Solemn opening ceremony of the library space for children

On 13 October, a space for children was opened in the Children and Youth Literature Reading Room of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania. The children's space was equipped in cooperation with the Swedish Institute and the Embassy of Sweden in Lithuania in implementing a joint project Spaces for Children. First, the children were invited to enjoy the new space for intellectual activity. They listened to passages of their favourite books read by the actor Šarūnas Gedvilas, played games, and participated in a creative workshop with a Swedish art educator Anna Maria Willner.

The official opening ceremony was attended by Dr. Romas Jarockis, Vice-Minister of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Maria Christina Lundqvist, Swedish Ambassador to Lithuania, Henrikas Selinas, Deputy Director General of the Swedish Institute, Helena Gomér, Director of the Rum för Barn Library in Stockholm, representatives of the National Library, and other guests. The celebration also marked moving of the Children and Youth Literature Department to renovated spaces.

In his greeting, Dr. Jarockis expressed satisfaction that the proven model of a children's library in Stockholm was applied in the renovated National Library of Lithuania, which seeks to respond to the needs of people of different age. “I am sure that this initiative will prove effective in developing the reading skills of the youngest visitors of the library,” said the Vice-Minister of Culture.

After cutting the ribbon and declaring the new space open, Prof. Dr. Renaldas Gudauskas, Director General of the National Library of Lithuania expressed hope that “own efforts and the experience of meaningful partnerships such as with the Swedish Embassy in Lithuania and the Swedish Institute would make the Children and Youth Literature Department a lodestar for children and youth literature libraries in Lithuania and a cosy and favourite space for reading, discovering, and playing.”

On the occasion of opening the space for children, the Children and Youth Literature Department together with the Swedish Institute and the Embassy of Sweden in Lithuania organized an international seminar for children libraries' specialists and a creative workshop with an art educator Anna Maria Willner. The specialist from Sweden shared her knowledge and experience with the employees of the National Library, the students of the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, Vilnius Academy of Arts, and Vilnius College, and with professionals working with children who will organise creative workshops for the young visitors of the library on a voluntary basis.

The seminar Library of Child's Expectations, held on 13-14 October, was attended by guests from Sweden, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and children's librarians from public libraries of Lithuania. They addressed the relevant issues in children's librarianship, discussed whether the libraries were responding to the children's needs and expectations, and shared ideas about what would make a library comfortable to children. In the seminar, Helena Gomér, Director of the Rum för Barn Library in Stockholm told about the successfully implemented children's library model, Inga Mitunevičiūtė and Viktorija Pukėnaitė, speakers of the Children and Youth Department of the National Library presented a report based on the survey data disclosing how the children themselves imagine a library of their dreams. Silvija Tretjakova, a guest from Latvia, introduced the experience of working with children in the National Library of Latvia.

Spaces for Children is not the first joint project of the National Library, the Swedish Institute, and the Embassy of Sweden in Lithuania. Last October an international conference was organised in Vilnius – Children's and Young Adults' Reading as Challenge in the 21st century: Libraries Empower Social Changes 2015. The participants of the conference were greeted by Queen Silvia of Sweden, who had arrived to Lithuania on a state visit together with her husband Carl XVI Gustaf.

The National Library and the Lithuanian Section of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) have been cooperating with Sweden in promoting reading for more than 20 years.

More pictures from the opening events:
http://bit.ly/2edXKlb 
http://bit.ly/2dY7EK4