At the end of the year

"The third place", or How the library competes
with the bar, sofa and embankment for your free time

If you think that a library is just a repository of books, then perhaps you haven't been to one in a long time. More than a decade ago, the country's libraries began dusting off their shelves and hosting a range of events that were both meaningful and engaging. Since then, for residents of large cities, libraries have become a real "third place", that is, where people spend their free time from work and home. Libraries in smaller cities are striving for this. And Dubna is no exception. The JINR Universal Library named after D.I. Blokhintsev is the "JINR Culture Laboratory", something interesting happens here every day. Library Director Maria PILIPENKO talks about how Blokhinka fights for customers with its main competitors: the sofa, the bar and the embankment.

- What does a modern library look like? And by the way, what is "the third place" as an urban concept?

- A modern library is comfortable, beautiful, there are tables, sofas, Wi-Fi, coffee, in some libraries you can even take a nap. A person can go here after work and before going home. This is the so-called "the third place" - a part of the urban space not related to home or work. An example of such a place could also be a cafe, park, club. According to Oldenburg, an American urban sociologist, "the third place" plays an important role in the development of civil society and democracy. Can Blokhinka claim such a place? We are striving for this: we do not want to put up with the role of a book depository and a shelter for isolated events. It would be better not to keep books, but to show them to the world, to bring reading back into life as one of the most important habits of an educated person. I want it to be a place of attraction for people who are searching, curious, asking questions - everything that a person is looking for in a book, he should find in the library. And in the library you can find cozy silence, new acquaintances, opportunities to apply your hobbies and even a new meaning in life.

- There are a lot of places in Dubna that can be considered as a "third place". There are city parks, cafes and bars, a shopping centre, there is even an anti-cafe and of course, an embankment. Blokhinka fits well into this row. Is it hard to compete?

- We consider ourselves "the third place" and want to be no worse than other beautiful places in the city. Alas, there are things that you can't do in the library: you can't have a drink, ride a board with a breeze and lie on the grass, you can't "reserve" a place for yourself, because our space is free for everyone. But you can do a lot: to work and to study, to sit in silence and to read books. You can show yourself, see others, meet new people, be in a pleasant, beautiful space, after all. You can listen to a cool speaker for free, borrow and return books (and this is a huge savings on your home budget), keep your children busy with smart leisure activities and become a member of the library's clubs and communities. You can become a library volunteer and drink tea and cookies in great company. The library also has a unique advantage: openness. Attendance at our events and communities is free and open to the public.

In general, all we have to do is to report what is happening in the library urbi et orbi and try to compete for customers with competitors.

- It seems that in order to compete adequately, marketing is needed. Is marketing always compatible with the library's mission?

- Are you talking about the "library - temple of knowledge"? About the fact that culture and low matters like advertising and promotion are "incompatible things"? Well, that was once the case. There is a title of a good book: "It Was Forever Until It Ended." By treating the library as a temple and not using modern marketing methods, we risk sitting in our temple almost alone. And our task is to promote reading and books into society, as I have already said.

In the creative field, those who start something new often get lucky. If you come to an empty field where there is nothing and come up with something cool, then most likely it will "take off." This is what happened to us in 2012. Everything we did was received with a bang, people came to us and praised us. Then it became more difficult to be cool. Because the first ones are always followed by the second ones and do better. Or what you do, some day people get tired of it and you need to come up with something new.

A common beginning in projects is "Let's do...!" - not bad for culture, because this is a creative sphere, where enthusiasm is needed, where sparkling eyes are needed. But after the idea "Come on!" one should definitely ask himself the question: "Why?" Why do we need this event or project? The justification could be attracting a new target audience, developing the site, a request from partners, or some important date.

The second question we ask ourselves is: who is our target audience? Who is the target audience of our competitors? If we share it with a cafe or a sofa, we need to find our own approaches. Next, we think about how to use resources that are naturally limited. Afterwards, we write a script, assign roles and work. And then, we draw conclusions about what was good, what was bad and what needs to be taken into account.

- Tell us, please, how the library has developed over the last ten years?

- It all started in 2012, when Maria Klimova, a young mother, came to the library and offered to read aloud to the children. They called this format of loud readings for children "Readers". This trend has been thriving in the library for 11 years. We are generally proud of our children's programmes.

Since 2012, there have been various film clubs in the library, sometimes opening and sometimes closing. This format is obvious and it was impossible to pass by. Also in 2012, the "Gutenberg Smoking Room" appeared - our favorite format for adults, meetings with retellings of non-fiction books. You read the book, you liked it and you share this book with the audience. It was very cool that we took part in the first Library Night in 2012 - it also became our favorite event.

And for example, lectures about travelling did not catch on. I think this is due to the fact that a person's story about where he went on a cool trip is always about some opportunities that other people may not have. And it doesn't motivate, it doesn't inspire. We periodically resumed such lectures, but in the end they died.

In 2013, we tried such an interesting thing as restaurant days. Enthusiasts held them in our city parks: they prepared various tasty things and treated everyone that came. Library restaurant days were based on books. So, the first restaurant day was called "Alice and the Mad Tea Party." Then we did an Indian restaurant day, a Swedish restaurant day with the Moomins. But then we stopped practicing this format, because there was a moment that demotivated not the listeners, but ourselves. Because we failed to cope with the fact that food at a restaurant day is a "freebie", "pancakes on a shovel".

"Pushkin in the City" is a wonderful event created by Maria Klimova. Today, it is held throughout the country: on 6 June, on the birthday of the great poet, those who wish can write their favorite poems by Pushkin with chalk on the asphalt.

Until 2019, we came up with more and more new formats. There were no longer enough hands and ideas. We conducted the first training for Blokhinka volunteers. And we received an excellent team of like-minded people that became our main acquisition, our main wealth, in addition to books. It is thanks to them that the library produces so many good things. Since then, we have been carrying out trainings regularly, the team has been updated, yet it remains just as creative and artistic.

In 2015, for the first time, we organized a geological festival together with the Geological Faculty of Moscow State University: they brought mammoth tusks, set up a real paleontological and geological exhibition in the library and gave lectures.

But the AYSS poetry evenings that we started that same year, did not take off. Young poets from the Institute gathered with us. Then they grew up, started families and disappeared. We concluded that our own, local poetry does not find an audience.

In 2016, we mastered the format of public talks that we do not forget today; we held the first Book Guests festival with publishing houses. "The trial of..." - we, like real artists, borrowed this format from the Atomic Energy Information Centre (AEIC). From a scientific point of view, supervillains and fantasy plots were tried and three "trials" were held.

In 2017, we mastered the formats of short presentations PechaKucha and also joined the popular science International Dark Matter Day that is held on 30 October on the well-known magical day. In 2020, we came up with the "Seasons" format. We managed to hold seasons of science fiction and astrophysics. And then Covid came...

- How did you get out of the situation?

- We went online, like everyone else. But it became more difficult. If in person we compete with local bars and anti-cafes, then online we compete with large federal libraries and other cultural institutions that have both resources and teams. When everything started to be allowed again in 2021, it seemed like we had entered a new world. We expected a full house for the first post-Covid lecture by scientific journalist Polina Loseva; we thought that people would come, that they were bored. However, only 35 people came to the event. It was terrible, we didn't understand how we could continue to live and what to do. In 2022, as soon as we had time to pull ourselves and our work together, everything fell apart again. And again we were looking for approaches to the audience, the right tone, consistent formats. I really hope that we are able to find them.

- 2023 is coming to an end. How did Blokhinka spend it? What's new?

- At present, we are looking at trends, the mood of the public. For the first time this year, we organized the Festival of Out-of-School Education - twice. We hope the event is useful for children and parents. In partnership with the Dubna University we had a wonderful linguistics season in November. We still work a lot with children and teenagers and we come up with new formats for this.

On Fridays and Saturdays, we often have no free rooms: two classes, a large and a small halls, a spacious annex, a children's department - all this is occupied by events, clubs, communities that we are very happy about. After all, a library should be a place not only for large educational events, but also for a variety of small communities where people can gather and find company and do something.

Our goal is to be a meeting place. Meetings of a man and a book, a man and knowledge, a man and a man. We try to ensure that all our events serve this purpose.

Ksenia MORUNOVA,
photo by Daria KONOVA