Europeana Enters School Libraries
If I was a book, I would like to be a library book, so I would be taken home by all different sorts of kids. / Cornelia Funke/
On May 11th about three hundred Polish librarians gathered online at the conference entitled “Książka – medium bez ograniczeń” (Book – Medium without Limitations) to celebrate the Library Week and the importance of books. Organised by Pedagogiczna Biblioteka Wojewódzka im. KEN in Lublin (Regional Pedagogical Library) and Lubelskie Samorządowe Centrum Doskonalenia Nauczycieli (Teacher Training Institute) and led by methodological advisors Joanna Tarasiewicz and Aneta Szadziewska, the latter also being a Europeana DSI-4 User Group teacher, the event equipped the participants with new ideas and resources, including Europeana Collections, aimed at promoting reading.
Full of emotions
Those looking for new ways of talking about emotions with kids and building empathy in them were definitely satisfied with the books full of emotions, including ‘Bohaternik’, presented by its author – Iga Fijałkowska. Katarzyna Witt showed the participants how to verbally break a book into pieces to stimulate visual thinking in children. Next the teachers were presented with some creative word games by Aleksandra Kopczyńska. Edyta Plich and Magdalena Siekierzyńska, co-founders of EDICO foundation, discussed some successful ways of working with the book that should start at an early age. “Literature Is Life” was the closing presentation during which Alina Januszczyk, representing Dom Słów (House of Words), invited the attendees for a journey with a book through all the stages of life.
Europeana – rich digital library
Did you know that Europeana Collections include almost one million items in the Book Collection, over three hundred thousand manuscripts and nearly one million newspapers? In April, Europeana was celebrating the history of literature that resulted in a fascinating Poets and Writers Collection including, among others, Female Authors , Children Reading and Book Covers galleries, great articles such as Travelling Through the Pages or The Women Behind the Beauty and the Beast as well as a wide range of Europeana learning scenarios devoted to literacy, containing, for instance, Little Red Riding Hood, The Story of Your Name or You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover. Or Can You? As for the theoretical aspect concerning literacy, The Rise of Literacy in Europe exhibition is sure to organize your knowledge in this matter. If you not only love reading books but also enjoy colouring them, you should definitely visit the Colouring Books collection. If you are a fan of real life stories, Europeana Migration is a must: you can browse through interesting stories related to, among others, books and submitted by people coming from different corners of Europe and, to engage even further, you can also share your own story of your favourite book that accompanied you during your journey. Why not invite your students and their families to join in the experience if they have their migration stories to be told?
All the above mentioned resources were presented during the conference by Katarzyna Siwczak, Europeana Education Ambassador. The whole presentation is available below.
Public Domain Mark 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Nationalmuseum, Sweden.