The Finnish Library Association - Suomen kirjastoseura

tel. +358 - 9 - 694 1858,
fax +358 - 9 - 694 1859
fla@fla.fi

The Finnish Library Association

• Ms. Mirja Ryynänen, President
• Ms. Tuula Haavisto, Secretary General
• was established in 1910
• has 2.200 personal members, mostly working in public libraries; is no trade union but a professional organisation; accepts also non-librarians as members, but they are not many; the few institutional members are folk high schools etc., not libraries
• has a light-weight organisation: Board, elected by the members in the annual meeting, which organises the activity with the help of the office (six staff members working full-time). The Board can appoint divisions, standing committees and working parties; just now there are a standing committee for music libraries and working parties in the fields of copyright and services for the members of the FLA
• has a politician as President, other Board members are librarians; the present President, Ms. Mirja Ryynänen, is a member of the European Parliament
• has an annual budget of approx. 2.6 million FIM (~ 450.000 ECU), of which one half comes from Kirjastolehti, the monthly library journal; 25% is state and other public aid, 15% comes as membership fees; the rest are occasional incomes
• is a member of IFLA and EBLIDA, collaborates in Nordic and Baltic ventures, has more and more international activities
• organises campaigns for the libraries, does lobbying for them in many ways
• organises 4-6 further education courses and several theme days every year, and every two year the nationwide Library Meeting
• is running different projects with different partners, e.g. the House of Knowledge (Internet and public libraries) with the Ministry of Education just now
• is in 1997-98 active a.o. in participating the discussion about the role of libraries in the information society, the development of librarianship and information studies education, the image and status of library work and the role of different material types in public libraries

Finland

• has 5 million inhabitants in a sparsely populated country (ca. 16 inh./km2)
• has a co-operating library network: public libraries in every community, financed by the state and the municipal communities - they serve also as school libraries; financed by the state: university and other research libraries, a repository library and many special libraries
• has a high use of public libraries: 20,5 loans and 12,6 library visits per inhabitant in 1996
• produces public library services effectively: the total public library expenses per inhabitant was 219 FIM (~ 31 ECU) in 1996