University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

A tale of Public libraries in Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania: The case of three Gates Foundation grants

Fried, Sandra; Popova, Desislava; Dąbrowska, Małgorzata; Chiranov, Marcel G.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89800

Description

Title
A tale of Public libraries in Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania: The case of three Gates Foundation grants
Author(s)
  • Fried, Sandra
  • Popova, Desislava
  • Dąbrowska, Małgorzata
  • Chiranov, Marcel G.
Issue Date
2014
Keyword(s)
  • Central and Eastern Europe--Libraries
  • Russia--Libraries
  • History of Libraries
  • Post-Communism Development
Abstract
The Global Library (GL) initiative at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports public libraries as engines for individual and community development. Funding enhances access to information through publically available information technology in libraries. This technology is complemented by the provision of training and content to make it accessible and useful, and by impact assessment and advocacy to make the new services sustainable. GL has supported library modernization programs at scale in fourteen countries around the world. Based on findings on library perceptions, use, and impact from recent GL research across seventeen European Union (EU) member states, this paper focuses on projects in Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania. It offers a sense of how libraries in these countries have changed during the grant periods, presents key results obtained, and sets out prospects for the future. These prospects include greater attention paid by the EU to the increasingly important role that libraries can play in strengthening communities and improving people’s lives.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89800
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2014.0037
Copyright and License Information
Copyright (2014) Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 63 (2) Fall 2014: Libraries in a Postcommunist World: Part 1 PRIMARY
Library Trends 63 (2) Fall 2014: Libraries in a Postcommunist World: Part 1. Edited by Hermina G.B. Anghelescu.