Programme

I. Advocating for libraries in today's political landscape: Challenges and opportunities for Library Associations

Building Inclusive Communities – One Library at a Time
Claudia Serbanuta (President, Communities of the Future Association, Romania)

Wendy Wauters (Collection manager, Antwerp Libraries, Belgium)

II. The state of reading and reading promotion campaigns today

Sentobib.eu study “Users’ perception of libraries – results from the largest user study ever"
Francis De Bonnaire (Sentobib, Belgium)

TBA
Valentina Stoeva (EURead Co-chair, Bulgaria)

Moderator: Zélia Parreira (EBLIDA Executive Committee Member, Public Library of Évora / Interdisciplinary Centre for History, Culture and Societies, University of Evora) Portugal

III. On technology & collaborations

The transition of publishing and written culture in the digital age
Dr. Panagiotis Kapos (Vice President, Hellenic Foundation for Book and Culture, Greece)

TBA
Svein Arne Brygfjeld, (National Library of Norway, Norway)

Moderator: Antonios Mourikis, EBLIDA Executive Committee Member, (Association of Greek Librarians and Information Scientists, AGLIS, Greece)

Hear from 12 dynamic speakers as they explore the evolving role of libraries - from advocacy and AI to media literacy, societal challenges, and inclusion.

Setting the stage - Libraries in a changing world

1. The new role of libraries and librarians: The library as an institution supporting education, life-long learning and innovation in the 21st century
Judit Gerencsér (President, Association of Hungarian Librarians, Hungary)

2. Libraries & politics: How can we make policymakers listen
Holger Krimmer (Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv), Germany)

The digital shift - AI and libraries

3. From media literacy to AI literacy: The evolving role of libraries
Ilona Žilienė (National Library of Lithuania, Lithuania)

4. Libraries & AI: Allies, not opponents
Tito Kliska (Zagreb City Libraries, Croatia)

5. The CatAI-Quest: Generating descriptive metadata using AI
Gwenny Vlaemynck (Cultuurconnect, Belgium)

6. AI in the book publishing market. BIP course at the University of Warsaw
Katarzyna Jarzyńska and Renata Rokicka (University of Warsaw, Poland)

Libraries & society - Addressing key challenges

7. Fake News: spot it before you spread it!
Márcia Castro (Biblioteca Municipal de Vizela, Portugal)

8. Shared Reading and AI
Mia Karvonen (President, Finland's Swedish Library Association, Finland) and Anneli-Haapaharju (Vice-President, Finland's Swedish Library Association, Finland)

9. What and how do people read today and how can we use these data?
Maija Treile (Head, Research and Interpretation Centre, National Library of Latvia, Latvia)

Libraries as agents of inclusion & resilience

10. Library Bridges: Fostering inclusion for people with a migrant background
Claire Helluin (Libraries without Borders France, and Project Coordinator of LiBri, representing a consortium of organizations (BSF France, BSF Italy, ACV, EBLIDA, KISC, FRSI))

11. Ukrainian Library Leadership in Time of Uncertainty and Challenges
Serbin Oleg and Oksana Bruy (Yaroslav Mudriy National Library of Ukraine, Ukraine)

12. LibrarIN
Marieke Willems (LibrarIN consortium)