It may still be homeless, yet it feeds those hungry and thirsty for books. The Kraków Library has 57 branches and record-breaking numbers of visitors and borrowed books!
Marek Mikos
Kraków Culture
Where is it?
That’s a good question. Branch No. 1 is on Dietla Street, while the main administrative offices and No. 3 are hidden away in the corner of the former Main Railway Station building. When I was a kid, my own “Kraków Library” (although that wasn’t the official name back then) was the now-gone branch on Lubelska Street. Later I started visiting the site at 18 Stycznia; the branch is still there, although it is now known as No. 21 and the street has been renamed Królewska. No. 21 is very special: it is home to a library for adults, an academic reading room, sections for children and young adults, and a collection of foreign-language books. The title of Main Library is temporarily bestowed on the branch at the historic manor house in Dębniki. At the moment it’s “my” library, partly because it’s the nearest but also because of its unique atmosphere and outstanding collection spread over two storeys, with local interest materials, an information point and media studies texts upstairs. I’m so grateful to the skilled, patient librarian Mrs. Jola Wierzchowska-Kozaczka who has come to my rescue many times when I was doing last-minute research for an article or university assignment! Next to the information point is a room dedicated to the late Prof. Jerzy Pomianowski – an acclaimed prosaist, expert on Eastern European History and translator. The office is arranged with memorabilia donated by Prof. Pomianowski’s widow, Aleksandra Kurczab-Pomianowska. Prof. Pomianowski is about to get a new neighbour: the room dedicated to the late author Sławomir Mrożek will present his book collection and memorabilia donated to the library by his widow Susana Osorio Rosas. Outside the building, there is a handy 24h book locker bearing the name of Stanisław Lem and adorned with space-themed art.
Notable daughters
“We want all our readers to feel at home in our library. We make sure that each newly renovated branch has its own unique character,” says Agnieszka Staniszewska, director of the Kraków Library. We meet at the administrative offices at the former Railway Station, but we soon arrange to head out into the city. We only pick a few locations, but visiting them will still take an entire day. Finding a free day in the director’s calendar is be tricky; she looks after all 59 branches (including the temporary Main Library on Powroźnicza Street in Dębniki and two undergoing renovations at the Gotyk and Kliny estate) and two library points. She also hosts and chairs meetings, conducts interviews for the library’s monthly magazine, edits publications such as the Annals of the Kraków Library and the Kraków Encyclopaedia, travels all over Poland to attend meetings as an expert in library management and using the latest technologies, develops new campaigns, and oversees the development of the new headquarters of the Main Library.
Where shall we start? The branch at Ruczaj is home to an academic reading room, an extensive collection of local interests resources and of course plenty of books for children and adults. It’s the other of “my” libraries – I frequently borrow books here and seek assistance from the invaluable librarians. I mainly use these two libraries, because you can “only” take out 15 books at any given time, but if you enjoy walking or taking the tram, you can have borrow books from a whopping 15 branches at the same time!
The book lockers at different branches are adorned with fun designs, some symbolising the location, others featuring imagery associated with different authors or encouraging readership.
The library is distributed throughout Kraków. The team works hard to make sure there are no extensive blank spots, and new branches and library points are always opening.
Hungry for more
Does this even make sense, though, at a time when image is king, we all scroll through messages in a hurry, and any text longer than a single smartphone screen just seems too long? Numbers don’t lie: “Last year we were visited by more than 1,300,000 guests and we lent out around 2,600,000 books. All branches host meetings and literary and artistic workshops, games and competitions. At the Main Library on Powroźnicza Street, we hold educational family picnics promoting reading. We reach out to kids and the elderly – everyone is welcome here!” says Staniszewska. She gives me a Reader’s Passport 2024 – I get it on tick and now I have to earn it! And there are more such loyalty schemes. As I climb the narrow staircase to the branch at the former railway station, I walk past a poster advertising a vote for Reader of the Year. I took part in a literary competition for readers recently, and a few weeks after filling out the questionnaire I was one of the numerous winners invited to the award ceremony. I’m still bursting with pride today!
Staniszewska can’t give enough praise to her creative, dedicated team. “I was an outsider, a linguist and a manager. They immediately supported me with their professional knowledge and passion. We make it our goal to always be cheerful when speaking to our readers. Some of my staff joke that I even count their smiles!”
Years of homelessness
The Kraków Library is still like a homeless mother with well-off daughters, and she is forced to take “lodgings” with them out of necessity. It doesn’t have a lavish headquarters, in part due to the frequent changes in Kraków’s administration. Founded in 2017 as a municipal cultural institution, it brings together branches which had until then fallen under the jurisdictions of four district libraries in Krowodrza, Nowa Huta, Śródmieście and Podgórze. Bringing together this dispersed institution was always meant to involve designing a brand-new headquarters. I remember Stanisław Dziedzic, Kraków Library’s first director, and his ambitious plans to convert the huge, old building at Węglowa Street into a site for the managerial offices and a magnificent display of some of the finest books from the collection. The plans fell into oblivion when the city obtained nine hectares of the former University Hospital site and its many historic buildings in the Wesoła district and the announcement that the Main Library will have its new home on the site, at 15, 15a and 15b Kopernika Street. The first two buildings were to be thoroughly renovated and the third demolished to be replaced by a modern, glazed construction.
Meanwhile, the outbreak of the pandemic put these plans and many other projects on the back burner. In a way, in 2020 and 2021 Covid finally closed the door on the 20th century and ushered in a new era: once the restrictions were finally lifted, it was clear that people were hungry to rebuild social ties and there followed an explosion in the development of tools and competencies of an information society. This meant that the role and function of municipal libraries also needed to be reconsidered.
And, sadly, it wasn’t just old ways of thinking that fell victim to the pandemic; it was also people, including one of the employees of the Kraków Library and the director himself. When I recall my recent conversations with Dziedzic, I now realise that his vision of the library was still rooted deeply in the “old Kraków” of the 20th century: a huge historic headquarters, centralised book collections, a large lecture room for meetings and readings…
Tailor-made home
Appointed as director of the Kraków Library in 2021, Agnieszka Staniszewska shares her predecessor’s love of books and has a sense of mission and a passion which means she never sits still. She is also bringing the Kraków Library into the 21st century: instead of passively waiting for readers, she approaches them using all available means of communication. She organises outdoor meetings, is active on social media and leads promotional campaigns. The striking cover of the recently-published monumental Kraków Encyclopaedia features four large, stylised letters; designed by Staniszewska, the tomes are outstanding promotional tool for the library. She also verified the concept for the library’s new headquarters. Expert analysis of previous plans was unequivocal: reconstructing existing buildings would be vastly more expensive and less effective than constructing a building from scratch. During the second half of last year, it was confirmed that the library would have a brand new building, where the car park currently is on the Wesoła site.
“It isn’t going to be enormous; we have no intention of depriving Cracovians of access to their local libraries. It won’t be tiny, either; it will be the perfect size, similar to the library in Budapest,” Staniszewska explains.
It will be home to major collections for all readers, a multimedia library and state-of-the-art audiovisual rooms. And of course, there will be somewhere serving coffee and snacks. “We are planning to include a café so that visitors don’t have to leave until they really need to. At the same time everyone will be welcome to bring their own drinks and sandwiches, regarded whether they are a card holder. We want our library to become a third place.” The first is of course the home, while the second the workplace. The library will bring together the best elements of both: it will be somewhere to come to work but also relax as though at home or with friends.
“We will have it soon! Kraków deserves a visionary 21st-century library,” says Staniszewska proudly. And having seen her achievements so far, I am certain she is right.
Photo: Agnieszka Staniszewska (photo by Bogusław Świerzowski)
