Left, Magdalena Stenlund, centre, Tyra Sundqvist, right, Ida Strömbro, librarians at Skellefteå City Library in Sara kulturhus.
The three librarians, Ida Strömbro, Tyra Sundqvist, and Magdalena Stenlund, offered some intriguing insights into how Skellefteå's demographics are slowly changing.
– There’s been a huge increase in the demand for English-language books, not just from this library but from other smaller village and town libraries as well as school libraries, says Magdalena.
– In the library these days we probably spend 50% of our time speaking English, says Ida.
– That gives you an idea of how many overseas people are moving here.
But it's not just English-language books newcomers are asking for.
– The first question is sometimes 'do you have any books in this language?', and may not know that they can ask for books in other languages, says Ida.
Left, Ida Strömbro, centre, Tyra Sundqvist, right, Magdalena Stenlund. "There’s been a huge increase in the demand for English-language books," says Magdalena.
What are the most in-demand languages at the moment?
– Many languages from places such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. So Hindi, Urdu, Singhalese. But also other European languages that we haven't had so much demand for before, such as Dutch, Portuguese, Romania, Greece, German and Italian, says Ida.
The library also fields queries from schools looking for books in newcomers' kids' mother tongue. Some of the languages aren't so well known.
– It's actually quite exciting when we get a request for books in a language we’ve not heard of before. That can be quite the challenge. Sometimes the books we do find in some of these languages are rather badly translated, so we have to be careful. We’ve had comments from some people, especially Swahili and Pashtun speakers, who’ve said, 'This is not right. This translation is bad.' We're very thankful for their help, says Magdalena.
"Sometimes people only expect us to have English-language books."
One of the most encouraging aspects of the increase in demand for non-Swedish books, is that the most sought-after genre is children's books.
– A lot of the time, it's parents coming to us looking for young children's picture books, says Tyra.
People may be coming to Skellefteå from countries all over the globe, but many clearly share one admirable common goal - introducing their children to the joys of reading.