Week #4

(14.-18.10.2024)

Mäntytie (ES)

Autumn Break! No students! *takes a deep breath in new found silence* Fantastic.

Monday we got the news that we can go to the book fair! With full motivation tanks we started our main project in autumn break: making another vine from the preschool area that leads to the library. For now there was only one that went from the main entrance to the library. So we got a lot of green and fixation tape. And we made vines!

I may have gotten a bit out of hand with the creative side of it, so we were missing two meters of green tape at the end... but we found a textile tape substitute... Phew! But the teachers commented on how they liked it. So I feel better about it now.

And then of course some reshelving!

Tuesday we did the same thing from the upper floors (5/6th class). And I started crafting a bit of decoration for the new vines: Hibiscus (botanically accurate of course!) and the school mascot (caterpillar).

After lunch we set out to visit the next library: Helsingin Yliopisto Kirjasto - Kaisatalo, the main library of the University of Helsinki - Kaisa House in the heart of the city. It was built just 12 years ago and looks amazing! The front was fit into the street environment from the outside and on the inside looks reaaaally modern. Because my mentor worked there during their studies, we got a nice tour by an employee.

I was really amazed about the whole building and felt a little more at home than in the school library. Shout out to my colleagues at my home university library. I miss you guys :) It was also reassuring to hear they kind of have the same problems as we do. I asked the employee for the PR presentation to share with my peeps at home, I hope they have a use for it. In short: they are radically cutting down on physical copies and use almost all of their monetary resources (which are insanely high!!!) in acquisition for electronic resources and the environment budget to build more work and relaxation space. The students seem to like it a lot.

Getting the whole thing on picture was kinda hard... Excuse the panorama failure quality ^^

Wednesday I finished the flower decorations and hung them up. I deleted some books from the system and covered and repaired others.

Valimotie (MS-HS)

Thursday we started with some usual reshelving and then designed a new wall display for book recommendations. In the afternoon we visited two public libraries in Vantaa: Mosaikki kirjasto (tour) and Myyrmäen kirjasto. Mosaikki was so modernized I was baffled. They had electronic check in/out and reservation shelves! Never seen that... And a big workshop room with a 3D printer and an some other crafting machines. Patrons even got their own kitchen. And it just works... Sometimes I think average Germans are just made out of different material than the average Finn. Or maybe I don't give them enough credit. Who knows.

Friday I crafted some wall stickers and post-it notes for the hallway wall display, covered some math text books again and put some others into storage. The usual :)

Too bad Autumn Break is not two weeks long...