IN DEPTH
Provenance, restitution and poison cupboards
When Mareike Doleschal attended the largest library conference in Europe, she gained fascinating insights into intercultural work, government control and provenance and restitution research.
LIBRARIANSHIP is a global profession: this became clear to me when I attended a library conference (Bibliothekartag) in Berlin held at the Estrel Congress Centre in June. I met colleagues from many countries including France, Norway, the Neth- erlands, Greece, the USA and Swit- zerland. We exchanged ideas, learned about each others’ projects and visited some of Berlin’s 156 libraries. I had attended the conference in Frankfurt the previous year and found it benefi - cial, so decided to return. Organised annually by the two German professional bodies for library and informa- tion professionals, the Bibliothekartag is the largest library conference in Europe and it is well worth attending even if you don’t speak German. Although the conference is titled Bibliothekartag (literally translated “librar- ian day”), many of the lectures and library tours were in English. Financial support can be sought from the Federal Association of German Library and Information Associa- tions, which promotes international dialogue and knowledge transfer and off ers grants for international participants who would like to attend the Bibliothekartag.
Social media
I chose sessions that sounded innovative and relevant to my work. In my role as a rare book librarian at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon, I look after a collection of 55,000 books, which includes early printed books as well as items with international connections. I was keen to learn how to use social media to promote library collections and various workshops helped me hone my social media
44 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Mareike Doleschal (
mareike.doleschal@
shakespeare.org.uk) is Collections Librarian at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
skills. Sessions on intercultural library work enabled me to discover how my colleagues engage with a multilingual and multicultural audience. As an editor and writer of a blog series entitled Translating Shakespeare which promotes the Trust’s international collections, I was drawn to sessions engaging with topics of intercultural work and languages. I was also hoping for inspiration for my blog series and to meet potential new contributors.
Multicultural and multilingual The common issue facing European libraries is tailoring their services and stock to the needs of an increasingly multicultural and multilingual audience. This is mainly to do with the large numbers of Syrian refugees who fl ed to these countries. I learned about the many projects and services that librarians have initiated, organised and developed. For example, a German public library off ers plain language library tours aimed at refugees. Librarians also developed an app intended to make refugees feel welcome and help them with settling into life in their new country.
September 2018
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