As of: February 7, 2024, 12:00 p.m
By: Wolfgang Schörner
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Around 25,000 media can be borrowed from the Penzberg city library: Director Ilka Heissig, here at the counter, took stock of the past year in the administrative committee.
© Wolfgang Schörner
The Penzberg city library counted almost 90,000 visits last year, during which around 130,000 books, audio books, games and other media were borrowed.
This corresponds to the level of the pre-Corona period.
The “children’s room” also got off to a successful start.
The library will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025.
Penzberg – The new city library director Ilka Heissig has taken stock of the year 2023.
She was given the opportunity to do this in the Committee on Administration, Finance and Social Affairs.
The Berlin native, who has lived in Penzberg with her husband and three children since 2007, has been running the city library since last August.
She has been working there since 2014.
City library: Almost 90,000 visits last year
According to Heissig, 87,498 visits were counted in the city library in 2023.
For comparison: In 2022 there were 51,500.
The loans amounted to around 130,000.
The pre-Corona level had been reached, she reported.
According to her, the number of active users who borrowed a medium at least once a year and thus paid the annual fee was 2,400. There were 569 new registrations in the twelve months.
This January another 56 were added.
Successful start for the “children’s room”
The “Children’s Room”, the new children’s library opposite the city library, got off to a successful start.
It opened last July.
According to Heissig, of the almost 90,000 visits to the library alone, 36,454 were to the “children's room”.
There was “continuous praise and positive feedback” for the new children’s library, she reported.
The costs for the expansion also remained under 100,000 euros, or more precisely they were 99,900 euros - which is significantly less than originally thought.
More space in the adult library
In her review, Heissig recalled that not only was the children's library reopened in the summer, but the existing rooms were also rearranged because there was more space there after the children's books were moved out.
Last July, practically all of the approximately 25,000 media items in the city library were packed up, stored and then unpacked again after various restructuring measures.
According to the director, this was only possible thanks to the great commitment of the library staff, the building yard and many volunteers.
Since the children's area moved out, the shelves are now looser.
There are more sitting areas and work areas, i.e. tables where visitors can connect their own laptops.
Two computer workstations also remain (there used to be six).
Promoting reading is “one of our greatest concerns”
Heissig also reported that there were 253 events in 2023.
Of these, 48 were for adults with around 1,000 participants, 115 were for children and 90 were class tours with a total of around 4,200 participants.
She said she was happy that the efforts to work with the schools were bearing fruit.
There is good cooperation with practically every school.
“We are very pleased about this because promoting reading remains one of our greatest concerns.”
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The library director also gave a brief outlook to the administration and finance committee.
The city library wants to “continue to be a meeting place for all citizens, regardless of origin, religion or age” and continually improve the quality of stay.
Given the city's budget situation, not much is planned for this year.
There will be a number of events as part of the “Climate Spring” campaign, including a spring market.
The 50th anniversary will be celebrated in 2025 - perhaps again with the “Stadtlesen”
However, it is likely to be slightly more in 2025.
Then the city library will celebrate its 50th anniversary.
In addition, the Penzberg “Urmel” youth literature prize is twenty years old.
They are in the process of developing a program for the anniversary year and finding investors “in order to create something nice,” said Heissig.
According to her, it is also conceivable that the library could apply for “City Reading 2025”.
She left one request uncommented.
It was only visible as an image during her Powerpoint presentation in the boardroom: a slide for the “children's room”.
Something like this actually exists elsewhere: in the city library of Arnhem, Netherlands.
Children slide from one floor to the other.