Room for children: a library with a child perspective

Room for Childrena library with a child perspective

Room for Children pushes the boundaries of what a library can be

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Room for Children is a Swedish library and arts studio for the young, designed to stimulate their desire for books, music, storytelling and self-expression.

The staff, comprising librarians, teachers and professional artists, apply a child perspective throughout. This is reflected in every-thing from the way they treat the children to the interior design and the way books are placed and displayed.

Also, adults and children are encouraged to engage in things together in order to share the experience.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a cornerstone of the work here; it refers to the right of children to participate fully in cultural life, to express themselves freely and to do so together with others.

Room for Children pushes the boundaries of what a library can be.

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Imagine that you’re three years old.

On entering, you’re welcomed by a member of staff, who greets you first and then greets the adult accompanying you. You take off your shoes and hang up your jacket.

You and your adult decide to begin by reading a book. You go into the picture book library. You see a picture of a dragon on the bookshelf and make for it straight away. You find dragons really exciting!

You pick out one of the books and sit down in the cubbyhole under the stairs to read it. Once you’ve finished the book you want to read it again, so you decide to borrow it and take it home. Together you use the self-service machine for borrowing.

You notice that there are games and puzzles in the cupboard at the information counter and you decide you’d like to do a puzzle. With a little assistance, you get to write your name on the lending list. You choose a puzzle that looks fun, sit down on the red carpet and start solving it. You don’t need any help; you can complete it on your own.

Now you feel like moving about so you climb up the stairs and into the lookout tower. The view is great – you can see almost the whole world. Way down below your adult is returning the puzzle at the counter and you wave to each other. Yoo-hoo!

Suddenly you hear a ting-a-ling sound. It’s one of the staff going round ringing a bell and saying that it’s song time for anyone who’d like to sing. Many children go straight into the star room for the singing, but you feel more like painting so you and your adult go into the arts studio instead.

You sit down at a table and one of the art teachers pours four different coloured paints into four little bowls. You get to choose some really good brushes to paint with. Then you stand at one of the easels and start painting.

When you feel the painting’s finished you start to feel a bit tired. Your adult suggests that you eat a little snack in the picnic room. A banana and some orange juice do the trick and soon you’re off again.

How your visit to Room for Children might look

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Now your adult reminds you that it’s almost time for the Friday Dance. You go back into the arts studio where the easels now line the walls. Today it’s hip-hop. Half an hour later you and your adult have finished dancing and it’s time to go home. You find your shoes and your jacket where you left them, wave and say goodbye to the staff and set off for home to read your book. The staff wave back.

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Room for Children is divided by age into three different rooms. The start-out library is designed for babies and toddlers aged 0–2 years. The setting and the toys are suited to their capa-bilities and desire to explore. The books face outwards and are not divided into any particular categories, while the shelves are at a height that is easily accessible to the children.

The picture book library contains books for children aged 3–6 years. Most of the visitors to this room have not yet learnt to read. They don’t know the author and are more interested in what the book is about. They ask for books about things like dinosaurs, dragons and princesses. Communication here is achieved via plastic or wooden index block images on the bookshelves, and the keyword is recognition. The visitor recognises pictures of children’s book characters like Pippi Longstocking, or a picture of a dragon or a princess.

The schoolchildren’s library contains books for children aged 6–10 years: chapter books, comics, maps and reference books. Here, they can sit and read alone or together, play games or find a fact book. Here, too, the books are divided by subject area, not by author. They may be subjects such as funny, exciting, maps, adventure, animals or life in the past.

Room for Children has a unique way of selecting and systemising books. The staff choose books they know the children are

interested in and ones that adults have sought to read to their children, perhaps about getting a baby sister or brother, or about life and death. They choose books that they like themselves and which they think the visitors would also like.

They also strive for a gender balance, i.e. roughly the same number of girl and boy characters in the books, and for a multicultural perspective, so as to give all children a sense of recognition in what they read. The grouping of books is an ongoing process that always reflects the children’s own interests.

The interior design takes into account the child’s need to move about freely, while at the same time offering small spaces for quiet reading all over the library.

The library colours are plain: white, yellow and oak. These may not be the colours traditionally associated with an environment designed for children, but in the reference groups set up in the planning process it was the children themselves who asked for such an interior.

There is also a room for storytelling and a larger room for exhibitions and plays. In the arts studio, visitors get to paint at easels with brushes and real paint, and once a week the easels are put aside and the adults and children dance together, aided by a professional choreographer. The Friday Dance may involve anything from flamenco to African dance.

Facts about Room for Children

Would you like to know more?Contact: Helena Gomér, Head of Children and Youth Libraries [email protected]

[email protected] kulturhusetstadsteatern.se/English/Libraries

Swedish InstituteSlottsbacken 10, SE-103 91 Stockholm, SwedenT +46 (0)8 453 78 00 | www.si.se | www.sweden.se

Photos: Mikael Olsson, Robert Blombäck, Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, Andreas Burmester. Printed in Sweden by Åtta.45 Tryckeri AB, 2015.