In February 2017, the New Professionals Section of the Library Association of Latvia started a project “Librarians Around the World”. Where librarians were asked to take part in adventure and to write about themselves, their libraries, library system, education opportunities, library related organization, etc. The project has come to an end in December 2018. An e-book “Librarians Around the World” (PDF) has been published. E-book is supported by funding from the State Culture Capital Foundation (Latvia).
There were many responses received from all over the world. 46 librarians from 27 countries applied: Armenia, Bangladesh, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nigeria, Philippines, Qatar, Serbia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the United States of America, India, Myanmar, Tanzania, Ukraine, Spain, Slovakia, Vietnam, and New Zealand. Unfortunately, some participants due to the various reasons cancelled their participation in the project, which is understandable, because we, librarians, know that there is no more than 24 hours in a day. Nevertheless, it could be possible to continue the project. There are 19 articles from 34 librarians published in the e-book. We plan to translate e-book in Latvian and we are open to cooperation to translate it to any other language.
Daniela Skokovic from Serbia emphasizes, “Since I am working in a small public library, I was trying to demonstrate that it is not an obstacle to have a successful career even at an international level.” Yujin Hong from South Korea mentions that she wants “to act as the bridge between Korea and the world to create this librarian community by partaking in “Librarians Around the World”.”
For myself personally, this project has been a proof that a one single library enthusiast from such a small country like Latvia, is able to unite the librarians from all over the world to share experience and gain new knowledge. While managing this project, I have gone through all the process of publishing e-book from A to Z – from the call for authors and editing the articles to graphic and layout design development.
I kindly invite everyone to peek in to the book pages and to gain inspiration to go to the various libraries all over the world! Additionally, when traveling, you are always welcome to the libraries represented by the authors!
Elīna Sniedze
Project “Librarians Around the World” manager
E-book supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation (Latvia)
