Digitalization has forced both libraries and adult education organizations to redefine their roles in a changing and increasingly digital world. Adult education organizations are looking for ways to better reach their customers and make their services more easily accessible to learners. Libraries are finding new roles in teaching, training and providing electronic services to a public that reads fewer and fewer books. Crossing the boundaries and increasing cooperation among libraries and adult education organizations to enhance borderless guidance seems a natural direction. The project is a strategic partnership of libraries and adult education organizations that focuses on the exchange of good practice. The idea is to study what steps libraries and adult education organisations can take to develop borderless partnerships and strive to create multi-purpose learning centres. The partnership consists of five European lifelong learning organisations (libraries and adult education centres). Our target groups are library and adult education staff as well as the customers/learners of these organizations. The activities of the project will be designed to promote peer learning so that all participants have a chance to share their expertise with others. We will involve our learners/customers in the process as well in order to give our end-users the opportunity to participate in developing our services. We will address the following themes throughout the project: Cooperation: • Gaining an understanding of our customers'/learners' needs in a changing world in order to build on a solid foundation of user needs. • Improving the accessibility of lifelong learning services for adults • Exploring ways for lifelong learning organisations and libraries to form boundary spanning partnerships and promoting the development of multi-purpose learning centres Digital skills: • Using digital tools to enhance our lifelong learning and guidance services to adult learners/customers and reaching socially disadvantaged target groups through joint efforts • Improving our competence on social media in learning and teaching/training activities Pedagogical skills: • Sharing collaborative learning and teaching methodologies and pedagogical approaches for adult learners • Tools and methods for professional development of adult education teachers and staff: enhancing the pedagogical toolkit of teachers/trainers and staff The project will produce a collection of best practice, including small steps that lifelong learning organizations can take to collaborate with each other and to become more accessible to their customers. Each partner will also produce a plan to develop their organization into this direction. The staff of the partner organizations will have improved pedagogical and digital skills. The learners and customers will be heard and their ideas will be collected in customer panels and/or surveys. All results of the project will be available on a website open to all those who are interested in the topic.
In an increasingly fast-changing and digital world, both adult education organizations and libraries are exploring new roles, methods and services in lifelong learning. We are constantly looking for ways to better reach our customers and make our services more easily accessible to learners. Since the promotion of lifelong learning is at the core of both educational organizations and libraries, crossing organizational boundaries and increasing cooperation to enhance borderless service and guidance seems a natural direction to take. The Erasmus+ KA2 partnership Hand in Hand consisted of five European lifelong learning organisations (libraries and adult education centres) who wanted to exchange practices and learn to offer better and more easily accessible services to customers. The idea of the partnership was to study and analyse the steps libraries and adult education organisations can take to become multi-purpose learning centres. The objective was to find ways to complement each other’s expertise in order to create synergies in providing services to the public. Planning, organizing and providing a wide spectrum of activities requires the cooperation of several actors such as libraries, youth centres, adult education centres and cultural services. Our study visits and workshops in Italy, Finland, Denmark and Poland provided us with a good understanding of the changing world of lifelong learning provided by libraries and adult education centres both in cities and smaller rural communities. We also asked our customers through surveys and focus interviews for their input, and designed activities based on those ideas, our study visits and sharing our own ideas and experiences. The results of the surveys are surprisingly well in line with what we learned during our study visits: - As far as the premises are concerned, our customers want both: some space for relaxing and “slow life” and spaces for various activities, workshops, do-it-yourself activities, working. - A recurring theme in our surveys and the study visits is peer-to-peer learning – our customers mentioned getting help with mobile devices and computers, starting reading circles and film clubs, and sharing information about various topics in informal ways. - Another important finding was the desire for inter-generational events, events for children and parents together, spaces where families can do things together. - People are increasingly interested in themes related to health and wellbeing. Gaining an understanding of our own customers/learners was crucial for planning services based on user needs. Once we had conducted our customer surveys, we made plans for some small steps to develop our activities in line with our learners’ and customers’ expectations. After experimenting with ideas gathered from customers and learners, each partner identified good practices that should be continued and that could be shared with others, as well as challenges that we face when implementing our visions. The library and lifelong learning centre of the 21st century, whether large or small, is an open, public space where people not only get and share information and develop their skills but also come together to meet, work and create. It provides a platform for both non-formal and informal education, courses, lectures, events and self-directed learning. Residents are no longer passive users of services but active planners and producers of activities who benefit from self-service spaces and the possibility to use the premises independently. Peer-to-peer learning, openness, transparency, confidence and equality are key concepts, and listening to residents and asking for their input every step of the way from planning to implementing services increases the feeling of belonging and encourages active citizenship.