Blog: From sleigh singing to rap and other projects

In the city library of Imatra, the Sleigh Song to Rap project aimed at first graders is slowly starting. The project is implemented together with the school centers of Koski, Mansikkala and Vuoksenniska and native language teachers. The date for the events is the fall semester of 2023. The idea of ​​the project is to organize a music-focused event for each participating class that encourages reading, where musicians Heikki Pöyhä ja Pekka Ranta perform Finnish songs from different eras. After this, the teachers and students discuss the lyrics of the songs performed together with the librarian.

The song selection will take into account the target group, i.e. new favorite songs will also be included, not only the music of older musicians and the even older librarian's youth. That's why there is a survey on the main library's Nuortenluola bulletin board: I hope as many young people as possible would visit there to tell about good new songs with good lyrics. Us old guys can't know what is hip, ihQ and in at the moment.

In the Imatra city library, there is currently nothing going on My municipality democracy project, also seeking funding for a picture book project related to children's library work. If you want to do something different from the daily basic work in the library, you almost always have to plan a project and apply for external funding. In libraries, the most common financier of projects is the Regional Administration Office, which grants discretionary state grants for regional and local experimentation and development of public libraries' services and operating methods. projects financed by AVI it is hoped to produce methods and operating models with which library services promote residents' well-being, inclusion and a good and meaningful life. In particular, AVI hopes that the projects will pay attention to promoting the well-being and inclusion of children and young people.

The library's goal in such projects is not only the promotion of reading, as already defined in the Library Act, but also to get schoolchildren as our customers and, to that end, visitor and borrowing statistics. Our activities are measured by statistics, that's why we firmly have our own cow in the ditch: we want the library to be remembered by young people as more than just a book warehouse, we want libraries to remain a necessary service for the municipalities in the future as well. In this way, we will be able to contribute to the civilization of our people and thus to their success.

mika. kahkonenimatra.fi (mika[dot]kahkonen[at]imatra[dot]fi)
Tel: 020 617 6602