Half a thousand books in the pocket | liepajniekiem.lv

Reading bloggers needed

We all know that people who read a lot develop a broad horizon and are better able to see the relationship between causes and effects. Reading develops systemic thinking and is extremely important for the development of critical thinking.

Unfortunately, studies in Europe show that literacy is declining. And that’s worrying.

Therefore, parents, teachers and also librarians should think about how to strengthen reading skills. All the more so because we are currently handing over so many human functions – thinking, analyzing – to artificial intelligence.

Librarians witness that children and young people increasingly prefer multimedia content.

Kuldīga library’s public relations specialist Itija Vespere started the discussion with the question, is 602 too little or too much? Because that’s exactly how many books are currently available in the e-book library.

All of them can be carried in your pocket and read online on a smart device, as long as you have registered in one of the Latvian libraries.

When asked whether the available e-book platform could promote young people’s reading, Daina Girvaite, head of the Kuldīga library, said:

“It could be, if only we could get them to that platform. And social networks could be used well to generate interest.

If young book bloggers would create content so attractive that young people would be interested, then librarians would help them access the reading material either in e-format or in traditional format.

If there is a long queue for one of the books, but the librarians know that it is available in the e-book library, they definitely offer the person this option.

In these five years, more than 500 readers have managed to interest Kuldīga county libraries in this way. We feel like mediators between the book and the reader. By offering e-books, we gain readers who would otherwise not come to us.”

Teachers do not use the platform

Rūta Beltiņa, the mother of 1st grade student Beatrice, says: “Every night before bedtime I read to my daughter. Now that age has come when she reads in front of me.

It is interesting that it is easier for Beatrice to perceive authors of children’s books of my generation, not the new ones.

Reading should be a daily ritual, not a punishment.

I also give my daughter one evening on weekends when I don’t have to read. Promoting reading is a big job, grandparents should also be involved. Reading omei and opim is a great pride for a child. This is how time is spent together. Sometimes we read page by page, when I feel that my daughter has fallen asleep.

Beatrice also likes to sit down with a book by herself, flip through the pages, read. I also read books that interest me, and this is a good example for the child.”

In order to answer the question of whether young people prefer electronic or traditional books, Ilze Roberta, a teacher of Latvian language and literature at Kuldīga Center Middle School, conducted a study: “Of my students who study in middle school,

58% use paper books, 25% do not read at all, and 17% of students use e-books.

However, neither the teacher nor the librarians are honored by the fact that 14% of them have only heard about the e-book library.

We live in extremely interesting times, and this is an area where the next five years could be very serious. I am convinced that book bloggers are not reaching young people at the moment, something needs to be done differently.

In the Kuldīga Central High School, out of 157 students, 63 choose to read in English, 33 in Latvian, and 27 do not read at all.

Young people like to use audiobooks, we read and listen to the works of the latest authors in literature lessons, and even boys manage to be interested in it. But as young people like to listen and watch, it is important not to leave the written word and to read at the same time.

Young people believe that the book is a value in the development of personality, but they do not name it as its value.

Unfortunately, none of the 26 surveyed teachers of the Latvian language in the Kuldīgas district use the e-book library.

Digital and print books coexist well

“Latvijas mediji” publishing house” board member Evija Veide, on the other hand, emphasized in the discussion that the reader gives meaning to the publishers’ work.

“The e-book platform is a way for the reader to read books easily and legally, as remuneration is paid to both the author and the publisher.

It is very important for us that a person is able to read, understand and store the text in order to use it when he needs critical and analytical thinking.

In my opinion, physical book and digital coexist very well.

But only the physical format can provide books with illustrations and album-type editions. Youth mixing reading is also at the top of the publisher’s work, because we want to have a reader in the future as well.

We still know how to see young readers, make friends with them, they read in their native language, and then they suddenly disappear and are in another dimension.

At a certain age, reading English is more stylish. And the fact that our language is not rich enough to say something in it is a myth.

The reading muscle needs to be exercised.

Reading is like gardening, you don’t like it at a certain age, and then you start to worry. Those young people who read at least in English have not been completely lost to us yet.

In the Frankfurt book market, you can already see that German authors give their books titles in English, cover designs like Instagram pictures. Maybe there will come a time when what is written in Latvian will also seem important to them.

Some European countries give young people a cultural ticket. Young people have spent this money on books with a clear advantage.

Maybe all of us together – writers write, publishers publish, librarians and teachers try to bring these two planets together, the state gives cultural tickets – can still keep that reader in the future.

It is important to promote local content and allow authors to meet readers.

You have to want to do it. And another important thing when comparing the two book formats: authors and publishers see the reading statistics of physical books only once a year, when libraries submit reports, while reading statistics of e-books can be seen instantly.

To approach a young person, you need to know him

The writer Laura Vinogradova, who received the European Union prize in literature for the book “River”, used an e-book in the library when her son was very small and woke up in his sleep every time his mother turned the page of the book, so she had to choose a different format.

“No format is bad if the main thing is to read.

I am sure that if you have understood what a book is as a child, the desire to read will return to most.

A lot of people don’t read in their teens because there are more important things to do. I wanted to be a lawyer for young people, so I also conducted a survey of people my age and older and found out that during school, on average, two or three children in the class read, boys none. Therefore, we cannot say that the number of readers has fallen catastrophically.

There is a lot that schools and libraries do. I used to be afraid to go into the library, and there certainly weren’t that many interesting events going on there.

Writers are often criticized for not writing for young people. I’ll be honest, we don’t know them. It’s very difficult to write a book if I don’t know what young people think. It occurred to me that literature would be more understandable if they wrote themselves. To make them understand that writing is therapeutic in a sense, that it can become their profession.

The book is the author’s voice, with it I can change the world, make it more sensitive.

But the e-book library gives me the feeling that I am more accessible, more accessible to my reader.”

Agrita Sagalajeva, the project coordinator of the cultural information systems center “3td.lv”, admitted that we need to think a lot about where to go next and how to enrich the digital book service: “I think that the numbers are quite good and we are going in the right direction. We already have almost 21,000 e-book readers.

A thousand new readers have already joined the platform this year. This means we attract a new reader every day.

Of these 602 books, 40 were added this year. Most of the books on the platform are from the “Zvaigzne ABC” publishing house, “Jumava”, “Latvijas mediji”, “Mansards”, “Prometeys” have also posted publications here.

The entry of e-books into our everyday life is not a problem, because we are talking about promoting reading. It’s good that you read at all, you want to do it. Whether to read a physical book or an e-book is the reader’s choice. An e-book only offers access to a book at any time.”

For reference

On January 7, it was five years since everyone had e-books on the library’s website www.3td.lv it is possible to legally read literature of various genres and topics in Latvian online all over the world for free.

In five years, almost 20,000 registered users have used the service 3td.lv. They read the e-book 155,690 times.