All libraries, schools and community centres interested in participating in this year's library week and holding respective events, are invited to register at the library week's homepage as soon as possible! If participants desire to receive "Winter in the Nordic Countries" posters or postcards for their events, they are kindly asked to contact our cultural adviser Eha Vain at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Also, Eha provides additional information on all questions related to the library week and appreciates information on which events and when they will be held under the title "Winter in the Nordic countries".
Call for participation: Nordic library week 2013 “Winter in the Nordic countries”
Once again, all libraries, schools and community centres in Estonia are welcome to join in the Nordic library week titled this year "Winter in the Nordic countries", held from 11 to 17 November.
Similarly to Estonia, autumn and winter days are especially short in the Nordic countries. Reading aloud was a popular pastime in long and dark winter evenings before the arrival of the television and computer age. In the gloomiest time of the year, libraries in the Nordic countries and the League of Norden Associations organise Nordic library week, as they have been during each year ever since 1997. These seven days are filled with exhibitions, reading sessions, book presentations and debates held in libraries, schools and community centres in the Nordic and Baltic countries.
The opening day of the library week features reading sessions in the local language in more than 2,000 places in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Additional information is available here.
The selection of books for reading aloud includes a lyric novel "The Ice Palace" by a Norwegian author Tarjei Vesaas, published also in Estonian. The novel touches upon the tragedy of loneliness and a longing for belonging somewhere against the backdrop of beautiful Nordic nature in the winter. In 1964, Vesaas was awarded the renowned Nordic Council literature prize for the book.