Tuesday , 14th October.

This morning I was left to my own devices to catch an inter-city train from Stockholm to Gavle, an hour and a half away. I caught the bus and the tube to Central Station and caught the very modern and almost luxury( compared to ours) train . You can even plug in your PC and access wirelss facilities !
Arrived in Gavle at 1p.m. and was met by my friend from the Music Library, Christina Wengstrom, who i had also met in Sydney at the IAML conference. After a quick bite to eat she whisked me off in her car to one of the branches of the Gavle public library , which had recently been renovated to be more accommodating for the people of the area and for its location. the library is situated in a shopping centre which has declined because of vandalism etc , and so most of the shops have had to move. There is a pre-school centre and a Youth Service , however, and the library is situated, very conveniently , in between these two facilities. There are 10,000 people in the region and most of these are immigrants . 35 different languages are spoken , mainly Arabic, Kurdish, Somali, Turkish and Persian. The collection is therefore made up of popular materia in Swedish, some english and smalll language collections. The Central Library has a large collection of material in other languages which can be requested. They issue 37,000 items a year with three staff i.e. two librarians and one library assistant. Both RETURNS and LOANS are done by the customers themselves at self checking machines! This frees up the staff for their community liason work which is of major importance in this socially diasadvantaged area. The library was very welcoming and attractive . Some of the shelving was on wheels to enable them to be moved to make space for activities etc.Two librarians from Riga, in Latvia, were also looking at the library when I was.
Then, after a walk through the old part of town, Christel took me to the Central Library which was built in 1962 and renovated in 1992 . It is still not adequate, but...
Again a very pleasant building, with a checkout desk where people join etc and a coffee shop at the entrance . This is surrounded by magazines (300 titles, grouped in subject areas) and doubles as a library programs space (with a grand piano, I might add) also on this floor are movie DVD's and videos. They charge $3.50 for movie loans as there is a state tax on them. Non-fiction type DVD's are exempt and so are free.
The children's are is extensive and also on this floor. Fction is downstairs and some subjects are arranged separately e.g. fantasy . GRaphic novels are also kept separately. There is a librarian on duty at a service desk to answer questions as there is on the upper floor where the non-fictionis located. Dewey is not used in Sweden as they have their own system. However, this library has modified the system further and has grouped various subjects together for ease of use e.g. BOATS and the SEA which contains Sea stories, how to sail, kinds of boats, how to build boats etc. The history and geography of countires is also placed together. Non- fiction is mixed in Swedish and English.
There are a quite a few public access PC's which people can use for one hour at a time- 2 sessions per day. no booking system, just log in with their library card. There are several PC's at the front entrance which can be accessed fre by non- library members for 15 minutes at a time. (no seats- they have to stand)
Also a separate local history are and family history room with microfich/film readers and two PC's with all the family history databases loaded. The mezzanine floor has an EU section, how to speak foreign languages and a business section which helps people set up a business. So it was all very impressive ...
Out to dinner at the Bishop's Arms with Christina and her colleague , Margareta (good name)where I sampled typical Swedish food - potatoes and bacon ,in an English style pub ! Then an early night in my hotel, The Aveny , which was quite nearby.