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The twinning of library associations is part of an
official initiative from the European Commission funded PULMAN-XT project. EBLIDA has taken this
initiative to help library associations in finding a twinning partner with the ultimate goal of achieving strong national library associations across the European continent. The eventual success of the
twinning initiative is entirely dependent on the participants. We invite you to contribute! (Note:
Visit country profiles to access the twinning profile of each
country) What is the aim and how does it work?
What is twinning?
Twinning in this case is the joining of two library associations wishing to establish more formal bonds of co-operation and mutual assistance. These bonds are supported by a longer term action plan in which the specific areas of twinning and action between the partners are outlined.
The idea of twinning originated during the post war era and was meant to promote good understanding between European people. Among towns and municipalities twinning is quite common. In that context the twinning relationship is based on exchanges between town officials and groups of citizens and includes a wide range of activities from youth exchanges to environmental project and economic cooperation.
Why a twinning market for library associations?
There are various ways to find a twinning partner. A virtual “market place” represents use of modern technologies to support exchange of knowledge and ideas and so forms a virtual meeting place for library associations across the European continent. The aim of this virtual market place is to:
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facilitate direct partner
search
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promote new twinnings
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present an overview of the status quo of library associations across the European continent
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stimulate knowledge exchange and sharing of ideas and good practices between library associations.
The ultimate goal of these activities is to create strong library associations Europe wide. The advantage of this virtual market place is that it allows library associations themselves to check out the list of potential partners and their knowledge on offer. Direct contact is possible or one can choose to use EBLIDA as a mediating partner.
Twinning and strong library associations: how?
This initiative is based on the idea that twinning is an important instrument for the creation of strong library associations across Europe. The twinning market invites all library associations to develop transnational contacts. In a constantly changing and enlarging Europe it is evident that these contacts are of utmost importance to the library associations, their members and eventually to the library customers. Moreover, these transnational contacts demonstrate to European institutions and to European citizens that library associations use modern technologies to enhance knowledge sharing and innovation.
What are the rules of this twinning market for library associations?
The concept is simple. To find out more about library associations just click on the country of your choice and you will see the option to download the word document containing the profile of the library association.
We strongly invite you to surf around and check out the different library association profiles. Please don’t sit and wait until someone contacts you: go, surf, click and find that partner with the knowledge you want yourself!
What happens once you find a partner?
Once you have found the twinning partner of your choice, you can contact the preferred candidate directly or you can contact EBLIDA (pulman@nblc.nl). If you contact the preferred partner directly, please do inform EBLIDA. If you go through EBLIDA, we will contact the partner of your choice and establish contact between you. Once you have found a partner we will make this known on the website. We expect you to have found your “twin” by mid July 2003. By the end of July 2003 we need to have an action plan between the partners. This is needed for evaluation purposes for the project team and for the European Commission. That evaluation will tell us how to progress from these first twinnings.
We look forward to many happy twinnings!
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