Espoo City Library has been charged by the Ministry for Education and Culture with the special mission of providing services for some 50,000 Russian speakers. Yet for Russians and Russian speakers there is little need to try to encourage reading, according to translator Anna Siderova.
"Russians have, historically, a truly warm relationship with literature,” says Siderova. "I remember in my own childhood that we had an extensive library. Dad taught us to read and read bedtime stories. In Russia we love literature and we’re proud of it.”
Sidorova is the coordinator of the project, which was first developed in Espoo, and which has a special focus on library services for Russian-speaking children and young people. On Friday the library published special matching Finnish-Russian editions of its literary journal for children and young people, Vinski. The publication includes informations on books and authors as well as submissions from children and young people themselves.
The next Pushkin?
Twelve year old Sasha Pitkeninin claimed several column inches in this editions with her Russian poetry.
“Yes I go to libraries, but I always loan books in Finnish,” she says. “I only read books in Russian in Russian language lessons.” She studies her home language as part of her schoolwork once a week and although she's happy to loan Finnish books to fill her leisure time, the connection with the Russian language remains strong and vibrant.
Meanwhile, Espoo City will continue its active cooperation with schools. Russian books will soon be available as a postal package order, although they still cost substantially more in Finland than they do in Russia. Also, those who read books in Russian will find it easier to locate them those year. The metropolitan area libraries service Helmet will open its Russian language online service this autumn. Libraries in the capital area have access to more than 52,000 Russian-language works and customers are served by a number of Russian-speaking officials.
Library loans to go postal
Espoo will also launch its interlibrary loan service early this year, says Siderova.
“People from other areas can search for books from the Russian language libraries here and receive them, for example, by post. It’s a great service!” she says excitedly, adding that she feels warm feelings about the proactive Finnish attitude towards supporting access to Russian language literature.
Books can be ordered from capital area libraries and received at local library branches or at the nearest SmartPOST outlet. The new services is scheduled to start in February.