Public relations

The National Library attracted a great deal of public attention at the beginning of the year, following the opening of the Reenpää collection room, which displays the valuable private library of Heikki A. Reenpää. The project was jointly carried out by Professor Reenpää, the Otava Book Foundation and the National Library of Finland.

Book Act of the year

At their annual convention held in May, book dealers and publishers nominated the Reenpää donation the Book Act of the year.

The collection of over 20,000 volumes donated by Professor Reenpää in 2004 adds to the National Library’s collections of early Finnish literature and is one of the Library’s most valuable donations.

Visitors

The National Library was shown to a total of 950 visitors and visitor groups in 2008.

Visitors included the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, and his wife, who were given a tour of the Library’s main building and shown the collections during their state visit in September.

The U.S. Ambassador, Barbara Barrett, visited the American Resource Centre in October.

Exhibitions

The biggest and most visible of the National Library’s cultural events was the Books as a Passion exhibition
(15 May–15 November 2008), which displayed the Library’s own historical collections, as well as those of modern-day collectors. A book and lecture series by the same name rounded off the exhibition.

The 22 cultural events arranged over the year also included exhibitions commemorating the 90th anniversary of Estonian and Latvian independence (25 February–31 May 2008 and 14 November 2008–14 February 2009).

The finest Finnish books selected by the Finnish Book Arts Committee were announced in the Cupola Hall in March. The Best-designed Finnish and Estonian Books 2007 exhibition (14 March–19 April 2008) was also opened in this conjunction.

Fundraising

In the autumn, the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation awarded €180,000 for the preservation of medieval parchment fragments in the National Library’s collections.

The Kone Foundation awarded a grant of €91,000 to an online publication dealing with the medieval roots of Finnish literary culture, which was jointly designed by the National Library and Via Media Oy.

The assets of the National Library Cultural Heritage Fund totalled €226,000 at year-end, and they were used to rescue several important works.

The Save the Book campaign resumed after an interlude of nine months thanks to a new fundraising permit granted to it.

Support activities

In December, the National Library secured the support of three experienced and prestigious opinion leaders, when Riitta Uosukainen, a former Minister and Speaker of the Parliament, Professor Matti Klinge and Managing Director Ilkka Paatero signed on as Ambassadors of the National Library from the beginning of 2009.

The Ambassadors will be looking for new forms of cooperation and methods to enhance the awareness for Finland’s national book collections. Their term lasts for a minimum of two years.

The unofficial friend activities of the National Library continued as usual in the form of joint meetings, cultural events and lecture series.

Customer feedback

In 2008 a total of six customer surveys were carried out at the National Library’s research library. They gave
a general customer satisfaction score of 8.8 (on a scale of 0 to 10). The average response percentage was 82.

The customer relationships in library network services and their development were assessed with an online survey, which got 664 responses. Customer libraries rated the available services as very important and considered the National Library to have achieved average or good performance in its services.

Communication

According to a media monitoring analysis carried out by Cision Finland, the National Library was mentioned by selected newspapers, magazines, online journals, television and radio programmes and news agencies 212 times over the year, which was nearly the same as the year before (226).

The National Library’s website registered 4.9 million hits, which was down 14 per cent on the previous year.

The Finnish-language Kansalliskirjasto (National Library) magazine was published four times both in print format and as an online PDF version. The English-language Bulletin was published for the first time only in electronic format.

Professor Heikki A. Reenpää (left), the original owner of the Reenpää collection, was the obvious person to hold a speech at the opening.

Photo: National Library/Kari Timonen