Finnish Libraries!

 

Kirjastot (Finnish Libraries)

When we came to Finland, we were a bit worried about entertaining the kids.  And ourselves.  We would be gone for two months.  We had very few toys for our kids.  Or books.  And we knew money would be a bit tight.  So we packed as much as we could.  We brought books for the kids.  We brought our Nintendo Switch and bought some extra games for it.  And Amy and I took some board games out of their boxes and packed them in ziplock bags for ourselves.  We figured that we would hunker down and enjoy having less, and if we ended up being a bit bored, we would manage.  As it turns out, bringing all of that stuff was among the stupidest ideas we could have had.

Why?  Because Finland has libraries (called a kirjasto), and they are AWESOME!  We should have checked into them before coming.  We were a bit worried that maybe they wouldn’t let us check things out since we were only there for two months.  But no worries.  They gave us a card right away with all the same privileges as any other card holder.  Though they sheepishly told us that we could only have a maximum of three hundred items checked out at one time.

They had lots of kids books in English which the kids checked out.  

They also had movies, and we were able to binge a lot of Moominvalley.  But that’s not the best part.  The also had video games.  For all sorts of different consoles, but also for the Switch.  And not like a few copies of a sports game from six years ago.  But like new releases.  And lots of them.  We played a couple while we were there.  But that’s not even the best part.

Finnish libraries have board games.  Lots and lots of board games.  New board games.  Old board games.  Hard to find board games.  And they are all in really food condition.  Many of them have upgraded components and/or are kickstarter or special editions.  We played a board game every single night.

The library is a popular hang out for kids after school.  They have video game consoles for kids to play, and lots of activities.  It actually gets a bit rowdy in there.  I had to fight my American urge to walk around shushing people.

The main branch of the library is the Metso, which is only a couple of blocks walk from where we live.  We go there often.  

But we’ve also been to maybe half a dozen libraries all over the city.  They’re all in different buildings (many equally as impressive), and they all have different things, so it’s always exciting not knowing what you’re going to find.  It’s also been a fun way to explore parts of the city that we probably otherwise wouldn’t get to.

We developed an interesting relationship with the things we had borrowed.  It was all so wonderful that we felt a social responsibility to take care of it, and share it.  We would get a notification when someone else had reserved something for after we were done with it, and we felt this excitement to get one last use out of it, and then return it so someone else could enjoy it. 

It also caused us to reevaluate our relationship with stuff.  We have so much stuff.  I’m partially to blame for that.  But it really sucks that in America if you want to be sure you’re able to use something you have to buy it.  I buy a lot of board games because I want a chance to play them.  And maybe 10% of them are ones that I’m really glad I have that I want to be able to play whenever I want.  And about 20% are ones that maybe I’m glad I played, but probably won’t play again.  And the rest are somewhere in the middle.  But if you had a library where you knew that you could play or read or watch something when you wanted to – you might just have to wait a couple of weeks, it would be so liberating.  I think I’d own about 10% of the stuff we currently own if we had libraries like Finland. 

It also made us rethink America’s relationship with funding public institutions.  It seems like for some reason Americans view taxes as overwhelmingly evil.  Like the worst possible thing.  Nobody wants to pay them.  Political parties don’t even propose raising them anymore, even though they probably should.  But Americans are stuck in this pretty viscous cycle.  We don’t want to pay taxes.  So we underfund our institutions (like libraries).  And because they are underfunded they aren’t very good.  And that makes Americans feel like its not worth funding them at all. 

I suppose that Finnish libraries showed me what could be possible.  That if we all paid a little more in taxes – not very much more, just a little bit – we could have something that was awesome.  And it would be something that made us all proud and made our lives all better. 

I think that Americans are addicted to this idea that it is possible for things to be great without costing us any money.  That would be nice.  But that’s not how things work.  Think about all of the times in your life you have bought the cheapest possible option.  How many of those times was the cheapest thing also the very best thing.  I’m guessing the number is pretty close to zero.  Sometimes maybe the cheapest thing is sufficient.  Often the cheapest thing actually is pretty awful and breaks or isn’t really useable, and you have to end up spending more money to buy a different option.  I think every American has been burned before by buying something cheap.  As the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for.”

On the other hand, think of the things that you take pride in.  Your lawn, your car, your television.  You put money into those things.  A lot of money.  And it doesn’t feel bad.  Because you are proud to have something really nice.  You are happy to spend money on something that you take pride in.

Finland shows what it looks like when you take pride in the services and institutions that care for your people.  It does cost more money.  But I think Finns are happy to spend it.  Because they get something really awesome out of it.  And it feels good to spend money on something you’re proud of.

I hope we learn that lesson eventually.

Hei Hei