Autoplay Heavy Duty Handsets – Aarhus Bibliotekerne

Aarhus Bibliotekerne is one of 19 libraries situated in Denmark’s second largest city. Like their counterparts, Aarhus Bibliotekerne is part of a larger public service that’s free of charge to everyone, with those living in Aarhus’ Municipality having unlimited access. This includes WiFi, Online access, Computers, areas for meetings, and the ability to borrow a range of books, movies, videogames and magazines.

The aim of Aarhus Bibliotekerne – and the wider Aarhus Public Libraries – is to make information and education freely accessible to people of all ages, starting with children. Rasmus Ott, Project Manager for Aarhus Bibliotekerne, goes into detail about one of their latest projects and how our Autoplay Heavy Duty Handsets helped bring it to life.

“One of the project’s workshop-concepts is to co-create auditory literature with children. The basic idea is that an author has written the beginning of a story that is then presented for a small group of kids. The author and the children then, through a creative and playful process, co-create the rest of the story. When the storyline is set, the children must create different sounds to go along with the story. They can be sound effects or different character voices. Everything is then put together to form a unique auditory story.”  

“The installation is used to display and communicate these stories by being visible in the library and making it possible for kids to listen to stories created by other children. As additional workshops are completed, more stories will be added to the installation.”

“The installation itself was created by Bureau Detours and is inspired by the Soviet satellite Sputnik 2, which carried the space dog Laika into outer space. Its main purpose is to invoke curiosity and encourage children to investigate the object and discover the wonderful stories that it conveys through the sound cups. In addition, the spacecraft reminds us that literature can be a journey that can take us everywhere in time and space.”

The Autoplay variant of our Heavy Duty Handsets sports the museum’s branding and were combined with a SoundClip-2 to store the audio files. The ease of use is ideal for children, simply lifting one off its magnetic hanger activates the story.