After twelve years, Birgitt Kukla leaves the municipal library in Oberding.
From January she will take care of the city and parish library in Dorfen.
Oberding
- You are a well-rehearsed team, the ladies of the Oberding community library: Birgitt Kukla, Jeannette Grimes, Manuela Schreiber and Martina Ahlborn, who, together with other helpers, take care of the loan and maintenance of around 65,000 media.
Now, Birgitt Kukla, one of the two directors, is leaving the library after twelve years.
From January 1st she will take care of the city and parish library in Dorfen.
“I actually studied business administration in Munich and worked in reporting for an automotive supplier.
And I've always read a lot and with pleasure, ”reports Kukla.
The 54-year-old from Oberding became aware of an advertisement in 2007 in which the community was looking for people for the library, which at that time was still housed in the community center.
“Above all, the then mayor Helmut Lackner and the cultural consultants Rainer Hellinger and Andrea Hartung were very active as initiators.
And so I put together a team with my colleagues Jeannette Grimes and Martina Ahlhorn in the spring of 2008, ”she recalls.
They have now been housed in the new retirement home for a good four years, including more space for the many media.
And, when Corona is not in place, you can also talk to your audience and sit down together.
“This has made us an important meeting point in the community, maybe it will work again soon,” Kukla hopes.
In 2019 there were almost 160 events and school class visits
“In 2019, the motto of the Sankt-Michaels-Bund, to which we belong, was 'Focus on People'.
We therefore wanted to meet the different expectations of our customers in particular, and in fact over 19,000 people from the community came to borrowings and events. ”In 2019, the library was open for around 15 hours a week, and a good 1,200 actively used the media , there were almost 160 events and school class visits.
“These school visits are very important to us,” says Kukla, “because some children have brought books or other media from us in connection with these appointments.
We have developed our own program for elementary, middle and secondary schools, which also went very well until Corona stopped us pretty hard. "Especially preschool children like to come to the library and have" really absorbed a topic ".
Because together with exciting stories, the team even offered handicraft lessons.
Or they met at the summer vacation reading club.
Jeannette Grimes (53), who studied German and German as a foreign language and will now take over the management, has compiled statistics on loans: “This year around 1150 people have loaned media, the largest proportion being adults between 30 and 60 years of age , including about 80 percent women.
Readers between 60 and 75 make up a further good proportion, 15 to 30-year-olds are poorly represented. ”Overall, there was a slight increase in the print media,“ with novels for adults, especially Bavarian crime novels and family sagas , books on cooking, nutrition, health and handicrafts for factual subjects ”.
Depending on the situation, travel guides showed a slight decrease, according to Grimes, “except for Germany”.
Comics especially popular with children
With children, comics and comic novels would have dominated, and with first-time readers classics such as "The Dragon Coconut" were particularly popular.
The loan of e-books should not be underestimated either; adults are obviously mainly happy about the Leo-Süd online loan.
The library team has also repeatedly devoted itself to the important topic of promoting reading, because, according to Kukla, it is important to “awaken the joy of reading and to strengthen reading as a competence”.
Before the pandemic, there were regular picture book cinemas or visits from school classes.
The library is particularly proud of the “Library - Partner of Schools” seal of approval that it received in October from Art Minister Bernd Sibler and Culture Minister Michael Piazolo as one of 26 libraries in Upper Bavaria.
“I'm leaving Oberding with one eye crying and one laughing,” reveals Kukla.
She is looking forward to her new job in Dorfen.
There she meets a completely new environment and first has to build a network with the community and schools.
And she has to seek contact with her customers again, who have “grown very dear to her” over the years in Oberding: “I have known some of them from childhood.
And I'm very reluctant to leave an excellent team here. "
Friedbert Wood