Future of Europe for Public Libraries
Building a network of public libraries across Europe to engage with EU policies and initiatives on the themes of: digital, sustainability and democracy.
The Future of Europe for Public Libraries (FEPL) project aims to support our Lighthouse Libraries network, and libraries across Europe, engage with EU policy and initiatives by making them relevant to the library sector.
Over the course of the project, we will convene various meetings to discuss three policy areas: the digital world, democracy, and climate. As part of these meetings, participants will work on setting out the scope of the library sector in each policy field, identify best practices, and build a common language to use in their activities for library users and for advocacy. Find out more details below on the FEPL meetings hosted in Brussels, Ghent, Aarhus, and the upcoming meeting in Lisbon.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
On November 9 2022, we held the kick-off session for this work in Brussels. We brought together over 40 library professionals from across Europe and had three speakers tell us about the trends they foresee in the three policy areas we will be working on. Professor Lieven De Marez from IMEC spoke about the trends and attitudes towards technology in various demographic groups and the pitfalls that need to be addressed. Following on form that, Anthony Zacharzewski, President of the Democratic Society, explained the importance of meaningful and long-term citizen engagement to enact cultural and societal change. Finally, Claudia Hahn, Policy Officer at DG Environment at the European Commission, explained the three major and interrelated ecological crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution with unsustainable use of resources as a key driver across these issues. With these three presentations done (available below), we broke into thematic groups to work on these topics. The results of this first set of workshops are available below.
Over March 6 and 7, we convened the Lighthouse Libraries in Ghent for the Digital cluster meeting. Around 40 library professionals joined us at this event to discuss the intersection between libraries and the digital sector. We heard from various speakers over the course of the two days covering a range of initiatives and perspectives on the digital sector. Jeroen de Boer from the Dutch National Library presented the programme for digital citizenship happening in Dutch libraries which aims to enable citizens to move actively, skillfully and resiliently in an ever digitising society. We also heard from Pauline De Wolf on the Comon project and how this has helped people understand the world, and in this case, the healthcare world and how this can be made more accessible to all.
A more detailed report will be available soon covering the meeting.
Meeting forthcoming – check back later for our outputs!
Meeting forthcoming – check back later for our outputs!