District Thematic Meeting “The Library and Its Partners” in Kyustendil

On 6 – 7 June 2012, the district thematic meeting “The Library and Its Partners”, a joint initiative of the Glob@l Libraries – Bulgaria Program and the District Library in Kyustendil took place in the blue hall of Bratstvo 1869 Public Chitalishte in Kyustendil.

 

Meeting participants included more than 40 chitalishte secretaries, librarians, volunteers, municipal administration representatives, library partners from the city and the district. Official guests included Radoslava Chekanska, Deputy District Governor, and Rositsa Plachkova, Deputy Mayor of Kyustendil Municipality.

 

Other meeting participants included Slava Sokolova from the Culture and Spiritual Development Department of Kyustendil Municipality; Lyubomira Velinova, Director of the Regional Information Center (RIC); Elena Andonova from the Regional Public Health Inspectorate; Zhasmina Mitseva and Adelina Isakieva, teachers from Kyustendil; local media representatives. The Program Management Unit (PMU) was represented by Ms. Krasimira Kaneva, Regional Manager, and Diana Andreeva, Training Manager.
 
The meeting was opened by Sophia Peycheva, Director of Emanuil Popdimitrov District Library and GLB District Coordinator. She pointed out that the thematic meeting focuses on partnership as an underlying principle of the implementation of good ideas and resource sharing. Libraries need to cooperate with educational and cultural institutions, local authorities and the business. Each partner’s efforts for new service adoption and improved quality of service provision to communities need to be coordinated.

 

Welcome addresses to participants delivered Radoslava Chekanska, Deputy District Governor, and Rositsa Plachkova, Deputy Mayor of Kyustendil Municipality.

 

Krasimira Kaneva, Regional Manager at the PMU, presented “The Glob@l Libraries – Bulgaria Program in Support of Partnership for Innovative Services”. Her presentation had two main focuses – partnership and innovative e-services provided in cooperation with partners.

Slava Sokolova from the Culture and Spiritual Development Department, talked about the support provided by Kyustendil Municipality to GLB target libraries.

 
Lyubomira Velinova, RIC Kyustendil, highlighted opportunities for cooperation with chitalishte libraries from Kyustendil district participating in the Glob@l Libraries – Bulgaria Program. The proposed cooperation options aim to disseminate the information provided by RIC Kyustendil to the smallest settlements in the region where the Glob@l Libraries network is available and transform target chitalishte libraries into a reliable partner in the implementation of joint initiatives.

 
Elena Andonova from the Regional Public Health Inspectorate told participants about the Informed and Healthy Campaign of the Ministry of Health and presented interesting information about the population’s health status and the need of prevention which would be more successful if libraries cooperate with public health authorities in the distribution of information and the organization of meetings on this topic.

 
Diana Mineva from the District Library in Kyustendil delivered an interesting presentation on the partnership of the district library with the local media and the library’s own media products.

 

Galya Simeonova from the Children’s Department of the District Library talked about innovative methods for working with children: multimedia presentation of authors, virtual library – presentations made by children are sent to their schools, “Summer with the Library” photo competition – sending photos of library books read in the summer, etc.

 
Library partnership initiatives were also presented by Yordanka Neshova, librarian at Prosveten Luch Public Chitalishte in the town of Sapareva Banya, Velichka Dimitrova from the library of D. Kalyashki Public Chitalishte in the village of Zhilentsi and Vanya Rizova from the library of Vladimir Dimitrov the Master Public Chitalishte in the village of Shishkovtsi.

Zhasmina Mitsova and Adelina Isakieva, teachers from Kyustendil, presented their joint activities with the district library.



Two meeting sessions were dedicated to group-work activities. The participants were divided into a number of groups and had the opportunity to choose an innovative service to develop. Their innovative services had to belong to some of the main groups of innovative services on whose adoption the Glob@l Libraries – Bulgaria Program has been working: e-health, e-employment, e-culture, e-business, etc.

 

Innovative service development steps included as follows:

 

1. Selection of service and name

2. Goal
3. Target group

4. Partners
5. Service adoption activities

6. Resources/Budget
7. Media coverage

8. Expected results: social and economic effect on local community
 

Following group-work activities, a speaker from each group presented to all participants the newly identified service. Group results include as follows:

 

e-Education: Provision of information and educational services to school goers with motor disabilities. Target group: school goers.

e-Inclusion: ICT training of adults with motor disabilities. Target group: disabled adults from an institution for disabled people.

e-Business: Training of young fruit growers. Target group: fruit growing beginners.

e-Culture: Creation of audio-visual products for children. Target group: young families with children.

e-Inclusion: Information and education services for Roma school drop outs. Target group: Roma school goers.

 
Innovative Services to Be Provided by Target Libraries from Kyustendil District in 2012