The Helsinki City Library stands for a sustainable society. The Library supports the city residents’ environmental literacy – their ability to understand the state of the environment and the factors and solutions affecting it.
One of the concrete measures to increase environmental literacy is the eco shelf developed by libraries, which can now be found in almost every library in Helsinki. Eco shelves feature fiction and non-fiction books on nature, the environment and climate with an emphasis on the impact of human activities on other species and the wellbeing of our shared planet.
“The ecological crisis touches us all, and literature helps us support everyone’s opportunities to participate in the dialogue on the environment, discuss the feelings and thoughts related to the changes, reinforce people’s sense of agency and create meaning in our changing world,” summarises librarian Liisa Uimonen.
High interest in eco shelves
The popularity of the materials presented on eco shelves has come as a positive surprise: the books are in constant circulation and the shelves have to be filled again and again. In March, nearly half of the eco shelf materials were loaned out.
Chief Librarian Harri Sahavirta, who brought the idea of eco shelves to Finland, is happy with the success:
“Eco shelves are based on the idea of open accessibility, which is why we have wanted to bring the literature related to the environment together in one place instead of scattering it around the library based on the classification system. Humanity is facing an unprecedented challenge, and it is the duty of libraries to provide as easy access as possible to timely and reliable information on the environment and the climate. The popularity of eco shelves is a sign that we have succeeded in this mission.”
The queen of the library loan statistics of eco shelves in 2024 was Ulla Donner, whose comic, Luonnollinen näytelmä, was the most frequently borrowed work of the eco shelves. Fiction dominates the list of most borrowed works, which also features Kirkasta ja välähtelevää by Helena Sinervo, Mikään ei todella katoa by Laura Gustaffson, The Dream of a Tree by Maja Lunde (as the Finnish translation, Unelma puusta), and Suomaa by Maria Turtschaninoff. In children’s literature, the most borrowed work was Roskakasa, an illustrated book by Emilia Erfving, while the most popular novel in youth literature was Harmaja luode seitsemän by Leena Paasio.
Eco Week takes over Helsinki libraries for the first time
Libraries support a sustainable way of life not only through literature but also by offering a range of items, equipment and facilities for borrowing. The libraries offer more than a hundred facilities which were booked nearly 80,000 times in 2024, which is almost 10 per cent more than in 2023. Equipment that can be used in libraries, from sewing machines to scanners, were booked more than 30,000 times, showing an increase of 38 per cent compared to last year.
Libraries encourage people to environmental actions by offering various opportunities for participation. This spring, the Eco Week event focusing on sustainability will be held by Helsinki libraries for the first time. The Eco Week, to be held on week 17 in April, is part of the theme week of environmental work in Nordic libraries, highlighting the 17 sustainable development goals of the UN.
The Eco Week will fill the Helsinki libraries with environmentally-themed events and activities, such as lectures on ultra fast fashion and the Baltic Sea, a nature poetry evening and a range of repair workshops from patching clothes to maintaining bicycles. All the Eco Week events are available at
tapahtumat.hel.fi/en(Link leads to external service)
.
