Curiosity Day in Estonia

In 2022, the President of the Republic of Estonia Alar Karis started a new tradition – Curiosity Day, which aims to value curiosity as the basis of lifelong learning and encourages activities that inspire people of all ages to broaden their horizons and acquire new knowledge and skills. On November 17 last year, more than 80 events dedicated to Curiosity Day took place across Estonia, mainly in schools, libraries and museums.

The nationwide initiative continued in Autumn 2023. President Karis invited all to join in, saying: “If curiosity and interest in learning persist, the smart and educated Estonia will also persist. I invite you again to celebrate the Curiosity Day on 17 November. Let’s be curious!” Curiosity Day aims to enhance science-based thinking, communication between experts and society, and a better understanding of the learning process.

The National Library of Estonia celebrated this day with a book restoration workshop, where participants could find out how to take care of books and, if needed, give a book a new life. Kalju Tammaru from the National Library’s Repository Library opened the workshop by sharing good practices for a home library. After this introduction, Urve Kolde and Vilja Ventsel from the library’s Preservation and Conservation Centre gave the participants practical tips for taking care of books. They also presented examples of restoration where good was intended, but harm was done to the book instead. Do-it-yourself restoration was practiced with a simple but useful task – repairing a broken school notebook.

With this workshop, and many other past and future events, we hope to contribute to both arousing and satisfying curiosity which drives people to explore, discover and learn.

The photo gallery by Rasmus Jurkatam gives an insight into the work of Urve Kolde and Vilja Ventsel from the National Library of Estonia Preservation and Conservation Centre.