Create culture:
Library Innovative Services

In 2020, the Ukrainian Library Association implements an international project called “Create Culture: Library Innovative Services”, supported by the European Union as a part of the House of Europe program. On a competitive basis, 32 librarians from Ukraine and Belarus were selected and trained by Danish and Ukrainian coaches. As a result of the workshops, each participating librarian developed and implemented a new innovative service for the development of creative industries in their library. These services are presented on the website.

Music studio in the Nikolaev universal library

The Nikolaev regional universal scientific library introduced an innovative service  “Music Studio”.

The idea of ​​creating the studio was born after the library, with the grant support of the US Embassy in Ukraine, purchased music equipment (YAMAHA PSR E363 synthesizer, Scarlett Solo Studio recording kit, record player).

“Since 2018, the Mykolaiv FavLab creative laboratory has been operating on the basis of the library’s international partnership center. At the request of centre visitors and the Department of Documents on Culture and Arts, we also decided to equip a music studio,” said Larysa Sydorenko.

The prototype of the project was created by employees of the center, colleagues from the Department of Documents on Culture and arts, as well as the Department of Socio-Cultural activities. Visitors from various departments of the library were involved in testing the studio.

“We managed to find out that there are not enough accessible and free places in the city where professional musicians, singers, amateur musicians and people who just want to do music can meet and communicate. On the other hand, people feel the need to present their works and communicate with like-minded people. Ordinary Nikolaev residents feel like attending such unusual events”, says Ms. Sydorenko about the test results.

She also mentioned the idea of ​​the service changed during testing. Initially the library planned to provide music equipment only for cultural events, music and audio recordings. Now the project is aiming at uniting musicians around the library not only through a music studio, but also by introducing music flatparties for the first time.

The first event as a part of the service took place on August 16, and music equipment is available to library visitors on a permanent basis and free of charge.

Project results

Larysa Sydorenko says, “Our team was eager to create comfortable conditions for professional musicians and musicians-to-be where they could communicate and present their creative achievements. Our visitors are mostly students of Mykolayiv Music College and Mykolayiv Vocational College of Culture and Arts, music school students and library users.

In order to unite people, we hold flatparties, as well as provide music equipment for individual use or for different events.

We have already managed to hold two flatparties. The first one took place on August 16, with 9 participants and 43 spectators. The second one was on October 25 in the format of an online broadcast on Facebook. There were 646 views.

Overall 13 library’s visitors have already enjoyed free access to music equipment.

This service corresponds to the mission of the library, which is specified in the Strategy of development of the Nikolaev regional universal scientific library. The mission of the library is to create the space for integrated information and communication where users could comprehensively develop their communities and professional potential. Our partners were the Nikolaev Academic Ukrainian Theater of Drama and Musical Comedy, the Nikolaev Academic Art Russian Drama Theater, the Nikolaev Regional Philharmonic, the Nikolaev Professional College of Culture and Arts, the Nikolaev Professional College of Musical Arts, and library visitors.

We believe this service can be implemented by any library, if there are partners involved, appropriate fundraising or project activities carried out, and a clear implementation plan drawn up”.

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