On Friday, 4 April 2025, the Night of the Libraries took place for the first time nationwide. Under the motto ‘Knowledge.Share.Discover’, small and large, public and academic libraries opened their doors and invited people to discover the wide range of services on offer in libraries. Across Germany, more than 1,800 libraries with over 4,200 events registered for the Night of Libraries, including many libraries from the Regensburg Library Association (RBV).
The Regensburg University Library also took part in the Night of Libraries with a poetry slam - the literary competition of the modern age. The slam took place in the main library and started at 5.30 pm. Despite the fine weather, the reading room filled up with almost 140 visitors shortly before the event began. The evening was hosted by Pascal Simon.
Stephan Ligl from the OTH library opened the competition outside of the judging with his sacrificial text ‘Wir rollen euch den roten Teppich aus’ (We'll roll out the red carpet for you) to get the audience in the mood for a poetry slam. Seven young poets then competed against each other, each given six minutes to present their self-written short texts on the topics of ‘book, reading or library’.
In the first group of four, Yasmin, Anna, Luca and Nadine Celine presented their texts one after the other. They talked about book addiction, time, the past or the girl who doesn't stream series but prefers to immerse herself in books ... The audience decided who qualified for the final by applause. Nadine Celine's text about the little ME won out over her three fellow contestants, whose texts would also have been worthy of winning.
After a short break, the next slam round started with the three poets Mia, Lena and Ida. The audience applauded the loudest for Ida. With her text ‘The library of my life’, she prevailed against Dark Romance and pancake recipes.
At the end, Ida and Nadine Celine were in the final. The topic restrictions were lifted and each of them was able to present a text of their own choice. Nadine Celine asked the audience to vote on whether it should be something erotic or feminist. The visitors wanted to hear eroticism, but then decided in favour of the text ‘Schattenwandler’ (Shadowwalker) with thunderous applause, thus crowning Ida the winner of the slam. The winner received a book voucher for EUR 25 and second to seventh place received a pack of cards.
The poetry slam in the reading room of the OTH library ended at around 7.30 pm as an all-round successful evening. However, the ‘Night of the Libraries’ was not yet over for all visitors, who then had the opportunity to take part in other events in Regensburg.
