Meeting on Small and Medium Libraries: organised by sisters Chinchón Municipal Library (Spain) and Pyhäjoki Municipal Library (Finland)

Chinchón Municipal Library (Spain) has invited the librarians from their Sister Library Pyhäjoki Municipal Library (Finland) for a visit to their town. They’ll be travelling along with their city councilor for Culture next 5^th to 9^th October.

Librarians from Chinchón are part of a collective so called Rural Libraries Movement. From this collective, they help librarians from rural libraries that very often lack from staff and resources and are a little bit isolated. For this work, they are supported by the Coordination Unit and Extension Library of the Madrid region.

In order to get the most out of the visit of the Finnish librarians and politician, the head librarian at Chinchón contacted other librarians from the Rural Libraries Movement to organise a one-day Conference so they could exchange experiences. This Conference will take place next 6^th October in the Regional Library of Madrid.

Take a look at the program (it’s in English and Spanish)

LinkINjob: e-Guidelines 2016

Those of you who read this blog regularly are probably familiarised with the project LinkINjob, an innitiative in which two of our sisters (Ljubljana City Library and Kaunas County Public Library) are participating, along with five other European public libraries.

The full name of the project is LinkINjob: job-hunting with the help of librarians. It supports the Europe 2020 strategy  and is funded by the Erasmus+ Program for the period 2014 – 2016, during which 28 activities of non-formal and informal learning are taking place.

They have published a very helpful document for those libraries that want to start this activity in their library called e-Guidelines 2016, and coordinated by Ljubljana City Library, Slovenia. You can access it through this link in English and in six national languages: German, Bulgarian, Finish, Lithuanian, Romanian and Slovenian.

 

 

 

 

Library in the pool, a summer activity of Ljubljana City Library

It’s summertime and libraries adapt to the customs of this season. People have more spare time and libraries take advantage of it, taking their collections out of the library building and into parks, beaches and pools.

One of our sister libraries, Ljubljana City Library in Slovenia, is one of them: they offer their services in 2 swimming pools of Ljubliana and inform about it in their web page.

This library near water is open during July and August. Bathers can read by the pool in different languages. They also offer books for children and young adults. Borrowing books is free and membership card is not needed, users just take the books off the shelf and return it before leaving the pool.

Ljubljana City Library has two sister:  Kaunas County Public library (Lithuania) and Regional Public Library Krakow (Poland) and you can see more information about her in Facebook and Twitter.

Do you have some special activities for the summer in your library? Do you want us to publish a post about it in this blog? Send us the information to naple.sisterlibraries@gmail.com

The most active library in the Sister Libraries Program

Municipal Public Library in Piekary Slaskie (Poland) is the library that has more sisters, it has established 7 partnership with these libraries:

• Arucas Municipal Library(Spain)
• Vilanova i la Geltru Library “Armand Cardona i Torrandell” (Spain)
• Iisalmi City Library (Finland)
• Marko Marulic Split City Library (Croatia)
• Kiri-kirjastot Library (Finland)
• Korčula City Library (Croatia)
• Kaunas County Public Library (Lithuania)

It is also the library that has planned more activities: “Book Illustrated by Children” with Arucas Municipal Library in Spain and “Following the footsteps of the insurgents 1863 in Lithuania” with Kaunas County Public Library in Lithuania are just two examples

Piekary Slaskie is a town in the south of Poland, inhabited by almost 60 thousand people, representing a rich, 900- year-old history. Since centuries, the town has been inseparably related to coal extracting and coal mine industry. Economic, widely – understood changes within last decades, have transformed the appearance of Piekary Slaskie deeply; town authorities are considering tourism and culture as new sources of town development. You can see where is Piekary Slaskie here.

The library in Piekary Slaskie is facing up to the challenges of the 21st century. They are supporting the development of information society, moreover they recognize and fulfill educational and cultural needs of the local people – through these activities they also create a positive look of their library in a town environment. They are an institution of social confidence, having a strong influence on the society. They wish their readers used not only books or magazines but also could take part in a self-development and self-realization process, thanks to all forms of activity the library is offering them.

You can find out more about this library in the interviews to Aleksandra Zawalska-Hawel (its former director) , on their website and their facebook profile.

Summer activity at Public Library of Aleksandrow (Poland) and Viana Public Library (Spain)

Sister libraries from Aleksandrow (Poland) and Viana (Spain) are conducting a new activity in common during this summer. It consists ona a reading campaign where a selection of  books of contemporary narrative from each country are promoted in the sister library: Spanish literature in Aleksandrow and Polish literature in Viana.

For promoting it, they’ve designed these posters of the activity. You can also see the picture of the exhibition of Polish books in Viana.

 

It is a good example of an easy to carry out activity between sisters libraries, and very interesting for users who will discover know the culture of another country through literature. Run a similar activity with your sister library and tell us about it!

First cooperation from Sisters Škofja Loka Public library Ivan Tavčar (Slovenia) and Public library of Panevezys (Lithuania)

During April Škofja Loka Public library Ivan Tavčar (Slovenia) and Public library of Panevezys (Lithuania) had a fotographic exhibition exchange.

Visitors of Škofja Loka library had seen exhibition by Lithuania‘s art photographer Gintaras Lukoševičius under the title: Retro photoshoot in museum surroundings

The pictures were captured in Puziniškis manor museum, which was established and being maintained by Panevėžys District Municipality Public Library. Annually library  organizes “Nights of Museum” events in Puziniškis manor. Moments from the event can be seen from photos where participants, musicians, artisans, library staff members and guests were captured. Library staff welcomed guests wearing retro style clothes.

Three exhibitions were installed in Public library of Panevezys:

The first was exhibition of our colleague Snežna Taler. She presented  calligraphic scripts,  excerpts from Škofja Loka Passion Play. The art of illumination is accompanied by the exalted and rich text. Škofja Loka is the birthplace of the Škofja Loka Passion Play  the oldest play in Slovene language. It was written on the basis of an older tradition in 1721 by Father Romuald, a Capuchin monk who lived for a period in the Škofja Loka Capuchin monastery in the town of Škofja Loka. The play was originally staged on Good Friday each year until 1751.  After almost three hundred years, it was presented again in 1936, and revived in 1999, 2000, 2009 and 2015.

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The second exhibition were photos presenting Škofja Loka Passion Play from 2015 by photographer Jure Nastran.

And the third Photo Exhibition was named The Face of the Book

Photos were taken during the summertime activities for children. The program of this photo-workshop was to learn how to handle a camera, how to be a photographer and a model as well. Children were taking role to participate and comunicate, and to involve the book cover into a photo.

Also during the show, a group of representatives of the Slovenian public libraries visited the library  international conference in Lithuania, and also the library in the city Panevežys and saw the exhibitions.

The first contact and exchange is now completed and both sides are already thinking about further cooperation.

Saša Ambrožič

Curator and librarian at Škofja Loka Public Library 

New Library! Meet El Barco de Ávila Municipal Library (Spain)

We are very happy to announce that we have another new library in the programme, the 31st Spanish library to join NAPLE Sister Libraries.

El Barco de Ávila Municipal Library serves a population of about 3.000 people in the Avila province.

If you want to know more about them, and what they are looking for just click on its name or go to the Libraries Section.  You’ll also find there a detailed  description of their activities and the specific project they want to develop  in the Sister Libraries Program.

With this new incorporation, the programme reaches:

 86 European public libraries participating!

  Would you like to be El Barco de Ávila Municipal Library’s sister library? Go ahead and read the instructions in the Libraries Section!

New Library! Illescas Municipal Library (Spain)

We are very happy to announce that we have another new library in the programme, the 32st Spanish library to join NAPLE Sister Libraries.

Founded in 28 january 1985, Illescas Municipal Library  serves a population of  more than 25.000 habitants. Now, the  library is being transformed into a true center of educational innovation and service, a vital community hub that  plays a key role in closing the digital gap, and is becoming an important cultural and educational mediator, offering subsidized and free training in learning languages, printing, drawing, dance, music, crafts, etc…

If you want to know more about them, and what they are looking for just click on its name or go to the Libraries Section.  You’ll also find there a detailed  description of their activities and the specific project they want to develop  in the Sister Libraries Program.

With this new incorporation, the programme reaches:

 87 European public libraries participating!

  Would you like to be Illescas Municipal Library’s sister library? Go ahead and read the instructions in the Libraries Section!

Bookface: New Activity from Sisters Public Libraries of Aleksandrow (Poland) and Viana Public Library (Spain)

Public Libraries of Aleksandrow and Viana have prepared a new activity for reading promotion in their libraries. It consists of an exhibition of pictures from their patrons.

During May and June, the visitors of Public Libraries of Aleksandrow (Poland) and Viana (Spain) can visit a new photograph exhibition called “Bookface”: people from these cities have chosen some books to show a part of their bodies according to the book image, and the photos have been sent to the respective sister libraries to be exhibited in the next weeks.

The exhibition has been disseminated by different ways:

Information in the web pages of both Public Library of Aleksandrow and Viana Public Library. Also, in the web page of Viana’s City Council.

An article in a Spanish newspaper.

Here are some of the displayed photos!

 

 

 

NAPLE Annual Assembly 2016. Country Updates

Last 9^th May  NAPLE Annual Assembly was celebrated at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. In order to identify trends and challenges and also to keep updated on what’s going on in Public Libraries around Europe, the participants in the meeting are asked to give a presentation about their own countries. This is a fine resource to get useful information about how public libraries are managed in the different countries, also to see the global figures concerning number of libraries, users they serve, etc.

Supporting Innovation was mentioned by some countries like Flanders and Estonia as a current line of work.

Advocacy for Public Libraries is also a strong trend for countries like Greece, Latvia and Slovenia.

Developing a National strategy for public libraries is important: Spain presented their recently approved strategy and Sweden and Portugal are currently working on their own strategies.

Finland and Estonia will have a new Library Act for 2017.

These are only a few examples of what you was presented, but there’s a lot more: surveys of library use, plans for reinventing the local library or for helping refugees…

You’ll find the full presentations and useful documents at this page og  the NAPLE web.