Online Reading Club

About the practice

The main objective was the creation of new audiences, they realised that it was important to focus energy on children since they will be the audience in the future.

In addition, they realised that it was a way of “killing two birds with one stone”: if you hook the children, they cannot go to the theatre alone, so it is a way of reaching parents as well.

Story behind

The Library of Porriño has had a large reading club for years. During the pandemic they decided to continue with this club remotely, through technological tools: WhatsApp, first, and Zoom, later.

About the institution

The Municipal Library of Porriño is a public service committed to reading promotion and citizenship education, within the framework of equality and social diversity. They carry out activities that contribute to forging free citizens and opinion makers, using the me

Context

The situation that caused the need to carry out this initiative was the confinement forced by Covid-19.

The institution decided to carry out this initiative in order to continue with a reading club that has been in operation for almost 8 years. In addition, most of the members are older women and it is likely that, if they did not continue with the club during confinement and after, they would not join again once they had returned to face-to-face. They would drop.It was not integrated in the strategy, as it was something improvised. But something that remains in the strategy of the institution, now that they are returned to face-to-face, is the blog of the Reading Club.

Success factors

Digital non-native women who continue a reading club online.
Maintenance of almost 100% of the members in the club in the return to face-to-face.

What the institution is most proud of is that the Club has not disappeared after having gone through confinement and a pandemic.

“They all complained that they had to go back (to face-to-face format)... and then none of them came back!”

Target audience

The target group was the women who were part of the book club group. They were completely involved in the development of the good practice, since they had to be an active part so that the reconversion of the face-to-face club to online could take place.

Sustainability

The practice is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable since it is something that is carried out for a social group, using tools that they have at hand -without the need to invest money- and that does not generate environmental waste (beyond that generated for the electricity production).

Digital tools

The selection of the technological tools to be used was made taking into account the familiarity of the club members with them and their ease of use. That is why they started with WhatsApp and then, with the support and guidance of the coordinator, they started using Zoom.

Even so, there were certain difficulties to get the club to work well telematically: the age of the users and the digital divide.

Funding

The financing contributor of the practice was the Municipality budget that the Library already has.

Organization/ Institution
Library of Porriño
Good practice link
https://bibliotecadoporrino.com/
Address
O Porriño, Galicia (Spain)
Contact person on good practice
Albino Alonso, Library Coordinator; biblioteca@oporrino.org
Contact person on BNE
Albino Alonso, Library Coordinator; biblioteca@oporrino.org