From the 1st to the 5th July 2019 Dr. Silviya Naydenova, director of the Central Library of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and Milkana Lishkova took part in More Than Library Erasmus+ STT Week (International Training Week for library specialists), organized by Dare 2 Succeed in Timisoara, Romania.

The main aim of the event was to put the stress on the changing role of the libraries in the universitites and the academic organizations by a new definition of the library specialists according to the needs of the users. Therefore these institutions have to become “more than libraries”, which sole activity is to provide books and materials for reading, and to implement new models for planing, promotion and work in order to achieve better efficiency. At the meeting participated 6 specialists from different university libraries in Bulgaria, Great Britain and Swittzerland. First all the participants presented their institutions and achievements. The representatives of the Central Library made an multimedia presentation to present in details to the foreign colleagues the history, projects, initiatives and achievements of the organization, as well as their digital collections. The training week was officially opened by Iris A. Mihai, Ph.D., director of Dare 2 Succeed. The second and the third day Alexandra Gruicin, business consultant and instructor, explained different model, management, analysis, communication and planning methods, which were implemented in practice by the participants in order to solve real existing problems and tasks – OPERA, flipchart, etc.

On the forth day, in a meeting with Toma Grozavescu, marketing specialist, were discussed the different communication channels and methods for presentation in the social networks, as well as their options – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. On the last day, under the guidance of Simona Herczeg, researcher at the West University of Timisoara and cultural operator in various local and national projects, the participants prepared and presented in groups their ideas for a library project.

At the end of the whole event all the participants had the chance to see the new library of the Politehnica University Timisoara.  At the end of 2014 it was transfered in a new building, which had been designed especially for a library. There the guests see in details the almost entirely automated book borrowing system, the options for study groups, the modern library compact mobile shelving, the special room in retro style for the preservation of manuscripts and old printed collections, etc.

After that all the participants in the training week received certificate of attendance in the programme.