The FEPL project aims to create a strong trustful network of public libraries across Europe interested in engaging with EU policies and initiatives on the themes of digital, sustainability, and democracy. Through in-person meetings (‘thematic clusters’ focusing on one policy area each), the project sets out to build a common language among this network of practitioners on these policy areas, and how this can be integrated by public libraries. Concretely, the project’s sub-objectives are to: - Empower European library professionals to engage with EU policies and initiatives on digital, sustainability, and democracy and integrate these into their actions - Co-create common language and knowledge, and collect library best practices on the three policy areas (digital, sustainability, and democracy) that is relevant to public libraries and their communities, in order to develop recommendations for librarians and policymakers to expand the libraries’ scope of action - Use this knowledge to help adult learners in their community through programmes and initiatives, and empower public libraries to use their unique position as trusted community spaces for information and exchange to engage with EU policies and initiatives.
There are over 70,000 public libraries in Europe. As trusted community spaces public libraries can play an important role in raising awareness, skill-building and engaging citizens in initiatives around the topics of digital, sustainability, and democracy. PL2030 collaborates with its network of European Lighthouse Libraries on projects focusing on these three themes. These previous experiences have demonstrated how crucial cross-border collaboration is to stimulating exchange of best practices and peer learning, ultimately leading to the development of innovative practices within individual public libraries. Through our network, we have observed several needs to be addressed through this project. First, although public libraries across Europe face similar challenges, there is a lack of common understanding and shared definitions of key concepts addressing societal change within the European library community. Secondly, productive collaboration and peer learning can only be achieved on the basis of trustful personal relationships. And lastly, there is a lack of accessible knowledge and information on the relevance of EU policy priorities for the everyday work of public library professionals.