During our visit to the capital, we first visited the famous Helsinki Library. The Helsinki Oodi Central Library is one of the 37 Helsinki City Libraries.
It opened its doors on 5 December 2018, on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Finland’s national holiday. The estimated cost of the new library is 98 million euros. The annual use of the library is estimated at 2.5 million users and its daily usage at 10,000.
The visit to the Oodi library is very long because it has 3 floors. Each of them has a different atmosphere and purpose. The first floor is intended to be a meeting place for the residents, with cinemas, exhibition rooms, cafes and restaurants. The second floor is dedicated to work and leisure, with rooms for work, music and creative hobbies. The third floor is a traditional library with a total of 100,000 works divided into seven reading oases, including a children’s section. There is also a café and the balcony offers a panoramic view of the Finnish capital.
In addition to books, users can also borrow digital readers. Users can use the music recording studio, the audiovisual room and the urban workshop with 3D printer and scanner free of charge. They can also borrow many tools, such as laser cutting machines, sticker printers, hot presses and sewing machines.
The library has an indoor playground called Loru. It is a free meeting place open to families with children. Loru offers singing lessons and physical exercises for children.
Oodi is equipped with a trolley-like robot, which can move books in the library. According to the creators of Oodi, these library robots are the first robots in the world to use self-driving technology in public libraries.
Our language holidays in Finland 