PARDUBICE

Date: September 18th 2018, 10 a.m. - noon

Place: Regional Authority of the Pardubice Region, Komenského náměstí 125, 532 11 Pardubice

The panel discussion in the Pardubice Region was held on Tuesday, September 18th 2018 in the Regional Council hall. The regional, municipal and library representatives were present at the meeting. The president of the Region's 1st deputy, Roman Línek, Milan Novák, head of the Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism of the Pardubice Region, Ivana Liedermanová, head of the Department of Education, Culture and Sport of Pardubice, Tomáš Bolek, mayor of Choltice, Romana Petříková, mayor of Býšť, Ludmila Vacková, mayor of Mrákotín, Vít Richter, director of the National Library CR Librarianship Institute, entrusted libraries directors, Radomíra Kodetová, Regional Library of Pardubice director and other representatives of libraries participated on the discussion as well.

The importance of public libraries, their contemporary and future role and their position in lifelong learning were discussed. Social differences balancing was on the programme as well.

"The question is, whether it is in the possibilities of municipalities to keep these libraries alive meaningfully under new conditions in good quality. Whether the library in those small municipalities shouldn't rather go to people," was the debate introduced by Roman Línek, the president of the Region's 1st deputy for culture.

"We would like to make Tuesday's meeting an incentive to speed up the process of transforming the library into a community centre of the municipality, where people will be happy to meet, where they will be enriched with new experiences, knowledge, and cultural experiences.

However, this is closely related to the requirements for changing the interior of libraries and the scope and level of services provided," said Radomíra Kodetová, the Regional Library of Pardubice director.

"We want to have the analysis processed now, how we can help most effectively there, where they try and do not have the means to retrofit active libraries in small municipalities. In some regions, subsidy title is a solution. That is why we want to find a system solution in Pardubice Region next year onwards," Roman Línek added.