Summary of news on the Sister Libraries Programme

This week at the NAPLE Sister Libraries site you can read some news on the October activities of the Sister Libraries Krapina Public Library (Croatia) and Tielt-Winge Library (Belgium).

Click here for the text and pictures.

Flemish E-book Platform

Today another presentation of NAPLE Assembly is available on the blog. Maarten Vandekerckhove from Belgium is the author and its title is “Flemish E-book Platform“.

NAPLE Annual Assembly

Last 9th and 10th May the NAPLE Annual Assembly took place in Copenhagen. This year the meeting theme was “Public Libraries in transition” and the 10 years of NAPLE were celebrated.

Thursday two round tables took place, the first about the “Use of public libraries, structure, organisation” and the second about “Digital library services and e-books”. The presentations of NAPLE members who participated in them will be published on the blog. Today,  Jan Braeckman’s presentation, Director of Bibnet vzw from Belgium, is available clicking here.

Summary of news in the Sister Libraries Programme

We had three novelties on the blog during the previous week. Firstly, Marines Library “Josefina Escrig” from Spain has sent some pictures of its facilities so that we know them a little better.

Secondly, Krapina Public Library from Croatia has sent a piece of information about the first experiences with its sister libraries, consisting of providing information about the town of Krapina, its history and monuments of culture for library users in Tielt-Winge (Belgium) and Sant Joan de Vilatorrada (Spain).

Finally, there is a new sistership in the Programme between Gustavo Pinto Lopes Public Library, in Torres Novas, Portugal, and Ciudad Real State Public Library from Spain. They will work together in areas such reading promotion, volunteer work, local history and digital resources. Personal contacts, between the staff through technical visits to both premises, are also accorded.

You can check all this information at Sister Libraries Blog.

Third Sister Libraries!

New good news another time! There is a new pair of sister libraries on the Programme: Krapina Public Library from Croatia and her second sister Tielt-Winge Library from Belgium!

First Libraries Participating at NAPLE Sister Libraries Programme

NAPLE announces that the list of the first libraries that have submitted their applications to participate in the NAPLE Sister Libraries Programme is already available at the NAPLE Sister Libraries’ website. Check the tags LIBRARIES and MAP.

Since this project has no deadline, check out the list often because more library applications will be published as they are received. You can check the call for participation and all the information here.

NAPLE Sister Libraries

The NAPLE sister libraries programme seeks to help libraries foster cooperation links in the way they decide. It is a programme open to public libraries situated in any of the participating NAPLE countries that wish to find a partner library in another country in order to establish a cooperation programme. For more information you can visit NAPLE Sister libraries

NAPLE Secretariat

New decree in Flanders

Dear friends,

The new decree on Local Cultural Policy in Flanders is available in our NAPLE website.  You can see in this link :

http://naple.mcu.es/content/belgium
NAPLE Secretariat

Welcome to NAPLE Blog!

Dear friends,

Welcome to NAPLE Blog!

In this blog, you can read the news related to NAPLE and public libraries in Europe. We hope to receive your comments and opinions to enrich the NAPLE Blog.

See you soon

Library policy in Flanders II

Situation in near future

Two different important changes:

• In Flanders, we basically have three different policy levels: the municipalities, the provinces and the Flemish government. But there will be a change in the relations between the three policy levels.The basic idea is that in every aspect of policy making only two levels can define the decisions. This principle has the intention to advance the autonomy of local governments in their policymaking.
  In case of the libraries, there will be an exception mainly because of the library catalogue systems which are supported by the provinces. So, we maintain three policy levels.
• Flemish government wants to reduce the fact that local governments need to justify their funding and wants to reduce the bureaucratic system. One important aspect is the introduction of one strategic policy plan for every municipality instead of policy plans for every sector.
  Another aspect is the new strategy of policy priorities instead of the current ways of funding. In the future, we cannot longer determine the type of subsidies or the organizational structure of the local government. We can only subsidize the municipalities for activities, achievements or effects. For example: we cannot longer give subsidies for library staff, but we can give subsidies for reducing the digital divide (of course libraries need staff to achieve this mission). How exactly libraries accomplish this mission is no longer the responsibility for the Flemish government, but will completely be in the hands of local governments.