An introduction to LIBER as an organisation, and the key ways in which we help our network of 400+ libraries across Europe. Presented in Slovenia in September 2016.
1. LIBER:
LIBER: Who We Are, How We Help
Ljubljana, 14th September 2016
Friedel Grant, Communications Officer, LIBER
2. What I’ll be talking
about today
Introduction to LIBER
•Who we are
•What we do
How LIBER Can Help
1.Identifying Topics That Matter
2.Connecting You Internationally
3.Advocating For Libraries
7. LIBER
Libraries
Bosnia
•National and University Library of
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Croatia
•National and University Library of
Croatia
•Library of the Croatian Academy of
Arts and Sciences
•Library of the Faculty of Law, Zagreb
•Rudjer Boskovic Institute Library
Serbia
•National Library of Serbia
•Belgrade University, University
library "Svetozar Markovic"
Slovenia
•National and University Library of
Slovenia
•Central Technological Library
•Maribor University Library
Slovakia
•Slovak Centre of Scientific and
Technical Information
9. LIBER
Team
• 13 Board Members
• 2 Special Advisors
• 9 Office Staff
100+ Volunteers serving on Steering
Committees, Working Groups, Fora
10. Our Mission:
Help our
libraries to
support world-
class research.
•Collaborative
•Cross border
•Cross discipline
•Increasingly data
intensive
•Open
14. •“LIBER is offering a lot of
services which create an
orientation for those institutions
that need it. LIBER is like a star
we look at: if we need some
light, then we can ask them.’’
-Paulo Budroni, Vienna University
Library
15. Lead in Changing Scholarship
(Leadership Seminars, Skills Development)
Shape Innovative Research
(Advocacy, Text and Data Mining)
Enable Open Science
(Open Science, Open Access, RDM)
Strategy
17. Enable Open Science
(Open Science, Open Access, RDM)
Strategy
WHY? We believe Open Science will deliver:
•increased transparency
•better quality research
•higher level of citizen engagement
•faster scientific discovery
-LIBER statement on Enabling Open Science, http://libereurope.eu/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/LIBER_Statement-on-open-science-final.pdf
18. Lead in Changing Scholarship
(Leadership Seminars, Skills Development)
Strategy
WHY? Research libraries are facing unprecedented
change and opportunity.
We need to embrace new ways of leading, to effectively
deal with new opportunities and challenges.
19. Shape Innovative Research
(Advocating for libraries and their researchers)
Strategy
WHY? As research libraries, we need to speak up for
the topics that matter:
•Copyright Reform
•Text and Data Mining
•Open Science
26. Join A Steering
Committee,
Group or Forum
• 3 Steering Committees
• 7 Working Groups
• 2 Forums
Staff from LIBER libraries are welcome to join.
Email the group chair.
27. • It’s a Working Group, so…
Advantages:
• Learn from others
• Share your professional knowledge
– You ARE an expert
• Work together for a stronger voice
Expectations &
Benefits
28. “My field is Research Data
Management, where
everybody is trying to find
the right way but we’re not
aware of what other people are
actually doing.
All universities and libraries
have to talk to researchers and
learn more about the same
issues. This is something that
LIBER can help with and we
can profit from.”
-Mijke Jetten, Scientific Information
Infrastructures Working Group
Member
31. 6 current projects:
Budget: €500,000- €10 million
Partners: 5-50
Duration: 2-4 years
LIBER is involved in tasks which match our strategy. For
example:
– Open Science
– Training for Librarians
– Advocacy
EU Projects
32. “For me participating in EU Projects means learning from
good practice overseas, building international networks
that bring together a range of perspectives and expertise,
and the opportunity to co-develop systems and services”
-Sarah Jones, Digital Curation Centre
33. Why Join An EU Project?
•Cross-border cooperation
•Build skills
•Get to know your peers
•Funding
EU Projects
34. How to get involved?
1.Find interesting upcoming
calls
• EU Participants portal
(http://ec.europa.eu/researc
h/participants/portal/desktop
/en/home.html)
H2020 Programme
35. How to get involved?
1.Find interesting upcoming calls
• EU Participants portal
(http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/hom
e.html)
2.Find your partners
• Ask around, contact LIBER
3.Participate in writing a project proposal
H2020 Programme
36. How Can LIBER Help?
•General guidance
– Looking for a partner? Tell us.
•Use the LIBER network to connect
EU Projects
39. Annual
Conference
• Held yearly, in locations across Europe
– 2017 in Patras, Greece
– 2018 in Lille, France
• 3 days
• 500+ Delegates from around the world
41. • Call for papers: Released in November
• LIBER Conference Fund: free
registration + €500 travel bursary
– For LIBER library delegates from: Albania, Armenia,
Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia,
Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro,
Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Greece, Portugal
Annual
Conference
43. • Emerging Leaders Programme
– For senior librarians who aim to be Directors
– 2-year programme
• Journées Programme
– For Library Directors
– Two day seminar
New sessions launching in 2017
Leadership
Seminars
44. “I built myself a European
network, with the other
participants and through the
mentorship experience.
The Leadership Seminar is a
process where you confront to
your feelings, have to reveal
yourself, trust in each other.
It’s a strong feeling.”
-Live Rasmussen, Head of Science
Library, University of Oslo, Norway
45. Other Seminars
• Architecture Seminar
– Next one in 2018
– Focus on the design of library spaces
• Digital Curation Workshop
– Next one in Spring 2017
– Topics: Data Management Plans, Digital roadmaps
for access to cultural heritage, Digital preservation
46. Why Attend An Event?
•Gain in-depth knowledge
•Meet like-minded professionals
•LIBER members get a discount
Events
52. We Launched
The Hague
Declaration.
800+ signatures so
far. Will you sign?
What Does It Say?
As long as people have legal
access to information, they
should be able to use modern
techniques (eg. TDM) to
analyse digital content.
53. We Launched
The Hague
Declaration.
What Can Research Libraries Do?
1.Sign the declaration: www.thehaguedeclaration.com.
Copyright law is being debated now. Every signature
helps!
2.Promote TDM in policy and practice: provide training
for researchers on content mining literacy, legal advice
54. To Recap
LIBER: Europe’s Biggest Research
Library Network
We can help via our Strategy, Network & Advocacy.
Just €495/year
– €245 for libraries in Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia,
Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine
And together, we have a common mission: to help every library which is a member of LIBER to produce world-class research. What do we mean by world-class? Well, speaking broadly here, we want our libraries to go beyond traditional roles. For centuries, libraries have supported researchers by collecting, preserving, and making journals accessible. Now, libraries need to do all of that but they also need to help researchers to connect with each other. Libraries need to share knowledge, and to act as guides. For example, librarians are increasingly helping researchers to understand how they can more effectively analyze mountains of information using technology, and they’re very important in terms of encouraging researchers to store the results and data related to their research in a sustainable way.
World-class research for LIBER means research which is collaborative; research which can be performed regardless of borders between countries and disciplines, which increasingly makes use of data and analyses it using computers to draw conclusions (so here I’m talking about the use of text and data mining as a way for researchers to read and make connections between huge volumes of papers, rather than manually going through material, one publication at a time), and research which is open. And by open I mean not only open access to publications. It’s open data. It’s open source, open licenses, open APIs. Open everything.
**8 minutes**
The second thread of our strategy focuses on Leadership. Research libraries are living in a time of enormous change, but also opportunity. The technology and infrastructure we work with is changing rapidly. There is financial uncertainty for many libraries, great movements happening in the political world which affect us. And as libraries we have to imagine how all of this will evolve in the years to come, and how we can best respond. So that’s why LIBER has dedicated part of its strategy to helping its members to develop their leadership skills, and to develop a better understanding of the changing roles in libraries, new jobs and skills which need to be considered, etc.
Some of the things we’re doing here include the running of leadership seminars, which give library directors and people who want to become directors the chance to develop their own leadership skills, on an individual level. Via one of the working groups, we’re also going to be running a customer satisfaction survey.
The idea here is to collect customer feedback from a number of different libraries, and to use this data to identify libraries which have very high user satisfaction in particular areas. This would indicate that they might be doing something right, in the way they have structured and marketed their service and this would help the wider LIBER network to identify examples of best practice.
We’re currently involved in six EU projects, with about 33 of our members.