Table of contents.................................................................................................... 2

The organisation of public libraries.......................................................... 3

policies and strategic activities.................................................................... 3

statistics on public libraries........................................................................... 3

Information and communication
technology in public libraries....................................................................... 3

outlook......................................................................................................................... 3

Key standards and guidelines........................................................................... 4

Innovative projects in UKRAINIAN public libraries.............................. 4

Best practice, innovations and projects................................................................................. 4

Joint activities between libraries, museums and archives........................................................ 4

PULMAN COUNTRY Report

information on public libraries

The organisation of public libraries

Municipalities are responsible for public libraries’ activities. However, the Ministry of Culture supports their development and thus ensures that they provide equal quality of services all over the country as well as that they perform special activities (regional functions, services for minorities etc.).

There are presently 60 main libraries in Slovenia, each of them being responsible for its network of branch libraries of which there are 230 branches plus 9 bookmobiles with 576 stops. This is the consequence of the former regional division of the country which was greatly changed in 1994 (the number of municipalities grew from 60 to more than 190) and has not been accomplished yet, as new regions have not been determined yet. 43 out of 60 public libraries are independent organisations, acting as public institutions and are founded by municipalities. Other libraries are a part of other cultural institutions (museums, galleries, archives).

The Slovene public library network is well developed and widespread across the country. Libraries are opened 60 hours per week on average. The great majority of library stock is still book material. Only approximately 10% of library material in public libraries is non-book material. Different types of material are also prescribed in Library Act as well as in national standards for public libraries. As to the standards each library must have 0,3 items of non-book material per inhabitant in its stock and 10-20% audio and video material. Annual growth of non-book material in a public library is at least 30 copies per 1000 population. According to Library Act a library should provide access to electronic publications to the library users.

All library materials should be available to users with the exception of reference materials and materials from special collections (i.e. materials concerning local history) which are due to their value and age available only for in-house use. In the year 2001 Slovenian public libraries registered 21.883.936 loans, mostly of book materials.

25% of the population are members of public libraries. The reason for such a high number of non-users is in the belief, that libraries are a place to come to find a book and to satisfy one’s needs for culture and entertainment, not to get other basic information. It is only in the last few years, that the libraries have become aware of the need to attract non-users and to enrich the library service.

The new Library Act introduced a new type of a library – the central regional library. The Library Act prescribes the functions of regional libraries:

· provide users with adequate collection of relevant library materials and information,

· offer professional advice to libraries in the area,

· co-ordinate the collection development of local history materials in the area,

· determines the weeding policy in the area.

The total regional libraries’ network will be defined by the Ministry of Culture. Central regional libraries have not been appointed yet because the regional division of the country is delayed. It is assumed that there will be 3 regions which will be inadequate for central regional libraries. The tasks of the central library will be performed on the basis of the contract with the Ministry of Culture and with agreement of the founding body. Financial means will be provided by the Ministry of Culture.

Regional libraries were not foreseen by the former library act, nevertheless, 8 libraries performing this function in praxis have been developed. This is due to the fact that these libraries are located in bigger centres and in some these centres higher education institutions are set up, to the tradition of the legal deposit to which they were entitled for more than 40 years and to the greater number of staff. These libraries played an important role in different projects and in the activities of professional bodies. Partly they are located in geographic centres. The question whether all of these 8 libraries will be given the status of central regional library is still open.

A special department of the National and University Library, the Centre for Library Development collects statistical data on public libraries, surveys their development and their activities, keeps the register of libraries, prepares the three year period development standards for public libraries and provides consulting service. The centre acts only as a professional service and have no executive power and no budget. It produces official opinions on different professional subjects and supports libraries whenever it is asked.

The Library Act prescribes the formation of the National Council for Librarianship which should be a professional and consulting body of the government.

Slovenian libraries co-operate in the co-operative online bibliographic system COBISS. This is a public access catalogue (see http:// www.izum.si/cobiss/). According to the new Library Act it is legally a part of the shared national bibliographic system. Apart from the co-operating libraries, a special position within this system is given to the National and University library and to the organisation which maintains and develops the co-operative online bibliographic database. The National and University library is in charge of editing the union catalogue.

Ministry of Education, Science and Sport funds the co-operative online bibliographic database in which all public libraries co-operate as well as communication infrastructure related to public libraries (see http://www.arnes.si/). There is no co-operation on projects between academic and public libraries with the exception of co-operative online bibliographic database and interlibrary lending service.

Funding

It is obligatory to have a library in each municipality thus it is partly financed by the community. The amount of library acquisitions budget is determined by the methodology set up in the library regulations and depends on the number of inhabitants of the community. To avoid greater differences in library budgets, the state introduced a tool to correlate the financing according to which it provides a part of funds for the annual growth of library materials and computer equipment.

The Ministry of Culture partly participate for acquisition of library materials. This amount depends on the average cost of a book and on the agreement on the number of acquisitions. This number is defined with regard to the national standards for public libraries. In 2000 it was agreed upon 35% of the acquisitions prescribed by the standard.

The Ministry of Culture also provides special grants to accelerate the development of public libraries and to help them to comply with the norms of the international standards e.g. by subsidising investments in library buildings and equipment. Many investments, including new library buildings or reconstruction of the existing (more than 20 in the last three years), acquisition of library materials, computerisation of public libraries and the purchase of 5 new mobile libraries are the result of the temporary cultural tax which was ratified in 1998 for a period of 5 years. The main goal of this tax is to help cultural institutions to recover from 40 years of financial neglect and public libraries are the top priority for expenditure.

The amount which is provided depends on the rate of development of a municipality and may vary from 10% to 70% of total investment, while on the other hand “cultural tax” grants provide 50% of expenditure. All expenditures for maintenance and development of the co-operative online bibliographic database system and communication infrastructure (servers are included) are financed by the state. The Ministry also provides means for the public library programmes for Italian, Hungarian and Roma minority and library services for Slovenian minorities abroad and subsidies international co-operation of public libraries.

The state budget gives financial means for public libraries through the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education, Science and Sport for the maintaining of the online co-operative bibliographic system.

For 2001 the Ministry of Culture distributed the following financial means: regular financial means for public libraries (currency Sit), amounting to Sit 387,10 per capita or 11,3% of all public libraries’ expenditure in the year 2001.

Acquisition of library materials	622.490.004
Computer equipment	69.733.726
Projects	67.063.065
Investments	11.088.200
Total	770.374.995 = 3.349.456 Euro

The percentage of financial means for public libraries (as a part of the Ministry of Culture budget) grows slowly but steadily, in the period 1991-2000 it increased from 4.49% to 7.68%.

Public financing represents the majority of financial means of public libraries. However, their own earnings, gained mostly by membership fees and fines related to loans returned too late, etc. represent quite and important part of income, 11% of total income of libraries.

Libraries try to increase the accessibility so that their services for specific groups of users are free of charge. The membership fee for employed library users ranges from Sit 700 (3 Euro) to Sit 3.900 (16 Euro). The lending service is free to the library members. In principle Internet access is free for library members, but there are some cases where libraries charge the Internet use.

The Library Act does not contain a free-of-charge principle. It prescribes that a regulation on free services should be issued by the government. As membership fees represent an important part of the income, they will most probably not be eliminated but they will be limited to specific groups of population.

Professional development

. For statistical purposes the library personnel is divided into two groups: professional and non- professional staff (administrative and technical). The use of information technology is a part of a daily routine of librarians. Some of them give lectures on the use of information technology or make homepages. One of the reasons for such activities of librarians is the shortage of financial means. Computer professionals are a special problem as libraries cannot pay them adequately. Library directors are recruited from different professional groups yet they usually attend a professional training programme.

Library science is taught at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, Department of Librarianship. At the end of the four-year programme the student obtains the bachelor degree. Postgraduate education is possible at the same department, too. For those members of the staff who have graduated from other faculties and who are working in a library for at least a year, a professional training programme is organised by the National and University Library in Ljubljana.

There are many organisations which provide training in librarianship. The Training Centre at the National and University Library organised more than 90 different courses in 2000. The same amount of courses was given by the Institute of Information Science, mainly on the use of OPAC, Internet and co-operative online bibliographic database Training courses are also organised by the Section of Public Libraries of the Slovenian Library Association and additional training for library managers is given by the Association of Public Libraries. No special measures have been undertaken, but a great deal of Sit 58.320.203 = 253.566 Euro (the sum which was spent on training of library staff by public libraries in 2001), was spent on these courses.

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policies and strategic activities

There is no official document for public libraries’ vision or policy in Slovenia. Their activity in general is regulated by the Library Act and their services are guided by the national Standards for Public Libraries.

Slovenian Library Act (Zakon o knjižničarstvu) was passed on 24 October 2001. The first regulations concerning public services of libraries have a long tradition. They date to 18th century. The present Act is based on the first Slovenian Library Act of 1961. It contains a modern definition of the role of public libraries in the information and knowledge society. The Act prescribes obligatory services and facilities which are compulsory when performing a public library service. More specific conditions will be given in regulations issued by the appropriate ministries.

The key objectives are:

· the library services are defined as public services regardless to the type of the library and the Act determines the necessary conditions to perform these services,

· it gives legislative framework for the national co-operative bibliographic system,

· it introduces the national council for librarianship as a professional consulting body of government,

· it introduces the three-year development standards for public, research and school libraries,

· it introduces regional libraries,

· it introduces inspection of libraries.

The Copyright Law, which passed in 1995 covers printed material, databases, public transmission, reproduction, licensed computer programs, enforced a tight control. Two separate authors' agencies, one for print and other for other media, were established to administrate the fees for public lending rights.

According to Legal Deposit Law there are 16 copies to be surrendered: 2 for National and University Library, 1 for Maribor University Library, 12 for the main regional public libraries and 1 depending on regional or special interest. The law is under revision and it is anticipated that number of copies to be deposited will be reduced.

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statistics on public libraries

General statistical data are collected by the Centre for Library Development. Statistical data are collected according to EN ISO 2789, the questionnaire is designed in compliance with UNESCO, and in the last years with LIBECON, too.

Reporting year 2001
Population		1.990.094
Number of administrative units		60
Number of service points		283
Staff FTE	Trained Librarians	674
	Other Library Staff	194
	Total staff	868

Stock (physical units):	Books & Bound Periodicals	6.863.023
	Non book materials	407.499
	Total	7.270.522
	Stock per capita	3.7
	Serials	224.945
Members	Children	146.270
	Adults	345.356
	Total	491.626 (25%)
Loan Transactions		21.883.936
Loan Transactions per capita		11
Visits	Children	2.561.627
	Adults	4.861.532
	Total	7.423.159
Operating expenditure	Salaries	3.414.326.481 sit
	Acquisition of Stock	1.321.571.319 sit
Total Expenditure		5,227,882,749 sit
Expenditure per capita		2,627 sit

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Information and communication technology in public libraries

In the 1990s the government established two crucial institutions for the development of the library network:

ARNES (Academic and Research Network for Education and Science) is the national research network, which is widely used by non-profit research, educational and cultural institutions and is free of charge.

IZUM (Institute for Information Sciences), an independent public research institution is the proprietor of the national library information system COBISS (Co-operative Online Bibliographical System & Services) and connects over 250 libraries of all types including all public libraries. COBISS establishes connections between libraries via online cataloguing and by a uniform database access system. It also provides libraries with efficient support in the automation of their local functions and access to Internet.

The first public libraries became members of COBISS in 1991 and by 1997 all of them became active participants of the system. The shared national bibliographic system gains legal recognition in the provisions of the new Slovenian Library Act.

The most important part is the union COBIB database which contain more than 2 million bibliographical records on library material with the possibility of multimedia presentation. It is possible to obtain any material through the interlibrary loan service from any library in a very short time. Various databases are available through the COBISS e.g. SwetScan, OCLC, ISSN etc.

There is no officially formulated policy or vision for public libraries in relation to new technologies or the information society and there has been no special document concerning the technological upgrading of local libraries. However it is a common view that all public libraries must provide access to Internet and to electronic resources. The Library Act defines access to electronic documents and resources as one of the obligatory tasks of library public service. National Standards for Public Libraries (adopted by Slovenian Library Association Oct.10, 2001) define that each library (including branch libraries and mobile libraries) must provide access to the union catalogue and databases and at least 1 workstation with Internet connection per 1000 inhabitants.

All Slovenian public libraries have access to Internet from their administrative units but not from all of their branch libraries. 675 computers were available to users, 387 of them with Internet access.

44 of 60 libraries have their own homepages. They can be found on the web site: http://siki.lj-oz.sik.si/. Homepages provide access to catalogues, general information on library, various library services such as loan and reservations of material, search and access to electronic resources, communication with library (suggestions, opinions..) and the program of events. New Internet services are being developed and produced at a number of libraries. Usually these are the contributions to their homepage and they often present local studies collection or provide interactive games with education information on local subjects such as Slovene Literary Quiz (http://www.lj-oz.sik.si/kviz

Education for information literacy and library use in general is one of the tasks which must be performed by the libraries providing public library services. In general, public libraries regularly provide courses or other forms of education for pupils of primary schools but also for the general public. Educational services are free of charge.

There are no consortia for purchasing electronic data on the national level. However, the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Education, Science and Sport acquired national licences for full text databases (IUS-INFO: Slovenian legislation database – available to all public libraries, Web of Science - available to all research libraries, EIFL Direct: EBSCO database - available to all libraries providing public services) and several other electronic resources. There is no special body to make decisions on licence agreements on purchasing databases for public libraries on national level.

Digitisation

Slovenian libraries have not developed a national policy concerning digitisation nor did the ministries or other state administrative bodies. The libraries themselves have not shown much activities in this field with the exception of National and University Library which has digitised all of its major catalogues and implemented them into the union catalogue. It has also digitised two collections in full text: the photographic portrait collection and the Kopitar collection of old Slavic manuscripts. There are no national digitisation projects.

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outlook

By the end of the year 2002, the Ministry of culture has published a document “Analysis of the situation in libraries” which contains analysis of the situation and traces the necessary steps for further development of Slovene libraries.

The chapter “goals, priorities and necessary measures” of public libraries states:

Public library as an information and cultural centre in a local community is not a new definition, none the less it keeps its priority position also in the future. Local community is obliged to define local information needs and the state is obliged to contribute to equal access to materials and information for all citizens. The state interest is to increase visibility and more frequent use of public libraries, thus it will support:

- stable financing

- digitalisation of library material and its accessibility through the library network and proactive offer of information services

- development of public libraries into information centres with increased number of internet access points and access to new electronic sources

- development of public libraries into social and cultural centres for different groups of users, especially youth. Libraries should co-operate with art, educational and other institutions to organise activities, which would increase the interest for visiting libraries by local population.

- rational use of infrastructure by sharing premises and professionals to enlarge libraries activities (bookselling, bibliopedagogical services, information, education and research services)

- rational supplementing of public library network lending points with school libraries.

Priority tasks:

- to support activities information literacy development

- to support literacy in general by using the library as a social centre and additional local cultural infrastructure

- to increase the number of staff. According to standards public libraries lack about 200 professional librarians.

- to participate in construction and reconstruction of new library buildings.

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Key standards and guidelines

The National Institute for Standardisation and Metrology, the national standardisation organisation is a member of ISO and representatives of Slovenian libraries are members of its working groups on the subjects of library and information science.

Electronic bibliographic format	The national format COMARC.
Cataloguing rules	The regulations of Verona, Eva. Pravilnik i priručnik za izradbu abecednih kataloga. Zagreb, 1986 are applied.
Electronic communication standards	Standard ISO 23950 (Z39.50) is recommended but it has not been adopted as a national standard yet.

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Innovative projects in UKRAINIAN public libraries

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Best practice, innovations and projects

THE LEARNING EXCHANGE

The Learning Exchange is a service that provides information to those, who would like to offer their knowledge and those who are looking for a specific information or expertise, for instance on foreign languages, handicrafts, playing a musical instrument or cooking some exotic food.

There is a network of Learning Exchanges all over Slovenia. Some of them are placed in public libraries and some in the other institutions. The network is coordinated by the Learning Exchange in Oton Župančič Public Library which is the oldest of them.

Link: http://www.borzaznanja.mss.edus.si/English_pages/english_page.htm

THE EMPLOYMENT INFORMATION CENTRE

The service is available to the unemployed or those, who are interested in any information on job searching, scholarship or further education. Visitors can talk to the librarian counsellor or just find information available on paper or in an electronic form.

The Employment Information Centre works very closely to the National Employment Office and other commercial and non-commercial organisation from this field. Since the majority of the users are not IT skilled, the service has one more important role: training of IT literacy.

Link: http://www.lj-oz.sik.si/eng/indexeng.htm

YOUTH INFORMATION CENTRE

This is a service for young people from 15 to 25 years of age. In a special place, arranged according to their needs, they can study, find interesting information or just relax, browse through magazines and meet with friends. Volunteers are available to help with studying or homework. Once a month an interesting evening on the attractive topic is organised.

The Youth Information Centre is a part of the Ljubljana youth information network called L’MIT http://www.lmit.org

The comic books collection is available in a separate part of the Centre and workshops on comics are organised.

Link: http://www.lj-oz.sik.si/eng/indexeng.htm

THE THIRD LIFE-PERIOD UNIVERSITY

The Third Life-Period University is organised in the scope of programmes for older and disabled people. The University is aimed to meet older peoples needs for knowledge and social contacts. It is trying to offer useful and pleasant usage of leisure time, prevent loneliness and strengthen positive self-image. For this reason besides lectures many workshops, excursions, exhibition visits, and even trips and picnics are organised. Members of the Third Life-Period University get membership cards and are informed about all of the programs organised, by personal letter on monthly basis. They are very proud on the cards. They make them fell connected to the group. Members are involved in planning of the programme schedules and also invited to participate as a lecturers and mentors.

Some programs as language courses, health education, local and cultural history and creativity workshops are organised each year for more than ten years. In the last year also computer literacy programme was successfully introduced. Some courses are organised, when enough members is interested in a topic (poetry workshop, embroidery techniques, art history,...) As a result of different workshops several exhibitions were organised – very well visited by local community, especially friends and families of the University members – and also two books of poetry were published. There is a big picnic organised ad the end of academic year – to give the members attending different programs the opportunity to meet each other.

The Third Life-Period University in Celje Central Library has about 300 members All the programs are open also to the no members. The information about all programs and events is available on the library Internet pages, on leaflets and via local newspaper.

Celje City Library Link: http://www.ce.sik.si

UNIVERSITY FOR SENIOR CITIZENS IN THE MARIBOR PUBLIC LIBRARY

Since 1992 a special form of educational activities for senior citizens have been organized in the Maribor Public Library. In this way we joined the activities of the Slovenian University for Senior Citizens. The educational project is called the Library Cycle and consists of:

§ regular monthly meetings (lectures) to widen the horizons in various fields of interest (astronomy, travel, history of art, history of Maribor, history of music, ethnology, youth literature etc.)

§ study circles for learning new knowledge and skills (foreign languages, history of art, natural sciences, decorative art, drawing, geography etc.)

In the first years the activities were partly financed by the Andragoški center of the Republic of Slovenia, now they are financed solely by the Maribor Public Library in the frame of its regular work. The costs and enrolment fees for the study circles are covered by the members, and the Maribor Public Library provides the facilities for the activities. The head of the Library Cycle organizes monthly meetings, coordinates the work of study circles and according to their wishes or suggestions organizes visits of exhibitions, various workshops and excursions. In 2000 we organized 8 lectures, one drama performance and 6 excursions. There were 23 active study circles with 468 members in total.

Link: http://sikmb.mb.sik.si

LIBRARY'S CENTER FOR AUTONOMOUS STUDY – LCAS

It represents a society's premise to any individual or group who might express a desire relating to autonomous study into determined specialized library’s department and however creative supplement of the recent traditional approach to study and education.

LCAS is available to customers thirty hours a week, while its activity bases upon principles of un-profitability. Any application of hardware and educative software programs is completely free. Potential library user should only preliminarily book the period (date and hour) of study. Yet, at his first visit the library staff member proficiently examine and recognize requirements and predispositions of single new user and afterwards select the most suitable studying program.

Users respectively members have for the present at their disposal an assortment of seventy different educative programs. There are five studying points (four for computer processing and one for video-materials). The majority of learner’s time fund is designed for foreign languages lessons. Actually, library’s centre has 451 members. Since last three years of its existence more than 7900 studying hours have been realized.

The library’s centre was established in 1998 after suggestion and initial support of Slovenian Andragogic Centre, striving in common aim to extend the Project of autonomous studies by covering entire national territory. Acquisition of our financial (and other) means is the subject of annual public official notice issued by Ministry of education, science and sport and by Local communities as well.

Public interest for participation in our educational processes has been considering an annual level slightly and permanently increasing. Studying method seem to be kind and generally acceptable, as all members may freely chose their most appropriate solution regarding the period and in accordance with personal needs.

Especially as the continuously expressed necessity in upgrading, further investments into hardware equipment and supply of new educative programmes certainly represent arduous financial pressure for the majority of citizens, therefore this described solution might represent one of the most accessible chance for them to improve existing and/or attain new knowledge.

http: //www.izo.sik.si

THE SLOVENE BOOK QUIZ

In the year 1998 Stiftung Lesen from Mainz (Germany) decided not to continue the quiz in the standard form, therefore we prepared our own Slovene book quiz. 20 % Slovene schoolchildren take part in it. There are also the children of the Slovene minorities and the Slovene emigrants in Europe

The Slovene book quiz is prepared by Pionirska knjižnica in Ljubljana, the main children library in Slovenia. It is organized by 60 main Slovene public libraries, elementary schools and school libraries (librarians and teachers) and other actors in the community (local media, different firms, etc.). It is a modern form of library - information literacy programme. It makes the elementary school children use libraries, it makes them look for information sources (books, periodicals, audio-visual material, internet pages) and it promotes reading.

The themes of the Quiz are very basic for learning about Slovenia and Slovene literature: it motivates the children for a certain theme (learning about the Slovene regions: geography, history, ethnology, etc.), it motivates them for reading literature of our classic authors. The questionnaire is made as a sort of puzzle (different every year).

Material of the Book Quiz: 40.000 questionnaires and 1.000 posters; the list of additional information sources on the theme (for main public libraries); the list of handouts for librarians and teachers providing interactivities like writing, painting, visiting exhibitions etc. (for main public libraries).

At the end of the certain period (from 2nd April - International Children´s Book Day to17th September - the Slovene Golden Book Day); we conclude the book quiz by a TV emission on the Slovene First National TV programme. The concluding performance is prepared by The Reading Badge of Slovenia, the Slovene movement that encourages children to read and it raises their reading culture. (see: The reading Badge)

Children can take part in the Slovene Book Quiz in a traditional way or on internet: Being on internet the quiz contributes to modern information and computer literacy, it may persuade some "computer children" for reading printed material and literature, it may be an easier way for taking part in the quiz on internet for the children of the Slovene minorities and the Slovene emigrants in Europe. Hypothetically everybody in the world can take part in the Slovene Book Quiz: the only condition is that he has a computer and access to Internet!

http://www.lj-oz.sik.si/kviz

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Joint activities between libraries, museums and archives

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