in a whisper which part is just as funny. Behind the two boys, teenagers squat in front of their PCs, surfing the internet and chatting in hushed voices. Children and teenagers wander up and down the long shelves full of books. Tilting their heads at an angle, they decipher the writing on the spines of the books, picking one out from time to time. «This one is sooo great,» says Lea and grabs «Fate is a Lousy Traitor» from the pile of young adult novels her friend is holding in her arms. Just another afternoon in a library in Switzerland.

Girls usually remain loyal members when they get older

And then comes this sentence. Hans Ulrich Locher says it shocked him: «Only two per cent of young people in German-speaking Switzerland regularly use a library, compared to six per cent in French-speaking Switzerland and ten per cent in Ticino.» This is according to the latest JAMES study. JAMES is a survey on the media usage and leisure behaviour of 12 to 19-year-olds conducted by the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). It has been conducted every two years since 2010 on behalf of Swisscom. «This is completely inconsistent with our figures and reflects the technology-orientated approach of the study. These figures relate to the «non-media use» of the library; the primary purpose of visiting such an institution is to use media,» says Hans Ulrich Locher, Managing Director of the Swiss Association of Public Libraries (SAB) and Bibliothek Information Schweiz.

Children are diligent library users. However, the boys often stay away during puberty.

According to the Federal Statistical Office's survey on cultural behaviour, 64.3 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 29 have visited a library at least once within a year. «The figures are higher and higher for 12, 13 and 14-year-olds. The younger they are, the more children and young people go to the library,» explains Locher. Girls tend to remain loyal members as they get older, while male users tend to be lost to libraries as they enter puberty. Nevertheless, Swiss libraries have 20 million visitors a year. «That's ten times more than the National Football League A has,» says Locher.

Books on all topics - even on Sundays

Libraries are the cultural institutions with the largest audience in Switzerland, and a lot has to be done to keep it that way. «Of course, we don't reach everyone, but we make a great effort. We have media on every topic in the world that you can think of,» says Locher. And in some libraries, this has recently been extended to Sundays. An offer that has been very well received by the male public and single people in particular. Librarians are trained to ensure that children, young people and adults, men and women find something that appeals to them. They have to be literary sleuths and always keep the range fresh so that their library remains interesting.

Where once there was Karl May, today there are vampire novels and Harry Potter.

This is why public libraries renew, give away or sell around 10 to 20 per cent of their stock every year. After five to ten years at the latest, the stock is completely renewed. «That's important, because while young people were still reading Karl May in my day, today they're reading Harry Potter and vampire novels. You simply have to have something like that on hand,» says Locher. Moving with the times also means moving with the new media. This is why e-books have also found their way into Swiss libraries. However, according to Locher, usage rates are still in the single-digit percentage range, just like in the book trade.
However, new media is not the ideal way to attract young people to the library. «DVDs practically no longer play a role, young people stream films and music at home,» says Danièle Kammacher, Deputy Director of the Kornhaus libraries in Bern. People in their mid-forties are more interested in e-books than the very young. «Young people mostly read on their mobile phones, and reading a whole book on them is a bit of a chore,» surmises Kammacher. Around a quarter of the users of the Kornhaus libraries are between 13 and 25 years old. New projects in the recent past have led to a slight increase in this figure.

The first contact is often through the school

There is a group for whom the connection to the library is quite automatic, says Kammacher. These are children who go to grammar school, who are given homework assignments to research something on a certain topic, combined with a visit to the library. By the time they start university, however, contact with such an institution is automatic. «However, this eliminates all the young people who are doing vocational training, and that's a large number,» says Kammacher.
The Kornhaus libraries have therefore intensified their collaboration with Bern's vocational school. Each class from there is familiarised with the library as an institution with a guided tour and a reading project. «Many of the young people find out for the first time how to find and borrow a book on a particular topic, and many of them then get hooked and become regular visitors,» says Kammacher. To make sure they stick around, there is a lounge zone on the second floor of the Kornhaus library, tablets, games and a large youth library as well as special readings or English storytelling for young visitors. They can also read for free - as in almost all Swiss libraries.

Youth workers help with homework and lend a sympathetic ear to the children.

The JAMES study also reveals more encouraging figures on young people's reading behaviour. Since 2010, a stable quarter of young people have been reading books regularly in their free time. «I think the fact that while the use of digital media has increased significantly since 2010, the reading of books has remained stable is a good result,» says psychologist and co-author of the study Isabel Willemse. «Young people who enjoy reading continue to do so, despite the constant availability of digital media with internet access.»

Homework help in the library

There is no question of too few young people visiting the Basel City Library. Anne-Lise Hilty, responsible for communication and fundraising at the library, backs this up with figures: There are just under 20,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 in Basel-Stadt, around 12,000 of whom have an account with the city library. «Around 5,000 of them are active users, which means they have borrowed at least one book in the past twelve months,» says Hilty. Around 80 young people spend time in the city library every day in an almost closed-off area of their own. «Young people are not an easy group,» says Hilty. And some time ago this actually became a problem. Lots of teenagers chatting loudly and making the library unsafe, hanging out and doing lots of things that have nothing to do with borrowing books.

Robots that paint Easter eggs: The library moves with the times.

The library recognised the need for action and joined forces with the Basel Youth Work (JuAr Basel). Since 2012, two youth workers - initially funded by a foundation - have been available as permanent contacts in four libraries of the city library. They offer support with homework and job applications, help with the realisation of ideas and projects, provide PC support, teach board games and lend a sympathetic ear to young people with worries and needs.
In addition, the range of events for young people has expanded enormously: writing clubs, film workshops, digital scavenger hunts, rapping, drawing and photography. «This all goes far beyond reading, but has the effect that young people associate the library with a positive, exciting place where there are lots of opportunities,» says Hilty. At the Kornhaus Library in Bern, young authors between the ages of 12 and 16 can read their self-written stories in a forum. In Lucerne, there are cosy beanbags in a separate area for children and young people, inviting them to browse for a long time. The Pestalozzi Library in Zurich is collaborating with FabLab Zurich and inviting children and young people to paint Easter eggs with an egg bot, experiment with 3D printers and create selfies with an LED image generator. The message is that a library is anything but a dark place with dusty books. And Swiss libraries are carrying this message out into the world with great conviction.

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