Guarantors, moderators: Michaela Mrázová, Nina Wančová

The block will belong to young energy, enthusiasm, esprit. Libraries and library students. How does a student become a practitioner and when ideas collide with reality, is it a big bang? What do libraries need? And what about young readers, are we forgetting them?

Inputs will be interpreted Czech – English.

Generational differences in libraries (8:30-10:00)

8:30-9:05

Snowflake generation and their study needs

The snowflake generation, or Generation Z, are those born roughly between 1995 and 2010. They are growing up in a time of affluence, availability of all necessities and most importantly an overabundance of parental care. They are used to having everything immediately without any effort and must enjoy it. Their life takes place mainly in the online space where they create a reality about the world around them. All this is reflected in their approach and requirements in education. A book or any other longer text becomes a dirty word. They demand the most concentrated knowledge in a short time. They don’t want to hear anything technical, it has to be fun…

Stanislav Tripes works at the Faculty of Management of the University of Economics in Prague. His area of research is strategic management in the brewing industry and in sports. He also deals with youth motivation in sport. He has been working with youth as a triathlon coach for a long time. He transfers his practical experience into research and vice versa.

9:05-9:20
The joys and sorrows of a young aspiring library director
What happens when you become a library director at a relatively young age? What don’t they teach you at school but you learn on the job? Is there an ideal way to run a library? What about communication with the founder? This talk is aimed at young people who work in libraries and have ambitions to move up the ladder, not stand still and build the library as a community hub.

Jakub Vlček born 1991, Director of the Bruntál Municipal Library since March 2023, graduate in Library Science at the Silesian University in Opava. A lover of literature with the ambition to elevate the library as a cultural and educational institution and thus strengthen civil society in a small district town.

9:20-9:35
Leading the Metadata and Management Team in RCSI

We you ever thinking of working abroad the information sector? In this presentation you’ll learn how it is to lead a team of library paraprofessionals in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. We’ll focus on generational differences, local Irish specifics and environment and continuous career development in the Irish information sector.

The presentation is aimed everyone curious about applicability of your skillset learned in the Czech Republic in academic libraries abroad and everyone interested to learn more about Irish librarianship.

Eliška Komárková *1987, is the Content and Metadata Management Librarian at RCSI University of Health Sciences, Dublin, Ireland. Eliška had studied at Charles University, Prague and worked in resource descriptions and special collections departments at FF UK, VHU and NM. She had completed her Masters degree (MLIS) at University College Dublin and continued to work in the areas of collection development, resource description and special collections. Eliška  manages a team of Library Assistants in her current role and her continuous interests lie in the areas of equality, diversity and inclusion and leadership and management. Eliška  is a disability rights advocate and focuses on the rights of Lyme disease patients and disabled workers in the higher education sector. In 2019 she had been awarded the Maynooth University Presidents Award for Service Innovation for her work on the Evidence-based acquisition project.

9:35-9:50

Decolonizing a Collection (Kenya – Book Bunk)

As part of the restoration of the McMillan Memorial Library and its branches, Book Bunk has been working to revamp and manage collections in the three branches; McMillan Memorial Library, Kaloleni Library and Eastlands Library. The goal is to decolonise the collection as well as ensuring that it is inclusive and accessible. We are also challenging the conventional classification system by developing an alternative classification that is intended to create a seamless experience for the librarians and users as it is easy to understand and accommodate titles that capture African indigenous knowledge.

Marion Anvango is the Collections Coordinator at Book Bunk in charge of curating and managing the collections at the three libraries. A literature enthusiast with a passion for African literature, Marion currently leads the efforts to revamp collections in the renovated libraries with the goal to decolonise the collections and to ensure titles are inclusive and accessible. She oversees the research on accessibility at Book Bunk libraries to ensure that the spaces and collections are fully accessible.

9:50-10:00

InfoGate – a file catalogue and something more (Commercial presentation)

The Slovak library catalogue InfoGate (www.infogate.sk) is an integration of more than 200 Slovak libraries, including various library-information systems. It contains 1.9 million bibliographic records, which are machine and manually deduplicated, enriched with multimedia context, accessibility information and are a gateway to the online catalogues of the participating libraries. It is at the same time a source database of records for the BIBLIB KIS, as well as users‘ personal reading log or their personal library.

10:00 – 10:20 – BREAK

Practice – Panel Discussion (10:20-11:00)

moderated by Nina Wančová
Panelists: Pavlína Kolínová (ÚISK UK), Michaela Dombrovská (ÚBK SU), Petr Škyřík (KISK MUNI), Angela Wachuka & Jacob Ananda (Kenya – Book Bunk), Germany

Young users in libraries (11:05-11:50)

11:05-11:20
Encouraging creativity and working with children’s entrepreneurship
Children lack the space to realise their own projects and many are not really good at it. The „Prototypci“ organisation tries to show children how to get an idea out of themselves, how to grasp and develop it, how to overcome obstacles and setbacks and, most importantly, that creation, creativity and entrepreneurship are a joy. Their vision is to contribute to the fact that there are as many active people in the world who have the desire and courage to change their surroundings for the better.

Veronika Šancová founded „Prototypci“, is its chairperson, manager, fundraiser, lecturer, methodologist, accountant, technical support, article writer, warehouse worker and cleaner (she sees a big advantage in the fact that she has been hyperactive since childhood:-)). She has over 20 years in business, is co-owner of an IT company and has been involved in many educational projects in various roles over the years. She most enjoys working directly with kids and pushing startup groups, but you’ll most often see her as a trainer and mentor to educators – moving them in the areas of entrepreneurship (she’s a certified EntreCompEdu Teacher Pioneer), creativity and digi.

11:20-11:30
MKlub Třinec -Youngsters in every library!
Mklub! Mklub is a library department for young people. The only one of its kind in the Czech Republic. But it offers young people more than books. It is a community place, a place where GOOD blooms, a signpost to life. Librarians and volunteers are its soul. Its services have been running for 13 years and are built on such a strong foundation that a staff member can change, a pandemic can come and young people stay, develop their ideas and change Třinec.

Hana Pietrová, at that time on parental leave. She joined the library in 2014 thanks to her work on international projects such as the CZ/PL community gardens or the Silesian Academy of Democracy. Until 2015 she worked at the library as a Children and Youth Librarian and Information Officer at the Youth Information Centre, after which she moved to the position of Youth Librarian at Mklub, Information Officer at the Youth Information Centre and lecturer.

11:30-11:40
Does the rainbow (not) belong in the library?
The library as a place for all, or not? Are there still topics that libraries should prefer to avoid, or do they say that they should at least stir up social discussion? Rainbow Point at the Jiří Mahen Library in Brno has been operating for over a year and is a place for everyone who needs to confide with something. Why was this point created in the first place? And are the colours of the rainbow always cheerful?

Iveta Cehelská is the head of the Library for Children and Youth at the Jiří Mahen Library in Brno, where she leads a team of eight people who develop reading skills in children and youth of all ages and prepare around 500 educational and cultural events for them per year. She herself is mostly involved in youth work, is the editor-in-chief of the electronic magazine Impulsy, and when she’s not reading, she’s researching the branches of her family tree.

11:40-11:50
Germany – to be completed