Blog on Rural Libraries

The Borisov Central Regional Library (Republic of Belarus) maintains a blog dedicated to Rural Libraries. It’s published in Cirilic, but some web browsers, as Google Chrome, are capable of translating web pages so we can take advantage of the information published in other alphabets. 

The blog has only been running for a few months but presents some interesting projects of libraries in Belarus and other countries, activities, etc.

 You can check the blog through this link.

“Sweet reading”

This news comes from a little village of Klučov (Central Bohemia, district Kolín). The library was founded in the year 1920 and the writer Alois Jirásek (historical novels and plays, a classic) permitted to give the library his name. Jirásek Library in Klučov announced an interesting programme for children. The library in cooperation with a kindergarten and with a support of the local council prepared “Sweet Reading”, an afternoon with reading activities. Children listened fairy tales, narrated tales according to pictures and contested. The home-made cheesecake was a sweet bonus. The recipe was also made public.

Sources:
http://www.klucov.cz/
http://www.jkk.estranky.cz/
http://www.jkk.estranky.cz/clanky/jak-si-hrajeme-s-detmi/2012-brezen—sladke-cteni.html
http://www.jkk.estranky.cz/file/195/2012_sladke-cteni-.swf

Eva Bartunkova
Department Head of Information Centre for Librarianship
Czech Republic

Villagers’ petition wins high speed Internet for 4,500 people

Inspired by the success of their local library’s service for farmers, villagers from Glavinci in central Serbia organized a petition to demand high-speed Internet for the whole village.  It worked and now over 4,500 people living in Glavinci and 20 kilometres around the village have access to high speed wireless Internet in their village library and in their homes.

‘What amazed us was that the villagers brought their petition to the village library, and asked the librarians to contact the public library in town’ said Ms Suzana Tanasijević, a librarian at Public Library Radislav Nikčević in Jagodina. ‘It means that the villagers now see the public library as an initiator of change in the community.’

Glavinci village library is part of the AgroLib-Ja service for farmers, which was started with support from EIFL’s Public Library Innovation Programme (EIFL-PLIP). Coordinated by Public Library Radislav Nikčević, the AgroLib-Ja service provides free access to the Internet in four village libraries. The service includes an information-sharing website for farmers, and librarians train farmers to use the Internet to find information about farming methods, grants and other opportunities. The farmers used their new computer skills to develop a lively online farm produce market – AgroLib – and are reporting increased sales of fruit, dairy produce, vegetables, honey and handicrafts over the Internet.

AgroLib-Ja became extremely popular. At first, Glavinci library used a mobile 3G Internet connection for AgroLib-Ja, and for a while, this slow connection was the only Internet access in the village. Later, some villagers bought personal computers and installed 3G connections at home. But they wanted a better quality connection.

Glavinci is located in a valley, and a high-speed wireless connection required antennae in an elevated position. The villagers identified a tank at a local factory as the best place for the antennae, but the factory management was reluctant to allow the installation.

So the villagers launched a petition, collected signatures and handed the petition to the librarian in Glavinci. They asked her to take the petition to Public Library Radislav Nikčević in Jagodina.

‘The director addressed the Management Board of the factory in writing, explaining how important high-speed Internet was for the development of both the village library and the village,’ said Ms Tanasijević. ‘The director also addressed the local self-government, asking them to use their authority and legitimacy to explain to the Management Board the significance of placing the antenna on the tank,’ she said.

The factory Management Board took these appeals seriously.They allowed installation, and now the wireless signal covers a radius of about 20km around Glavinci, reaching 4,500 people.

According to the local computer and Internet service provider, villagers are rushing to connect. In just one month, about 30 households have applied for connections.

‘We are really impressed by the understanding the villagers now have about the value of new information technology – especially the Internet – for developing the village and for farming. Three years ago, before AgroLib-Ja, no-one from the three villages intended to use computers and the Internet,’ said Ms Tanasijević.

Source :  EIFL-PLIP
Author:  Jean Fairbairn, EIFL-PLIP Communications

Winners María Moliner Awards 2011

Last 13th December María Moliner Awards were awarded by the Ministry of Culture of Spain. They are part from the Reading Promotion Plan developed by the General Direction of Books, Archives and Libraries and they are one of theirs actions with higher level of social impact.

These Awards are focused on municipalities with less than 50.000 inhabitants and they are, from 1998, a quiz for awarding the best projects or activities to promote reading in children and young adults. It takes places with the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture of Spain, the FEMP (Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces) and, from 2002, the Coca-Cola Foundation in Spain.

María Moliner Awards grant 3 projects in 3 different categories: the first for municipalities with less than 5.000 inhabitants, the second for municipalities between 5.001 and 20.000 inhabitants and the third for municipalities between 20.001 and 50.000 inhabitants. This year, the winners are Tuéjar (Valencia), Pozoblanco (Córdoba) and Oleiros (A Coruña) respectively.

The 3 winners obtain a cash prize and a set of 200 books for children and young adults selected between new books of each year. Moreover, 300 projects are selected of the total number of applications received and they get another set of books each one.

You can check the award-winning full list in this direction: http://www.mcu.es/libro/MC/PFL/CampAnimacion/CampAnimacion.html

Subdirectorate General for Libraries Coordination
Ministry of Culture
Spain

IV Meeting on Libraries and their Municipalities

IV Meeting on Libraries and their Municipalities

This meeting is organized by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the FEMP –Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces- every two years since 2005 with the objective of consolidating the cooperation between local government and public library service.

To accomplish this goal, during the meeting, good practises developed in local libraries will be presented. They constitute the result of the cooperative work of librarians and politicians. Later, a round table will be held in which they will speak about the present and the future of this cooperation.

Each edition is dedicated to a different topic. In this fourth edition, the topic is Local Memory and it is aimed to speak about the role of libraries in the recuperation, preservation and widespread of local memory, and the importance of local libraries as agents in the process of social coherence in their municipalities.

This IV Meeting on Libraries and their Municipalities will take place next  17^th November 2011 in the Ministry of Culture Auditorium in Madrid. You can read the full program following the next URL:

http://www.mcu.es/bibliotecas/MC/2011/IVEncuentro/index.html

And here, you can see the minutes of the three previous meetings:

http://www.mcu.es/bibliotecas/CE/Cooperacion/CongJornadas/EncuentroBibMunicipio.html

Subdirectorate General for Libraries Coordination
Ministry of Culture
Spain

Library laws and the Social order and the essential funding II

Secondly: the Social order and the essential funding

The social order for the libraries is issued – but the challenges to meet him are rapidly increasing.

Public libraries are to offer their clients not only different media. They should provide reading areas and computer workstations. Special programs for early childhood language development make children strong word. For adults, there are regular readings and a broad range of trainings.