Learning, literacy, and education in LAMs

Traditionally, LAMs have supported literacy and education primarily by providing and facilitating access to their collections. In tandem with an intensified emphasis on learning, and in particular lifelong learning, in contemporary society, this chapter describes how LAMs have shifted from being enablers of mainly informal and nonformal learning to increasingly becoming places for formal learning as well. We will describe activities at Scandinavian LAMs, with learning as the implicit or explicit goal, using both traditional and novel examples. Pedagogy provides a theoretical lens for understanding activities at LAMs as situations of learning. Furthermore, we will underscore literacy as a fruitful concept for LAMs with potential to connect local everyday practices with the social impact the institutions might have.