AKEpampas participated to the international Bibliotheca Baltica Symposium. Theme for this year was the preservation of cultural heritage in libraries of Ukraine was very much in everyone’s minds. We heard various ways of preservation of cultural heritage and different ways of thinking how to maintain own cultural identity in libraries.

We will also visit the prison library in Vaasa, which is very different from all the other libraries in our district and that is the last library visit of this year.

AKEpampas gives an insight to the future librarians in SEAMK of the changing needs in library services during their conversations around round table.

During the library visits in September we got to see many unique libraries. Karijoki library is made from an old grocery store and the library in Kaskinen is inside and old church. We also met the lovely library workers in Mustasaari and Seinäjoki. 

Our field trip to Jyväskylä Hip hop library went on with a happy spirit. The weather was hot and sunny. On our way to the library some of us stopped to eat at Toivola’s old yard, which is filled with artisan shops. At the library we learned how voluntary organization TUFF! works together with the library. They produce events and workshops around hip hop -music and has donated their personal music collection to the library. 

In october one can come and listen to Långfika of what new happens in libraries at Sweden. AKEpampas is also traveling to Poland to take part in the Libraries of Baltic sea Symposium. 

AKEpampas participated in Library days at Kuopio. Our website had a change of look at the beginning of the summer and our new visual look follows our logo and visual theme. New addition to the cite is a material bank. Material bank consists of loanable objects and shareable ideas, and it will grow over time from the material of other libraries as well.

In September we are visiting the libraries of Lappajärvi, Kauhava, Kaskinen, Karijoki, Mustasaari and Seinäjoki. Our field study destination is to Jyväskylä Hip Hop -library and campus library of music.

We have organized a joint meeting with AKE Lahti to the multidisciplinary leaders of libraries in both of our districts. Meetings are via Teams and it is a platform to share the experiences, fears and obstacles but also opportunities.

Guest speakers of our senior groups in September are Emmaleena Niemi from Senior surf and Yvonne Backholm-Nyberg from @geing online. Music group will have a meeting in Vaasa city library. Theme of the day is Music as a media service in libraries.

Guest speaker at Digi group is Esa Riutta who introduces into artificial intelligence in libraries.

During the following year we have met a lot of changes and produced new services. One of them is a new loanable box with games for youth. Our beloved Magic carpet is getting retired at the end of the year.

The Digi group will have its last gathering of spring at the end of May and guest speakers will be Henri Vuorenmaa and Virpi Kortesniemi.

We participated to the gathering of VAKE and all of the AKE branches in Rovaniemi in April. During the days, we learned what other AKE groups are doing and got to know each other better. In case you are coming to Kuopio Library days, come and say hello to us over the AKE booth.

AKEpampas wishes everyone a sunny summer!

The first Morning café -meeting among the leaders of the libraries in our district, will take its place in march and the guest speaker is Mervi Heikkilä from ERTE.

Our Music group had a guest speaker from the Metso -library in Tampere. Juhani Koivisto talked about the selection work in library music services during the digital ages. Musi group will have a first gathering in person in April at Seinäjoki -library.

Over the last meeting of spring the senior groups will have their guest speakers Tiina Kallio from the library of Salla and Henna Ruuskanen from the library of Tervo.

AKEpampas travels’ to Rovaniemi in April to take part in the gathering of all AKE -teams around the country.

During April we will visit the libraries of Luoto, Kruunupyy, Toholampi, Halsua, Kälviä, Lohtaja, Kaustinen, Veteli, Vimpeli and Perho.

ÅKE -group has been planning the webinars of springtime and the program in autumn.

Liboppi -group noticed that old videos about instructions and guidance have still high demand so they decided to keep those available for longer time. Liboppi gained 500 new registered members over the past year.

The second education of this year will kick off at march and the theme is based on ART in facing youth and children in problematic situations. The courses are online and will be carried out in Swedish and Finnish.

The education of competence management, which was organized alongside with RSAA, had its final episode in February. It was joy to notice how many participants we had.

Our Music group had a neurospecialist PHD Seppo Soinila as a guest speaker in February. He talked about how music effects on human brain while we are listening to it.

Our Senior groups have guest speakers from the libraries of Tervo and Salla.

Digi group is making plans for the upcoming year and will choose the main direction where to focus on.

We have revived our Peer learning -program after covid and first library workers have gone to exchange place in our district. In case you are interested of library worker exchange program, you can send mail to akepampas@vaasa.fi .

January’s course was about confronting youth in difficult situations. The main speaker was Mika Vesala. Our guest speakers in our Senior groups were Nina Saarinen and Sirpa Hirvonen from Helsinkimissio and Cecilia Parkert from DigiSen project. Our theme in senior groups and music group for the year is digitalization. The guest speaker in music group was Niko Jylhä from Helsinki city library, who came to talk about “song workshop” in libraries with pre-school groups.

Since our day for the head librarians in our region, we have organized with Regional administration bureau and University of Eastern Finland a schooling about Competence management and it reached it’s second part in January. The third part will be in 13^th of February. You can listen from our podcast Pinnalla/Flytande about even management in libraries in our January episode and in February you can know more how to inspire youth to read more, by listening to Sini Helminen and Minna Mohr giving advices and sharing their thoughts. You can listen to the podcast here .

In future you can recognize us from this Logo

The beginning of the year 2024 begins with courses of youngsters and problematic behavior in customer service. Over the spring comes a longer series of ART -courses to manage aggressive behavior of problematic customers. The moodle-based platform Liboppi has released many new courses which you can find here .

The music group and Senior groups decided to focus on digital services over the year of 2024.

We will renew our logo and visual appearance the next year to make our services more recognizable.

You can listen our lates podcast from here

During November we have been making plans for the upcoming year.

Our music group had a visitor Tuomas Pelttari from VAKE. He told about musiikkikirjastot.fi website, and how all the libraries in Finland have full access to share the content over their library’s own website.

Senior groups had visitors: Marja-Liisa Nevala from Kauhava area Vanhustenkoti ry and Anna Söderström from Töölö library.

We organized our annual Leaders Day at Seinäjoki with AVI and for the day we had a lecturer from the university of Eastern Finland. Arttu Puhakka educated the leaders of our area for Talent management and here are following two more lectures in the beginning of the year.

Our podcast Pinnalla/Flytande has published its second episode, and the guest Speaker is Merja Lahti who is occupational safety representative in the city of Vaasa.

We wish you a very merry Christmas!

From activity box one can find multiple games, ipad (one can play online games with ipad), crosswords, and sudoku, which supports memory. Box can be used in senior groups.