Finnish Cultural Foundation to begin support of library acquisitions

Drive could put an extra 700,000 new books on shelves

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The Finnish Cultural Foundation, which held its annual gala on Tuesday, is to initiate a Kirjatalkoot (literally a "book drive") project that will - it is hoped - bring enough money into the coffers of the public library system to allow for the acquisition of as many as 700,000 additional new books by the end of 2010.
      The venture is the largest single project launched in the Foundation's nearly 70-year history. The Foundation has set aside EUR 3.5 million for the drive over the years 2008 to 2010. An additional EUR 200,000 will be forthcoming from the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland.
      The support funding is to be directed specifically towards acquisitions of books in Finnish and Swedish by domestic authors, and not translated works.
     
All Finnish public libraries will be able to avail themselves of support if they wish, but in return they will have to put their own hands in their pockets. Those municipalities taking part will have to add a sum twice that of the funding they receive from the Cultural Foundation.
      Briefly, the Foundation will be offering sums up to a 5 per cent increase in book grants. In order to get the full amount, the municipalities would need to increase their acquisitions budgets by 10 per cent, such that there would be a total of 15 per cent extra for new books.
     
If all Finnish towns and cities were to take part, it would feed an extra EUR 11 million or so into the system, and given that the average price paid for library books is around EUR 15.00 each, this would allow for an extra 700,000 volumes to be put on the book-stacks.
      At present levels, annual acquisitions are around 1.6 million volumes.
     
In the background to the Cultural Foundation's book drive is a worry that grants for new acquisitions have been declining of late. The sum is around 30 per cent down from the highs of the late 1980s.


Links:
  Finnish Cultural Foundation

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