Stories and workshops, the library “transfers” to the web

The “Antonia Pozzi” Municipal Library, in Laveno Mombello, is organising a series of virtual initiatives for people to take part in from home. Unfortunately, the library has also had to close its doors, to protect the health of all of its visitors, but the resources and the desire to pass on culture are still there, and are not going to stop. With the loan services frozen, we librarians feel a bit lost, but from a difficulty a new opportunity can arise.

The library is changing how it communicates, using technology and social media, certainly driven by a need to find new channels with which to continue a dialogue with its users, but also because this time of shutdown is an opportunity to design new approaches and refine tools, which continue to work together.

The project grew out of a collaboration with the socio-educational services of the town council, in a search for ways of meeting the needs of different age groups.

The first cooperation started with teachers at the “Girotondo” Municipal Kindergarten, and was an attempt to make contact with the youngest children, who had suddenly lost the points of reference in their everyday lives. “Tell me a story” is a series of events that relate to reading, but also to manual skills, with creative tutorials … in preparation for Father’s Day!

Once the box and ad hoc channels had been created, the challenge began to find new collaborations and contents, in the belief that, although we are isolated, we all have something positive to share with everybody else. The idea is to get more and more organisations in Laveno Mombello to collaborate, with their own specific characteristics and skills. But not only that; now the winning approach is networking and libraries are experts in this. Laveno Mombello is at the heart of the “lakeside library system” and this project will be expanded to invite other organisations to contribute in the application of contents; for example, a dialogue has already begun with Germignaga town council.

Another, very interesting opportunity provided by the “lakeside library system” is the access to the digital library MedialibraryOnline (MLOL), where you can consult newspapers, watch videos, read books and even borrow an e-book for a fortnight. The only requirement is for you to have registered with one of the libraries in the system.

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

• FB: Laveno Mombello Municipal Library
• YOUTUBE CHANNEL: Laveno-Mombello Library (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDGF-FRMUgzL69L10xn0PyQ?view_as=subscriber)