Libraries Role in Making a Better World Agenda 2030

what’s the first thing that comes to

your mind when you think of a pubic

library some of you may say it’s a quiet

space where you can borrow books

but you cannot make new friends

because if you talk a grumpy librarian

will appear and go

orders might remember a situation when

their dog ate a book by

accident and until today they’re afraid

to return it

because of the librarian’s reaction

or why do physical libraries exist today

if it’s possible to find

any information on internet

i know this notion of libraries is very

present in people’s minds

but be honest how long has it been sized

away into a public library

society has changed and libraries too

to show you why libraries are important

to make our world better and contribute

to a more sustainable society

i will tell you a story of a little girl

from brazil

when she was a kid she started in a

public school

and she had a hard time to learn how to

read and write

in her school there was no library only

a tiny room with some books that was

always locked the students almost never

used this room

and when it was open it was used

as a place of punishment for misbehaving

kids

and what do you think the punishment was

yes reading

clearly this kind of experience doesn’t

motivate any readers

and it was no different for her she

didn’t like to read and she started to

associate

reading with punishment

so how did she overcome this problem

by chance she had a lot of contact with

libraries

because in front of her school there was

a youth library

which had several playful activities for

example

storytelling with puppets she was a big

fan of it and there she developed

her interests in reading

not only this library helped her but

when her grandmother couldn’t take care

of her after school

she had to go to her mother’s work in

the university library

this permanent contact with libraries

and with the help of her mother who is

librarian

her interesting read increasing even

as a kid she wasn’t aware of the

positive impacts that the libraries

would have in her life

however few years later she finally

understood its importance

and decided to become a librarian

well she is right here in front of you

speaking about

libraries

that story was in early 90s

but until today millions of brazilians

are struggling to learn to read and

write

according to the brazilian literacy

indicator

about 29 percent of people aged

15 to 64 are functionally illiterate

that’s about 38 million people

and it means that they have difficult

image use of

reading and writing in everyday life

situations

you might ask is that be a problem only

in developing countries

this question also facing my mind so i

started to research how libraries are

working to change

people’s lives today i live in germany

and hear the literacy situations better

than in brazil

i study by a humble university shows

that 12 percent of

german speakers between the age of 18

and 64

have lowly terrorist levels they have

difficulty reading and writing

that is nearly 6.2 million people

as the number shows poorly terrorism is

an issue

in both countries and i want to talk

about

how libraries do not only help in this

regard

but also to achieving all the

sustainable development goals

now you might ask yourselves what are

the sustainable development goals

this was the first question that i asked

in my survey that i

sent to libraries in germany

i was really impressed with the result

because

53 percent of the librarians replied

that they are aware of

that and i thought that amount would be

smaller

the united nations established in 2015

on agenda that aims to create a better

world by

2030 this agenda has 17 sustainable

development

goals also known as the global goals

guided by this agenda it’s now open to

all of us

including libraries to work together to

build a better world for everyone

the idea here is not explain each one of

them

but to show you how libraries contribute

in fact many of these goals have worked

so far a long time in libraries

even without librarians knowing about

them

now let’s look at the 17 sustainable

development goals

looking at these goals which ones of

them would you say

are the ones that libraries can

contribute to

surely you have thought of to go for

quality education

possibly because of the story that i

told you

or the goal 10 reduce inequality since

public libraries belong to everyone

without distinctions

leaving no one behind but

believe me libraries contribute to

achieving all these goals

an example of library’s contribution to

achieving the goal 10

in reducing equality is the state

library of rio de janeiro

this library is located in downtown

africa

and every day before the library opened

prior to the corones pandemicy

there used to be a queue of people

waiting to use the library

some of them were homeless and they see

the library as a safe place

where they can seek shelter from the

heat and the rain

but also as a place to educate

themselves

one of them was a girl who used to hang

out every day in the library

she grew up in the orphanage but ran

away

because she was picked on by other

children

she also didn’t go to the school for the

same reason and today she’s living on

the street

the first time she visits the library

she was very scared

because she thought that she might not

fit in

but after she made friends with

employees

and she started to feel at home

when asked her why she was in the

library every day

she answered it’s better to me to occupy

myself in the library because i won’t

stay away from the streets problems like

drugs and negative influence

here i construct myself

using computers watching movies playing

games

and chatting i came to the library

to learn and i already learned a lot

here

i learned to respect the rules to be

polite with others

to use the toilets i like to come here

because here i made friends

i just don’t know to read but i know

that one day i will learn

this story show how important the

library is as a public space

and how it was necessary for her

unfortunately the library’s current

closed

and we don’t know what’s happened to her

but at least the library sparked her

interesting

reading another example to achieve the

goal 10

is i would like you to imagine that you

move it to a country where you don’t

speak the language

this is my case and believe me it’s not

easy

but the libraries can also help you

in hamburg libraries there is a

volunteer project that offers

conversation groups for adults who want

to improve their german

from my own experience i attend this

conversation group and it was wonderful

first because when you take a language

course you usually learn a lot of

grammar but you have no chance to speak

and in the library you can really

practice speaking

second because it’s not only about

improve the language but also about

social integration it’s possible to beat

people from

all over the world and besides that you

end up

making friends which is fundamental for

integration and reduce the isolation of

these people

these projects also contribute to

achieve the goal 8

because if you improve your german you

have more chance to get a job

and the goal 3 well-being because you

will feel more integrated

after having been given these examples i

hope you’ll agree that libraries can

change people’s lives

but what about this argument that one

day physical libraries are not exist

because you can find everything online

it’s not possible to generalize that

everyone has

access to it according to the brazilian

institute of

geography and statistics 25

of the brazilian population 10 years or

older

did not have access to internet in 2018.

that is almost 46 million brazilians and

half of

them don’t know how to use it

libraries can help in this case as well

that is a volunteer project

at home book library that offers

training course for people who are more

than 60 years old

this project enables seniors to use

mobiles and tablets to communicate

digitally and to better information

online

this is amazing projects because

nowadays when you don’t know how to use

smart technology it’s really difficult

to communicate with your friends and

family

from my own experience before moving to

germany

i tried to teach my father to use a

smartphone

to chat with me and it was really tough

for him

i had to write a big manual explaining

step by step

how to turn on the phone open the chat

app

and how to answer and make video calls

at one point i felt oh my god but in the

end it was a fun experience

and today i’m happy that we can see each

other by camera

another important point is faking news

who has ever shared faking news because

it didn’t check it out or because you

really believe it was true

this is a serious problem because

nowadays anyone can create false

information spread it on the internet

libraries also offer workshops on how to

and check fake news for people who don’t

know how to look for relatable source of

information as a consequence

this action contributes to the goal 16

peace justice and strong institutions

because fake news often spread hate

speech

and try to destroy the habitation of

institutions

all these examples are focused on social

aspects

but what about the goals related to the

environment

libraries should be exemplary let me

illustrate by bringing some examples

look at the goal 12 sustained

consumption some librarians are

concerned about the consumption

and waste production of libraries buying

more sustainable products

and avoid wasting the library service

the waste separation is also fundamental

and all the material collect is sent for

recycling

including books that are no longer in

use

these simple actions contribute not only

to legal 11 sustainable cities

and to the go 12 but also to the goal 14

conservation of life in water and gold

fifteen conservation of life on earth

by saving new natural resources that are

no longer used

in recycling and mitigating the waste

pollution

in rivers and on land

another point is that many libraries

providing parking areas for bicycles

these don’t only encourage physical

activities but

also give an incentive to leave the car

at home

and reduce the emission of co2 let’s

accelerate

global warming this way

live responsible to both go 11

sustainable cities

and goal 13 climate action public

libraries are also space for environment

education programs

which aim to make users aware of

sustainability

but this is a topic for another talk

to conclude when the library contributes

to all the 15 sustainable development

goals finally it will be possible to

achieve the goal 1

no poverty and the goal 2 0

hunger to make our world better and now

what’s the first thing that comes to

your mind when you think of a pubic

library i hope that i have been able to

change our perception of pubic libraries

and

show you how they are important to make

our world a better place

thank you for listening