Children

The playroom for the young

Pre-school children who do not visit a kindergarten or nursery school can spend one morning a week in the main children's library; under a librarian's guidance they discover interesting books, listen to fairy tales or have a chance to be creative in a number of ways. They can be accompanied by their parents, guardians, relatives etc.

Story telling hours
In all the Maribor Public Library branches, including the Mobile Library (bibliobus), trained story tellers have regular meetings with children aged from 3 to 10. Story-telling hours for children and adults with special needs are prepared and performed with particular care. They take place once a month in the Children's Ward of the Maribor General Hospital, at the Residence for Children with Special Needs and at the School for Children with Special Needs (in co-operation with the School's experts).

"Toyteque" – (toy borrowing) In one of the Maribor Public Library branches children under 15 can borrow not only books, but also toys. Librarians who work in the toyteque are specially trained; they are familiar with new trends and carefully choose toys and social games which help develop children's didactic, emotional and psychological abilities, and also encourage their creativity, imagination, concentration, logic, thinking, persistence and accuracy. Borrowing the toys from the toyteque collection is free of charge for all children who are library members. It welcomes children and their parents also from more remote municipalities. The toyteque is a home to collections of toys which can be used also by various institutions and children with special needs (functionally or intellectually disadvantaged). It is necessary to emphasize that together with a toy an appropriate book is always offered to young visitors. The share of toys borrowed by students, teachers and educators has increased. This is a clear sign that also the experts working in the field of education have become aware of the importance of using this kind of library materials. Our collection contains toys which are carefully chosen, well maintained and presented. Beside our library, it is possible to borrow toys only in one of the public libraries in Ljubljana, the Slovene capital.

Computer creativity workshops for children under 15
The computer litteracy programme for groups of children is based on modern library information science and co-operation between school libraries and public libraries. In such workshops children become familiar with the library material, electronic information, the dimensions and importance of the world wide web, the ways of finding information on a specific topic, which is at the same time the theme of a workshop (for example the Universe). The starting point is the Maribor Public Library home page. At the end of the workshop, children try to collect information about a certain topic via the Library home page. The workshop programme depends on the age of children in each group.

Reading badge is a Slovenian movement which has been encouraging children and teenagers to read for more than 45 years. The principal aim of this movement is to develop reading skills, and to stimulate the cultivation of reading and literary culture among children and the young.
Experts on juvenile literature and literary didactic, librarians who work with children and teenagers in public and school libraries, Center for Juvenile Literature and Librarianship of Ljubljana City Library in Ljubljana, the Slovene IBBY section (International Board on Books for Young People), Slovene Reading Association, Slovene Writers΄ Association, the magazine Otrok in knjiga (»A child and a book«), publishing houses, bookshops etc. take part in this movement. Within the framework of the Reading Badge and several other reading projects which encourage reading (Bookpupas, Reading knapsack), the librarians of the Maribor Public Library work with children groups from kindergardens and schools. They tell them tales all year long and enrich their literary choice. At the end of the season, when all projects have come to an end, there is an award ceremony at the library, at which children, their parents, relatives, mentors and teachers take part. Sometimes our story-tellers also visit their young public in the kindergarden or at school.