On April 12 -13, representatives from National Library, Chisinau Municipal Library, National Children’s Library and Super Training Centers from Novateca library network attended the first software donation working group meeting for library IT specialists. The meeting was hosted by the National Library and was attended by 12 IT specialists eager to acquire advanced IT skills.

The working group collected data about the public libraries’ software needs and learned how to manage the software donation process from TechSoup Non-profit organization in Moldova. Participants plan to make their first software order in June, after processing the data.

The working group was also actively involved in the advanced Cyber Security trainings for IT specialists, provided by Novateca’s long-term partner, DAAC Systems Integrator, and the study tour to the new Training Center “TekWill”, organized by the Association of IT companies from Moldova (ATIC) to provide facilities for IT trainings and Start-ups.

The IT specialists highly appreciated the trainings provided by Novateca’s partners and expressed their interest in promoting Cyber Security in libraries and using TekWill as a platform to promote their libraries and projects.

At the end of the event, participants reached to libraries to find out about their software needs. Among the most common answers were Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat Pro and BitDefender antivirus software, for which libraries are willing to allocate resources from their annual budgets. By the beginning of June, the IT specialists will contact all libraries to record their software requests.