Cycling for libraries is an independent international bicycle tour “unconference” for librarians and library lovers.
Cycling for libraries supports at its core international grassroots networking, the mental and physical well-being of library professionals, and the crucial role of libraries for society and intellectual and scientific education in general.
Being Bicycle based, Cycling For Libraries naturally supports ecological values and an environmentally friendly way of life.
Many key values are inherited from librarianship. Thise of liberalism, openness, lifelong learning, access to information and innovativeness.
Of course librarianship, like the bicycle, is also by it’s very nature humanist, internationalist, cross-boundary and hands-on.
Every year in several countries around the world library professionals gather together and cycle considerable distances stopping at libraries along the way on a cycling conference that lasts anywhere from a few days to a week.
In May 20102, a group of Finnish librarians launched the idea of organizing an alternative bicycle conference, known as an ‘unconference’ in order to network with with colleagues from all over Europe and collectively discuss the issues and challenges that libraries face.
Joined by other librarians of different nationalities, they decided to cycle the 70 km from Borås to Gothenburg in Sweden to attend the 76th conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions which was taking place there in the summer of 2010.
Based on their success, the organizers of this unconference by bike planned the first official edition of Cycling for libraries between Copenhagen and Berlin in the Summer of 2011, riding an adventurous 650 km in the process.
The following year in Summer 2012, a hundred participants met to cycle 600 km from Vilnius to Tallinn and in Summer 2013, a meeting of librarians and bibliophiles departed from Amsterdam to cycle to Brussels in 9 days.
As a result of these different cycling librarian get togethers, the International Association for Library Advocacy (IALA) was founded at the start of 2014 with the mission to organize further editions of Cycling for Libraries.
At the 80th IFLA Congress in Lyon in 2014, a French speaking branch of Cycling for Libraries was formed known as Cyclo-biblio. Later in the Summer nearly a hundred international librarians cycled from the coast in Montpellier to Lyon to promote libraries and their services in the areas they cycled through.
How it works
Cycling for libraries is an opportunity to meet colleagues from all over Europe to exchange ideas and discuss the promotion of libraries. It is also an opportunity for participants to develop their professional network and to strengthen their commitment as library advocates.
Equally important, Cycling for Libraries allows participants to visit local authority libraries, documentation centres and university libraries in the areas they cycle through, gaining more experience of different library environments.
These visits are done at the genial pace of a bicycle, which gives participants the time to chat with passers by and any other cyclists they may meet along the way.
With participants being both novice and experienced cyclists, each route is adapted and itineraries planned in conjunction with national cycling associations and in particular with the French association for the development of cycle routes and greenways for France.
You may have heard of the term “velorution” and in this case it can be applied to libraries as well – while a velorution is the movement aiming to promote the use of the bicycle as a mode of transportation, Cyclo-biblio takes this even further by using the bicycle as a mode of transportation to promote libraries and show how they are still revolutionary to societies today.
Previous Editions
| Date | Distance | Route | Theme |
| 27 May – 7 June 2011 | 650 km | Copenhagen – Berlin | Shifting traditions |
| 28 July – 7 August 2012 | 600 km | Vilnius – Tallinn | Re-positioning libraries |
| 18 – 26 June 2013 | 220 km | Amsterdam – Brussels | Information society skills and training / Rights |
| 6 – 14 August 2014 | 460 km | Montpellier – Lyon | Libraries “outside the walls |
| 6 – 10 June 2015 | 215 km | Basel – Strasbourg | Libraries and the social link |
| 1 – 10 September 2015 | 675 km | Oslo – Aarhus | Makerspaces / New buildings / New Challenges, new skills and competences |
| 1 – 7 June 2016 | 375 km | Toulouse – Bordeaux | Towards participatory libraries! |
| 5 – 11 August 2016 | 385 km | Welland – Ontario | Multiculturalism |
| 17 – 20 May 2017 | 150 km | Öresund tour | Information specialists |
| 18 – 24 June 2017 | 300 km | Le Léman | Francophonie and cooperation |
| 28 August – 1 September 2017 | 350 km | Brașov – Sibiu | CicloBiblio in Romania |
| 10 – 13 September 2017 | 300 km | Trois-Ponts – Genk | Cycling and learning / Collaboration |
| June 2 – 7, 2018 | 350 km | Angers – La Rochelle | What is a library for? |
| 31 May – 6 June 2019 | 350 km | Le Havre – Paris | |
| 24 September – 27 September | 200 km | Béziers to Béziers | mini Cyclo-biblio |
| 28 May – 2 June | 300 km | LorLux |
Worldwide Movement
If you want to create your own Cycling for Libraries ride to advocate for libraries and the benefits they bring to our communities, reach out on social media using the hashtag #cyclingforlibraries to discover if any colleagues have already put plans into motion in your area, or to find like-minded individual with which to collaborate on your own adventure.
They said about libraries…
“An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.”
STEPHEN FRY, ENGLISH ACTOR
“There is not such a cradle of democracy on earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”
ANDREW CARNEGIE, AMERICAN INDUSTRIALIST
“I had no books at home. I started to frequent a public library in Lisbon. It was there, with no help except curiosity and the will to learn, that my taste for reading developed and was refined.”
JOSE SARAMAGO, PORTUGUESE NOVELIST
The types of cycles that are recommended for use on Cycling For Libraries rides:
While it is possible to attend individual sessions to meet colleagues for the purpose of information sharing and library promotion, we suggest completing the whole ride. Pick a bicycle you are comfortable covering long ground on, such as a gravel bike, which are currently very popular, a road bike which is faster but perhaps a little less comfortable over longer distances, a hybrid bike which provides greater comfort over urban terrain, or if you prefer some assistance on the hills or over longer distances, then a pedelec e-bike. Please ensure any e-bikes are legal in the countries the tour is passing through.