The history is hiding in the corners of the cities and we can find inspiring details about the spectacular events that took place on the streets we walk daily. The wonderful minds that have walked the same pathways can be inspiring, allow watching history and feeling proud of the inherited values.

Klaipėda City Municipality Immanuel Kant Public Library is working in a consistent manner to emphasize the heritage of Immanuel Kant in Klaipėda.

The ancestors of I. Kant, the Prussian philosopher of Lithuanian origin, one of the most outstanding thinkers of mankind throughout history, and the Klaipėda region have close, but little emphasized, ties. The roots of the philosopher's ancestors are in the Klaipėda district, in the village of Kantvainiai. Three generations of the philosopher's family lived in Klaipėda - great-grandfather, grandparents, father and uncles.

In the years of 2024 it will be 300 years since the birth of Immanuel Kant and all the world of philosophy, knowledge and education will commemorate this date.

For already few years we, as a library, are talking about the wonderful pathways of I. Kant in Klaipėda, providing free guided tours and telling stories, sharing the values of a wonderful philosopher. And out tour guides always underlines the attention the great philosopher devoted to discipline, by saying: “Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.”. After the tours led the conferences, international discussions and currently a Klaipėda of Immanuel Kant and his heritage have moved to virtual reality. Our team has developed a virtual reality escape room “In the footsteps of the history of Kant's ancestors". Must add that the mesmerizing animation, the vivid city and vivid history, rebirths in front of the eyes of anyone entering this virtual room of history and curiosity.

In 2021 the library of Immanuel Kant has implemented a project "Unexpected Klaipėda: in the footsteps of Immanuel Kant". And the story begun. This project allowed us to understand the steps of Immanuel Kant in Klaipėda, to understand him as a brilliant philosopher. During the first project we have created the cultural heritage route "I. The history of Kant's ancestors", associated with buildings and other material objects of cultural heritage and implemented numerous free of charge tours for the Klaipeda city community members and guests. Also we have arranged an international conference dedicated to I. Kant and a theatrical-literary composition, presenting the history of I. Kant's ancestors who lived in Klaipėda, cultural objects related to it, and the concept of I. Kant's work.

The trip towards the I. Kant heritage presentation in Klaipėda has developed into a mission and the success story of the project of 2021 has led towards the project of 2022.  

In 2022 our library has started a project "On the path of getting to know Immanuel Kant: from Klaipėda to Šereitlaukis". During the project we have a longer and more in-depth tour of I. Kant stories, leading to 30 km radius of searching for the heritage details and inspiring stories. Thus, we have prepared  cultural heritage route-excursion "I. Kant's path of knowledge" and created and presented to the public an audio guide for independent visiting of the excursion.  It is available on our web page for virtual heritage: “Klaipėda: living local history”. The project has reached over 1500 people.

Since the end of 2022 and today we have transformed the I. Kant’s heritage to the virtual reality. The new and inspiring project “Virtual Klaipėda: history does not scare, but creates!”. We have already developed an inspiring, vivid, animated virtual escape room as a new service to the list of currently provided services of the library. The project includes training for education and culture workers in order to expand technical and creative competences and knowledge about virtual reality and its use and adaptability and preparation of the content of the methodological material "VR creative workshop". The project will be wrapped up with

an event "Improving VR technologies in education and culture sectors" by sharing good experience with the public.

Where we stand with cultural heritage? We could say that as all libraries of the world we are also choosing the pathway towards becoming a cultural, educating and collaboration space. Today the historical heritage in our project becomes not just books on the shelves, but actions and live meetings with the wonderful figures of the history and in this case with Immanuel Kant.

Let us share some of the points that has led us to this project concept becoming a success story. In 2021 the tours were held during  the heritage days in Lithuania on September 21st and 22nd (you can the information of the tour via link: https://www.facebook.com/events/563697824756727/) This concept of tours in the city has become a beginning of our project concept success story as there was always a full booking in every activity organized. This led to a conclusion- history is alive, people are curious to get to know their cities, to meet each other and find out various interesting details about inspiring figures of the history. The long-term partnering tour guide is telling beautiful stories about the life of Immanuel Kant and how he valued discipline, how he once became a role model for the local city on setting their clocks on time as his punctuality was brilliantly accurate.

The current project of moving I. Kant’s Klaipėda and heritage to the virtual reality was designed to attract youth to the fields of curiosity in history. The developed virtual escape room, designed by participants themselves allows seeing the history and solving questions in an innovative and engaging form- virtual game. The fundamental reason of choosing exactly this solution was an aim to find a bridge between young people and culture. In today’s world so often the technologies becomes the best solution on how to engage the young and always rushing generation into the everlasting values of philosophy.

It is wildly engaging to watch the project participants trying on the virtual glasses and entering the world of historical heritage with the excitement and curiosity.

The series of projects devoted to the heritage of I. Kant led to a long-term vision to resurrect and share the wonderful heritage of famous philosopher, leading to us, looking at our team and thinking what creative and innovative tools we will use tomorrow for the continuous engagement into the history process.

Our idea of turning heritage project into long-term concept has become a great good practice example on how to start, test the concept and the topic on a smaller level and find tools to bring the idea closer to the citizens. All three projects have connected various dimensions of organisations, from education centres to informational technologies and architects.  Thus, the events and activities were open for all people despite their gender, social level or physical disabilities.

The history is hiding in the corners of the cities and we can find inspiring details about the spectacular events that took place on the streets we walk daily. The wonderful minds that have walked the same pathways can be inspired, allow watching history and feeling proud of the inherited values.

Immanuel Kant public library is working in a consistent manner to emphasize the inherited heritage by Immanuel Kant in Klaipėda and will carry on turning the heritage into innovative, engaging, co-joining concepts. 

We are open for collaboration, for creative solutions aiming to bring history and values into today’s world of fast pace, reinventing history and heritage in the ways it becomes alive. The heritage is not just about the buildings and the history figures. It is about the eternal values and the beauty, the interesting history pathways and the steps that changed the world.

Our contacts:

projektai@biblioteka.lt

All the activities listed in the storytelling and our future projects have very clear foundations. We start with ensuring human rights that all activities and events would be open and designed for every member of society. Today libraries are becoming less of places to rent a book and more of places to be, to join, to co-create. This tendency is applicable to most of our partner libraries too. Today the growing poverty gap is leading to a gap between wealthier and less wealthy people. Thus, many events and conferences, tours, educations are too expensive. Thus, our mission is to be a free and open community center, designed to welcome each and every one. A well-developed connection with organisations working with disabled people allows us to always grow and integrate solutions to be more welcoming for all members of the community despite their age, gender, social status or disabilities. Immanuel Kant tours were open to everyone and free of charge.

The second filter we value our actions regarding is sustainable development and climate change. Innovations are one of the tools to make sure the project is scalable and without travelling pollution allow enjoying the developed concepts.

The cultural heritage is very close to our daily activities, as our premises are a cultural heritage and every day we work with numerous events and initiatives designed to talk about culture and the importance of the heritage. I. Kant is one of the shared European history figures and so many students start their school years across the universities of social sciences by being introduced with Kant’s philosophy as a foundation to our history of morality and values.