Novateca Program organizes during the period of May 26-29, 2015 a study visit to Romania for trainers from the network. The study visit will focus on knowledge sharing and experience exchange between trainers from Moldova and Romania. Two days will be allotted for visiting and learning from Romania trainers and two days for the trip.

Novateca is happy to announce the launch of a new initiative that aims to support Moldovan librarians in acquiring skills within the fields of PR (Public Relations) and Communications.

While PR is essential in many fields, it is especially important in organizations that offer public services. That is why Novateca decided to create a PR Club for librarians. The members of the PR Club will meet quarterly to discuss different topics regarding the promotion of libraries in communities.

Novateca is glad to announce that the team Strășenenii is the winner of the contest “Your library has a Facebook account”. The team of libraries of the Strășeni raion was the most active on Facebook, scoring over 8500 likes, comments and shares of the posts in the period from 1 to 31 March 2015. The 146 libraries that took part in the contest had over 54 thousands mentions on Facebook.

On April 7, the National Library of the Republic of Moldova, with the support of the Novateca program and the Ministry of Culture, organized the XXIVth edition of the Library Scientific Symposium: Overview of the Professional Activity for 2014, entitled “2014 – year of the modernization and transformation of the public library into a community center.” The event was attended by the Vice-Minister of Culture, Igor Șarov, the General Director of the National Library, Alexe Rău, the Director of the Novateca program, Evan Tracz, as well as librarians from all the raions of the country.

In his speech, the Vice-Minister of Culture, Igor Șarov, mentioned that the transformation of public libraries in community centers is a strategic objective of the Ministry of Culture, one that is stipulated in the Culture Development Strategy – 2020. In this regard, the Vice Minister declared that at the present time it is important to implement the standards and the policies on providing good services in libraries by building a system of modern and accessible services adapted to the community needs.

The Director of the Novateca program, Evan Tracz, reiterated that the partnership between Novateca and the National Library is in continuous development. In the current year, the efforts of partners will be directed to improving the system of yearly reporting of the public libraries by improving the process of data collection, as well as the usage of the collected data, in order to promote public libraries and the impact of these institutions on the communities where libraries exist.

In support of this common goal, Novateca presented the open-data portal, a feature of the Novateca webpage that presents online information about the profile of the visitors and the services offered by Novateca libraries. The portal was created in order to offer more transparency, as well as to support the modernization of the public libraries of Moldova.

Moreover, during the event were announced the results of the republican contest of the descriptions of the research and development projects. The winners of the contest received books and gift packs awarded by Novateca program.

The awarded librarians are:

1. Maia Bălan, Bilicenii Vechi Village Library, Sîngerei raion
2. Lolita Kaneev, National Children’s Library "Ion Creangă", Chișinău
3. Lidia Kulikovski, Municipal Library “B. P. Hasdeu”, Chișinău
4. Nadejda Pădure, Străşeni Raion Public Library
5. Maia Taraban, Ocnița City Public Library
6. Nadejda Costin, Municpal Library “B. P. Hasdeu”, Chișinău
7. Alexandru Rusu, Izbişte Public Library, Criuleni raion.
8. Maria Cudlenco, Crihana Veche Village Public Library, Cahul
9. Galina Davîdic, Rezina Raion Public Library
10. Eugenia Răilean, Soroca Raion Public Library

The ten descriptions of the winning projects were presented, to the attendees at the event.

Novateca initiates a new project, which aims to motivate, as well as to recognize the efforts of the most active trainer-librarians of the Novateca network.

Thus, each month, until the date of 15, Novateca will monitor the activity of the Novateca trainers and will designate the best trainer of the month. The trainer will be evaluated according to the following criteria: