Katti Hoflin

Katti Hoflin 

Katti Hoflin is head of the children?s department in the Culture House i Stockholm since  January 2007. The unit is a centre for children?s culture containing a library, arts workshop, exhibitions, live music, dance and theatre for children. Rum för Barn. Producer, host, musician and actor within the public service companies; Swedish State Television and Radio for 18 years. Author of books for children (5 titles so far). Composer of a vast number of songs for radio and television, mainly for children. Speaker in many different areas, mainly now about the development of libraries and how to implement a children?s perspective.

Room for children ? constant evolution: A library with a fully implemented children?s perspective calls for a world of new skills

I will surely speak about what skills are needed in a library of our time! Who is the visitor? What does he or she expect a library to be? Are we out of visitors? Why? Where are they?  In „Room for Children“, my library, we have the opposite problem: too many visitors! Why? What is it that we have done right? I will stress two areas that are often overlooked in libraries.

1. The personal encounter. What kind of output should a library-worker have? Maybe some very unorthodox skills?

2. The environment: What is this room communicating? Is it a welcoming atmosphere?

In „Room for Children, we have made an effort to break the boundaries of a traditional library. This was truly a revolution and I will share our experiences of this attempt of developing and changing what a library is!