Digifolio

Digifolio is a project created by the Brasov County Library in Romania to pilot a “public library – school” partnership model that will develop students’ digital skills. The idea of the project is to improve involvement of children in the educational process and get productive usage of NTIC.

The project is developed for three months with a group of 62 pupils, 32 of second grade and 30 of sixth grade, from School n°. 6 “Iacob Muresianu” Brasov, Romania.

Other main objectives of this project are to develop their knowledge on how to create e-portfolio and to present that created e-portfolio, of this way they improve their multimedia communication skills.

Furthermore, they are thought to use web 2.0 instruments like Weebly, Voki, Prezi, Wikispaces, and YouTube, and various equipment, including cameras, digital recorders, and scanners.

For more information click on: http://digifolioen.weebly.com/index.html

Romanian Toy Library Catalog

We reproduce this message sent to IFLA-L list:

The Toy Library of George Baritiu Public Library is a safe, fun, friendly play space and gathering place for children and families from Brasov County. We offer: Indoor playspace, Weekly activities in arts, crafts, music, films, origami, Internet Club, Holiday Club, Afterschool Program, Educational programs like Digifolio, Discovery School, Private birthday parties, etc.

Opening Hours:  Monday – Friday 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.

These days, we finished the structure of the first Romanian Toy Library Catalog and the first records are available at:
http://copiibrasov.wordpress.com/catalogul-jucariilor/

To access the catalog click on the red button called “UTILIZATOR”, fill up:

Username: “Bibliotecar”
Password: “Utilizator“.

The classification and analysis of our collections of playing materials was made through the ESAR System.

Claudia Popescu
Head of LLL Department
Public Library “George Baritiu” Brasov – Romania
www.bjbv.ro

Summary of news in the Sister Libraries Programme

Last week we had a new sistership in the Programme, the sister libraries are Piran Civic Library from Slovenia and Torres Novas Municipal Library “Gustavo Pinto Lopes” from Portugal.

On the other hand, two new libraries have joined the Programme: Bucarest Metropolitan Library from Romania and Kaunas County Public Library from Lithuania, both of them are the second libraries from their countries looking for a sister library.

You can check all this information at Sister Libraries Blog.

Summary of news in Sister Libraries Programme!!

During last week a lot of things happened in Sister Libraries Blog! On the one hand, three new sisterships have been made. The first between Valença Public Library from Portugal and Sant Joan de Vilatorrada Library “Cal Gallifa” from Spain; the second one between Public Library in Piekary Slaskie from Poland and Kiri-kirjastot from Finland, and the last one between State Public Library of Ciudad Real from Spain and Dâmboviţa County Library “Ion Heliade Rădulescu” from Romania.

From now on, you can see all the sisterships made so far in the new tag called “Sisteships”. The list of participating libraries remains in the tag “Libraries”.

On the other hand, two new libraries have submitted their forms to the blog. They are the Public Library of Panevezys from Lithuania and Dâmboviţa County Library “Ion Heliade Rădulescu” from Romania. Both of them are the first participating libraries of their countries. At the same time, Chrzanów Public Library has sent news photos of its building.

If you want to know more about these libraries click here, if you want to know more about the sisterships made so far click on “Sisterships” tag.

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

The Digital Library of Romania

The second important program of the national system of libraries is represented by the Digital Library of Romania.

At present there is not in Romania any national program for the digitisation of the written culture patrimony. An effort has been done towards this direction in 2010, when a national aggregator was arbitrary established within the structure of the Ministry of Culture, from up to down, without a correlation with the real state of affairs. Last year, in 2010, following the anti-crisis measures, this phantom institution was dissolved.  

The intricate state of affairs in Romania has lead to the establishing of a partnership between the de facto National Library of Romania, which is the Library of the Academy of Romania, the holder of the written culture patrimony of Romania and the Metropolitan Library of Bucharest, which has made an important investment for the creation of its own material basis, necessary for the process of digitisation.

In spite of the absence of a national coordination for the digitisation process, the double or multiple digitisation of the same title in other libraries is prevented due to two peculiar states of affairs:

• 62% of the Romanian periodicals exist in a single issue and that is preserved by the Library of the Academy of Romania;
• 45% of the Romanian books are unique and preserved by the Library of the Academy of Romania.

Florin ROTARU
General Director
Metropolitan Library of Bucharest

The State of the Libraries System in Romania by the Year 2011: Legislation

• The general framework of the organisation and functioning of the national system of libraries, system made of 2 national libraries, public libraries, among which 42 county libraries, 51 municipal libraries, 204 city libraries, and 2.558 commune libraries, along with 56 anniversary libraries, 41 libraries belonging to the House of the Teachers Stuff, 277 school libraries and 37 specialised libraries, is regulated by the Library Act, passed in 2.002. There were not major modifications until last year, 2010, when anti-crisis measures for the public domain have been adopted, two of them with severe consequences:
• The reduction with 25% of the budgetary administrative personnel, including librarians;
• The cutback of the salaries with 25% in 2010, and with 10% in 2011.

These measures could not have been adopted without legislative modifications, among which the Library Act, which established the compulsiveness on the part of the local regional authorities to finance a librarian employee for 2.500 inhabitants in the rural area, and a librarian employee for 5.000-7.000 inhabitants in the urban area.  

The following are the negative consequences affecting the national system of libraries:

• The dissolution of 178 public libraries in the rural area;
• The restructuring of the working schedule in rural area, by two working days per week for 1.279 public libraries, the libraries being used in the administrative activity of the mayories;
• The decrease of the professional potential of the whole national system, especially of the service of the public lecture, due to the personnel’s reduction.

The administration of Romania represents: communes (rural area): 2.686, of  10.139.000 inhabitants; 103 municipalities; 216 cities, included in 41 counties and the Bucharest municipality.

Envisaged Legislative Promulgations. In a near future, between 1 and 3 years, the following acts are about to be promulgated:

• The first act is the Act of the Bucharest Metropolitan Area, which is envisaged to be adopted by the end of the year 2010. It has passed the first legislative chamber of the Romanian Parliament, namely the Deputy Chamber and it shall be discussed in the second chamber, the Senate.

Nowadays Bucharest municipality has 228 square Km, being divided in 6 administrative sectors, having each its own city hall. As a demographic structure, Bucharest city is the sixth in the European Union, with 2.001.192 inhabitants.

According to the new Act, the Bucharest metropolitan area shall have 2.800 square Km, and within 3 years shall grow to 3.800 square Km. In the first phase, 60 localities shall be included in the metropolitan area, with a population of 583.409 inhabitants, which together with Bucharest city shall amount to 2.584.601 inhabitants.

This act is going to have an important consequence upon the structure of the Metropolitan Library of Bucharest, and the 60 public libraries of the communes shall become branches of our institution. As a major consequence, the service of the public lecture shall be accordingly structured to serve the new regional organization.

• The second envisaged act for the following 3 years is related to the administrative reform which envisages the establishing of 8 administrative euro-regions and, probably, the dissolution of the 41 extant counties. As a consequence of this projected dissolution, 32 county libraries shall certainly disappear.

Florin ROTARU
General Director
Metropolitan Library of Bucharest

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.

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