Five libraries in Brussels will expand their collection of Ukrainian books for adults and young people, given that the number of people from the war-torn country living in the region has risen to more than 10,000 people – which includes 5,000 to 6,000 schoolchildren.
In November last year, the library of Woluwe-Saint-Pierre started a collection of Ukrainian adult and youth books — the only one in Belgium — but the need for a larger collection had grown stronger in recent months, which is why the libraries of Jette, Molenbeek, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre and Uccle joined forces with OBiB (Support Libraries in Brussels).
"Brussels is the most diverse city in the world after Dubai. The public that Brussels libraries receive reflects the reality of our diverse city," said Pascal Smet, the Commissioner for Culture for the VGC (Flemish Community Commission).
As the number of people fleeing the Russian war in Ukraine and settling down in Brussels grew, the demand to expand the Ukrainian collection in several municipal libraries was not unexpected. "Therefore, an extensive Ukrainian collection cannot be missing from Brussels library collections today," Smet added.
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The original collection housed in de Lettertuin in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre was established by several Ukrainian local residents and was later further expanded. The purchased books, paid for by Haska Shyyan, Ukrainian author and winner of the European Literature Prize in 2019, have since been distributed to the libraries of Jette, Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, Molenbeek and Uccle.
The book collection is varied and includes mainly fiction, poetry and children's literature, selected by a group of Ukrainians living in the region.
Several libraries, together with their local communities, have set up different language collections. Since 2015, collections in Arabic, Bulgarian, Romanian, Russian and Spanish were created, while an additional collection in Polish is planned for 2023.
