What if you live in Finland, you have difficulties with reading or learning, and your first language is not Finnish? Where could you find literature in an accessible format, in both Finnish and your first language?

Operating as part of the National Archives under copyright law, Accessibility Library Celia serves people with reading disabilities, i.e. people who are unable to read a conventional book due to issues such as visual impairment, a developmental disability or a muscle disorder. Celia has more than 74,000 customers. It has been estimated that of all the people who would benefit from the services of Celia and are entitled to them, only roughly 25% have been reached.

More than half a million people living in Finland speak a language other than the official national languages, i.e. Finnish, Swedish or Sámi. According to estimates, the foreign-language population of Finland includes roughly 30,000 people who are entitled to the services of Celia, but the service is yet to reach the majority of them.

Speaking a foreign language or lacking Finnish language skills are not by themselves grounds for becoming a customer of Celia. To become a customer, the person must be found to have difficulties with reading or learning in their first language. Anyone who has difficulties with reading and learning can use the services of Celia. People entitled to the services can become customers of Celia in a public library or at school, where a special educational needs teacher can assess whether the child or young person could benefit from the materials of Celia.

Tens of thousands of books in accessible formats

The book collection of Celia features more than 60,000 titles, most of which are audiobooks. Examples of other materials provided by Celia include books in Braille, e-books, tactile books and combination books featuring text, audio and potentially images.

The customers of Celia have a wide range of needs with regard to reading and learning. Consequently, the collection must be constantly ready for updating and meeting the developing needs and demand, e.g. in terms of the availability of materials in different languages.

Demand for the foreign-language books of Celia keeps increasing. At the moment, the foreign-language book collection of Celia includes more than 5,000 titles, 4,000 of which are fiction and non-fiction books for different ages. You can search for books in the Celianet online service, the home page of which features categories that make it easy to find reading material on various subjects. Celianet has categories in Finnish, Swedish and English. These three categories all make it possible to browse the foreign-language collection of Celia in a total of thirteen different languages.

Demand for books in simplified language increasing

The demand for books in simplified language is constantly increasing. Accordingly, Celia now acquires more of them than before. Literature for children and young people in simplified language is in particularly high demand. Consequently, it is produced at Celia as much as possible. Combination books in simplified language have been found to help people with reading problems. Text that is simple and easy in terms of its content, vocabulary and structure and can be followed on a screen while listening to the book being read helps with reading comprehension in a multichannel way.

Simplified language is suitable for people of all ages and in many different life situations. It can benefit everyone from school pupils and students to seniors and people with a memory disorder. One important target group for simplified language is formed by immigrants who want to learn Finnish. Books in simplified language also have their own category in Celianet.

Increasing the collection through priority languages

The population of Finland is rapidly diversifying, and the range of languages and cultures is consequently increasing. For this reason, the collections of Celia are now developed with the help of so-called priority languages. These are languages that are represented very little or not at all in the collection of Celia, despite statistics showing that they are spoken by many people. The current priority languages are Arabic, Somali, Ukrainian, Kurdish, Persian (Farsi) and Turkish. The library’s acquisitions prioritise fiction literature, and the aim is to have books for adults and children in equal numbers in the collection.

The plan is for the library to take the diversification of the first languages of its customer base into account in an even more systematic way in the future. Between 2025 and 2027, the library intends to acquire 5–10 audiobooks per year in all the priority languages. Where possible, customers’ wishes, language hobbies and different first languages are taken into account in the general criteria for selecting foreign-language books.

Foreign-language books are acquired for Celia primarily through international library exchanges, as Celia itself produces books mainly in Finnish and Swedish. Celia is currently looking into the possibility of producing its own books in the priority languages. In 2025, the collection of Celia received 40 new audiobooks in the priority languages. For example, it now includes books in Farsi and Turkish, which it previously lacked altogether.

So far, people have been borrowing books in the priority languages at a rather modest rate. Both the number of customers entitled to the service and the diversity of the materials are bound to increase in the coming years. In addition to immigrants, foreign-language books interest foreign language enthusiasts and customers of Celia who want to maintain their language skills.

The collections of Celia are intended for everyone legally entitled to the service. We hope that as many people as possible in the target group of Celia will find their way to the accessible materials and get the fun or utility that they are looking for out of them.

Marjo Kauttonen and Henriikka Kokki

The authors work as planning officers at Accessibility Library Celia.

Accessibility Library Celia is a state-owned special library that operates under the Ministry of Education and Culture, providing its customers with accessible books and learning materials free of charge. Celia is also working to promote accessibility through means such as cooperation with libraries and publishers and providing advice regarding accessible publishing. Since the beginning of 2026, Accessibility Library Celia has been part of the National Archives.

For more information on the book collections of Celia, please see the Celianet website.