Libraries of Emotions
The project
What We Do
The Libraries of Emotions project is based on a shared vision, bringing together Love for Livres, four European public libraries in Anderlecht, Lodz, Kaunas, and Kranj and a public library advocate association, Public Libraries 2030. The project has two primary objectives:
- Support the network of European public libraries as they adapt their ways of working to a digital environment all while preserving their missions of literacy promotion, cultural diversity, fighting social discrimination and cultural heritage enhancement.
- Experiment with innovative ways to develop reading in young people. This is based on a transdisciplinary approach mixing neuroscience, cognitive science, cultural activities, spatial design and digital tools.
To make things easier to understand, our project breaks down into the following sub objectives:
- Develop new practices fostering audience development and expand current skills in European public libraries to co-create practices mixing state-of-the-art approaches and grass roots ideas implemented by librarians.
- Enhance public libraries as public spaces to preserve cultural heritage, where cultural goods are common goods and creative assets are made to connect people, artists and ideas.
- Experiment with bibliotherapy as a way to nurture conversations, get new users into public libraries, forge communities and contribute to social wellbeing. Young people will be the target audience and the project will evaluate the impact of bibliotherapy on their social capital and inclusion.
- Develop an open-source methodology that reflects the impact of bibliotherapy and emotions in reading, in developing new audiences and in the creation of social impact.
- Produce a research paper based on the bibliotherapy session pilot. This paper will explore various topics including, how public libraries in Europe have conceived and implemented “Libraries of Emotions” and bibliotherapy sessions, which digital skills have been acquired by library professionals through the project, the strengths and weaknesses of the project, the social transformative impact of bibliotherapy, the application of a European vision and practice of neuroscience and cognitive science on culture.
The project will rely on the methodology developed by Love for Livres, placing emotions at the heart of the reading experience. This methodology focuses on the Key Emotion Indicator© on the six fundamental human emotions: love, joy, surprise, sadness, anger and fear. These have been developed into the emojis below as emotion tags for users to rate the books they read on the Love for Livres web portal. This web portal will be tailored to the languages of the four partner libraries for their users to engage with.
Librarians will receive training to facilitate these sessions and the participants will be able to delve into their life experiences through this process. With emotions at the centre of the reading experience, reading becomes simpler and easier to understand and exploring inner thoughts is facilitated through this. The final goal of the experience is to have a positive impact in the lives of the readers by helping them connect to their emotions.
The project supports individuals, strengthens the development of local communities and promotes a new way for people to choose books and read. The different experiences of the four European countries enrich the implementation of bibliotherapy in different cultures and place public libraries at the heart of sharing reading experiences.
