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Organising international and national library conferences

METLIB 2018

The Belgrade City Library was honoured to organise one of the world’s most significant library conferences – MetLib 2018, from May 13 to 18, 2018. The IFLA Metropolitan Libraries Section has organised the MetLib conference since 1968. The conference brought together over 30 participants from the world’s largest public libraries and 15 participants from Serbia.

Directors and managers of public libraries from 16 countries participated in the conference – USA, Canada, Italy, England, France, Holland, Finland, Germany, Singapore, Spain and others. The theme of the conference was “Public libraries and community building”. Accordingly, the conference dealt with various services, programs, projects and other activities through which libraries influence or can influence the well-being and progress of their local community.

Several presentation blocks were held (Empowering the new generation – library services for children and youth, Open for all – libraries and social inclusion, Libraries as cultural and educational centres of the community, Examples of good practice and vision of the future) with selected works of libraries from Amsterdam, Helsinki, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Tallinn, Belgrade and others. A particular block was dedicated to the presentation of Serbian public libraries and the Belgrade City Library.

During the five conference days, twenty presentations were presented, three forums, two workshops, and numerous discussion sessions were held. The guest was professor Andrew Smith, a Emporia State University (USA) lecturer. In addition to lectures and discussions, visits to other libraries (National Library of Serbia, Matica Srpska Library) and cultural institutions (Matica Srpska, Museum of Contemporary Art) were organised, and foreign guests were introduced to the history, culture and cultural heritage of Belgrade and Serbia. According to the general assessment of the participants and Corrado di Tilli, the president of the MetLib section, this conference was highly successful and inspiring in terms of organisation and expertise.

Website: https://metlib2018belgrade.wordpress.com/

 

BIBLIONET 2017

The most important domestic annual library meeting was organised in cooperation with the Association of Parent Libraries of Serbia and BCL, which hosted the meeting. The theme of the meeting was “Information-communication technologies and innovative services in libraries”. A total of 27 exhibitors participated in the conference: three lecturers by invitation, six from the region, and 18 domestic. For the first time, Biblionet had three internationally renowned experts, lecturers by invitation:

  • Toby Greenwalt (Pittsburgh, USA), Director of Digital Curriculum and Technology Integration at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh;
  • Rob Davies, Independent Library Consultant (London, UK);
  • Dimitris Protopsaltou, director of the Cultural Center of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (Athens, Greece).
  • Besides them, Christopher Spalding, Vice President for Open Source Platforms and Community at EBSCO (Boston, USA), had a presentation as a special guest at the meeting.

 

Regional guests from the public libraries of Zagreb, Rijeka, Ljubljana and Koper also gave presentations at the Biblionet. Sixteen domestic librarians (with a total of 12 papers) whose papers passed the selection process presented their papers at the gathering. At Biblionet, representatives of Info kod solutions (“Implementation of RFID solutions in library work”) and Hewlett Packard (“Wireless transmission technologies in librarianship”) had presentations.

The project lasted from March (preparation) to December 2017 (printing of the proceedings from the meeting), and the expert gathering was from September 14 to 16, 2017.

Website: https://biblionet2017.wordpress.com/

Project value: 1,340,000.00 dinars

Donor: Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia

 

Conference “21st-century user customised service: the use of ICT in libraries”

The project consisted of organising the international conference “21st-century user customised service: the use of ICT in libraries”. The gathering was held in BCL’s Arts Department Reading Room on December 10 and 11, 2015, with 135 participants from 8 countries. Welcome words were delivered by Jasmina Ninkov, director of BCL, Matijas Miller Viferig, director of the Goethe Institute and Vladan Vukosavljević, city secretary for culture. The conference was opened by the Minister of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, Ivan Tasovac. During the two days, three introductory and 16 lectures (twenty-minutes each) were presented, and two presentations by commercial companies. You can see the atmosphere from the conference in Gallery photos.

Project value: 450,000.00 dinars

Donor: Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia

 


Donor: Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia