This live-streamed video includes a presentation by Svitlana Kovalchuk, PhD, Scientific Secretary, Yaroslav Mudryi National Library of Ukraine: “Crisis Preparedness for Libraries Based on the Experience of Ukrainian Libraries”.
Kovalchuk describes how Ukrainian libraries work under Russian aggression and what the experience has taught them about preparedness. Her own library has been damaged during the war but has stayed open. The presentation covers emergency plans and staff training before the war and why they needed updating, new guidelines for air raid alerts, protecting electronic resources, libraries acting as shelters and resilience centers during blackouts, mental health support, protecting collections and documentary heritage, and media literacy education against disinformation. In the Q&A with the moderator, Päivi Jokitalo, she advises starting with people and communication, and says a typical plan should be adapted by each library to its own situation.
Nordic Libraries Annual is an annual conference that addresses topical issues in public libraries and library development. NLA 2026 was organized as a webinar on October 27, 2026 by the Finnish Supervisory Agency (LVV) in collaboration with Library Channel (Kirjastokaista).
The theme of the 2026 conference was “Libraries and preparedness”. The conference examined preparedness from different perspectives and from across Europe: what it means for the public and for public libraries, and what examples and experiences already exist within the library sector.
Read more:
All videos from the conference
Live-stream: Mikko Helander and Joonas Nevalainen
Producer: Riitta Taarasti
Produced by Library Channel (Kirjastokaista), 2026
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