Experts from Sweden, Latvia and Ukraine agree on a project financed by the Swedish Institute to strengthen Ukrainian libraries

The joint event was attended by project partners - representatives of the University of Borås, Swedish School of Library and Information Science, in Sweden, employees of the National Library of Latvia and representatives from Ukraine - Yaroslav Mudry National Library of Ukraine, Ukrainian Library Association, and charitable foundation "Library Country".

The visit to Latvia is the first step of the new project, the purpose of which was to get to know the partners for further joint activities, outline the project's activities, discuss the project's results, as well as get inspiration for the project's content. Therefore, the project participants not only got to know the work of the National Library of Latvia, but also visited libraries in the regions - Ikšķile and Ogre, in order to familiarize themselves with various library services for different audiences of the library community.

At the end of the meeting, an agreement was reached on the goal of developing a broader project application to support Ukrainian libraries. All attention will be focused on the development of a training program based on the needs of Ukrainian libraries, as well as the creation of a unified policy paper to highlight the importance of libraries to society in the reconstruction of the Ukrainian state, as well as in mitigating the consequences of the war.

The next steps of the project are round table discussions about the role and importance of libraries, as well as the current needs of Ukrainian libraries, which will take place online in March 2025.