The opening of the renovated Šentvid Library has taken place on the World Book Day, Wednesday 23 April 2014, and within the 1st Slovenian Book Night at the Ljubljana City Library.

Šentvid Library Renovation – “Living in Harmony with Nature"

The Šentvid Library outlined the concept of a green library with renovating the library space, acquiring appropriate book collection and planning a set of events.

A general library is a window into the world of knowledge and it carries an important role in informing, educating and raising citizen awareness on protection and preservation of natural resources. Due to the ever-growing awareness of the citizens, the library has an opportunity to become an example of good practice and an important provider of education and awareness on the environment.
A green library begins with designing a natural building, which meets the customer needs and does not threaten health and natural resources on the other hand; it must also comply with national and international recommendations at the material selection.

The library renovation plan was designed by Mr Miran Lasič with years of experience in furnishing libraries and recognising needs of clients, the collection and the space itself. The renovation plan followed the outline plan. They used environment-friendly materials, and the architect introduced a tree as the symbolic and colour basis to portray a brown colour at the adult section, which symbolises a tree trunk, roots and branches, while the green section for younger readers symbolises new green leaves.
The library is also newly equipped with 3 computer stations with new ICT equipment for users. Currently, the library holds a tender for delivery, montage, installation and restoration of the management and protection of the library material based on radio-frequency identification (RFID); the tender includes restoration of two self-service stations and a book returning station (knjigomat). It is the first library within the Ljubljana City Library network to introduce this system, being the reason of special attention with planning and restoring.

Library as Green Teacher

The library as a green teacher in the area of living in harmony with nature, raising awareness on environment and focusing on the meaning of natural co-existing is fulfilling every traditional task of a modern, user-friendly library:

- communicating relevant information,
- guiding,
- including the local community residents in library activities,
- organising activities for adults and children themed with nature and its preservation, e.g. workshops on ecological food production.

Book Night

The 1st Book Night took place on 23 April, the World Book Day. The Ljubljana City Library participated with various events. The Book Night is an international event that celebrates and supports books and reading as fundamental cornerstones of a healthy society; it reaches out to every generation of readers and encourages the reading culture, literacy and values of imagination and knowledge in a society.