Training Centre for Continuing Education of Librarians in the Czech Republic

Pavla Kánská

1 Introduction

Exactly a year ago in spring 1999, the Open Society Institute/ Network Library Program (OSI/NLP) foundation invited all the countries from the former Soviet block to submit projects for the establishment of national training centres for continuing education of librarians. It was exactly at that time that the MOLIN (Moravian Library Information Network) consortium (one of completed projects of CASLIN Plus) was looking for some more core programmes for its activities. The OSI/ NLP initiative offered one of possible approaches to systematically develop life-long education for librarians. At its June 1999 meeting, the consortium decided to lay the foundations of the MOLIN Training Centre for Continuing Education of Librarians, to support its activities and provide an institutional framework for it.

2 MOLIN Training Centre for Continuing Education of Librarians

Pavla Kánská from Masaryk University in Brno and Dana Lošťáková from Palacký University in Olomouc were asked to prepare the project for the Centre, and in September 1999, the OSI/NLP received the project "Training Centre for Continuing Education for Librarians in the Czech Republic". The project, which is planned for the years 2000 - 2002, has an estimated budget of 177 896 USD. The OSI/NLP foundation approved the project and in December 1999 it provided the first 39,466 USD for the Centre's activities in 2000.

Most of the management work in the Centre is done by workers of four libraries of the MOLIN consortium, who are assisted in organizational work by eight co-ordinators of regional centres. The advisory committee of the centre consists of four representatives of key institutions for continuing education of librarians in this country and three foreign experts who were also the keynote speakers at CASLIN 2000 seminar.

There are about 4 thousand professional librarians in the Czech Republic, and at least a quarter of them need retraining, i.e. it is necessary to provide retraining for about 1,000 librarians every year. Over the period of three years of the project, a "shared" core group of 100 tutors is to be set up to lecture annually to 1,200 librarians from all types of libraries in the Czech Republic.

In addition to integrating and co-ordinating all educational activities for Czech librarians, the Training Centre is to be the driving force in an effort to shift the focus of librarians' work to client services. Requests for providing better access to holdings and better services to users in general have been silenced by.

Holdings acquisition and processing used to be activities traditionally favoured at the expense of easier access to holdings and other needs of users. That is the reason why most courses covered topics like AACR2, UNIMARC, acquisition policy and collection development, while topics like social communication in libraries, assertive behaviour training, introduction to EU library legislation and procedures or English conversation for user services staff were largely missing from the list of workshops for librarians. The Training Centre proposes to support as its priorities the topics that are aimed at services and users, it wants to help overcome language barrier in services, particularly in the research and academic libraries with their higher concentrations of foreign students and teachers. For that reason, the MOLIN consortium contributed to the publication of the English-Czech and Czech-English Dictionary for Librarians issued by Masaryk University in September 1999.

The web pages of the Centre were provided by Dana Lošťáková at the Palacký University in Olomouc, whose Information Centre is responsible for their maintenance and regular updating (http://www.molin.upol.cz).

3 Objectives of the Training Centre

The principal objectives of the Training Centre project are:

• to integrate and unify all out-of-school training activities for Czech librarians, and to co-ordinate continuing education of librarians from all types of libraries in the Czech Republic;
• to improve knowledge and facilitate access to information on education for as many librarians in the Czech republic interested in continuing education as possible;
• to enhance quality and provide flexibility of library services, and to adjust Czech libraries to the situation in European libraries;
• to focus librarian training programmes primarily on public services, and to help provide them with training in English conversation in order to gradually overcome language barrier in contacts with foreign users of libraries;
• to introduce a new system of evaluation based on teamwork in dealing with tasks, written tests, final oral exams and a new type of certificates;
• distance learning mainly for foreign participants by organizing international seminars, conferences, workshops and other joint events focused on special problems involved in continuing education of librarians.

4 Organizational Structure

The need for a new organizational structure follows from the fact that links are being prepared between various projects of out-of-school education within the framework of the State Information Policy (including also the field of continuing education at universities) and courses of further education for librarians at the Training Centre. Also, the extension of the Centre from originally 8 to now 14 administrative districts and the inclusion of new types of university, health care, technical and economic libraries, plus the necessity of systemic classification and subsequent accreditation of individual types of courses make the need for further institutionalisation of the existing structure of the Centre more obvious. We propose a three-tier organizational structure in which the Management Committee will be responsible for the fulfilment of tasks and the use of allocated funds. Together with the Advisory Board, it prepares the Centre's conceptual and strategic goals, organizes international events and seminars. The Organization Committee is responsible for updating information on the Centre's web site, meeting the objectives and co-ordinating co-operation with institutions in their district.

Management Committee

The Management Committee is made up of a total of 6 members, i.e. 4 representatives of MOLIN, 1 representative of the National Library in Prague and 1 representative of the State Technical Library in Prague. The members represent 2 university libraries, 2 state research libraries, National Library and a central specialized library:

Pavla Kánská,	Masaryk University Brno (main project co-ordinator)
	kanska@phil.muni.cz, tel: + 420-5-41121315
Dana Lošťáková,	Palacký University Olomouc (integration and electronic link)
	lostakov@risc.upol.cz, tel: + 420-68-5631702
Hana Študentová,	State Research Library Olomouc (economy and legislation)
	hata@office.svkol.cz, tel: + 420-68-5227262
Jana Nejezchlebová,	Moravian Library Brno (statistics and final tests)
	jananej@mzk.cz, tel: + 420-5-42162163
Zlata Houšková,	Nation Library Prague (accreditation and research)
	zlata.houskova@nkp.cz, tel: + 420-2-21663339
Zdena Kloučková,	State Technical Library Prague (inclusion of Prague libraries of other types)
	Z.Klouckova@stk.cz, tel: +420-2-21663478

Organization Committee

The present Organization Committee is made up of 8 co-ordinators of regional centres. With the introduction of a new administrative division of the Czech Republic into 14 administrative districts, however, the number of regional centres will be increased accordingly.

The co-ordinators from the 14 regional centres of continuing education of librarians will be responsible not only for updating the information on the centre's web sites but also for co-operation between various institutions in their districts. The three biggest regional centres, i.e. Prague, Brno and Olomouc, have already two librarians from the major libraries in their districts sharing this demanding work as well as activities in the Management Committee. Prague, where most of central special libraries are located, badly needs more staff. We expect that 5 new districts, i.e. Zlín, Jihlava, Karlovy Vary, Pardubice and Ústí nad Labem districts will join in, and suitable candidates are being sought there:

Co-ordinators of the existing 8 regional centres:

1. Prague	Zdena Kloučková, State Technical Library Prague
	Z.Klouckova@stk.cz, tel: +420-2-21663478
2. Brno	Jitka Manová, Masaryk University Brno
	manova@fss.muni.cz, tel: + 420-5-41321339/138
3. Ostrava	Milena Slaninová, State Research Library Ostrava
	slaninova@svkos.cz, tel: + 420-69-6118812
4. Olomouc	Hana Študentová, State Research Library Olomouc
	hata@office.svkol.cz, tel: + 420-68-5227262
5. Plzeň	Miloslava Faitová, West Bohemian University Plzeň
	faitova@uk.zcu.cz, tel: +420-19-7421420
6. Hradec Králové	Vlasta Hamplová, State Research Library Hradec Králové
	hamplova@svkhk.cz, tel: +420-49-5514525
7. České Budějovice	Zuzana Hájková, State Research Library, České Budějovice
	hajkova@cbvk.cz, tel: +420-38-57561
8. Liberec	Petr Chvojka, State Research Library Liberec
	chvojka@svkli.cz, tel +420-48-2710212

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board consists of 4 representative of key institutions for the development of continuing education for librarians in this country, and 3 foreign experts:

MOLIN:	Rostislav Hladký, Palacký University Olomouc (links to the EU)
STK:	Martin Svoboda, State Technical Library Prague (links to the SIP in education)
NKP:	Vít Richter, National Library Prague, (links to Public Info Services of Libraries)
FF UK:	Jiří Cejpek, Charles University Prague, (links to university education for librarians)
	Andrew Lass, Mount Holyoke College, USA
	Susan Perry, Mount Holyoke College, USA
	Sylva Šimsová, Library Systems Consultant, London, UK

5 International Seminars and Distance Learning

The development of a distance-learning programme, which is an acceptable way of extending one's qualifications for both the majority of librarians and their employees, is an out-of-the-ordinary objective for the Training Centre. This modern alternative to traditional training based on learning at home gives the responsibility for the study and control over the results to the student herself/himself. Particularly for librarians with professional and family responsibilities, individual learning of adults makes the optimum alternative, and gives an opportunity to middle-age workers to extend their skills or get a retraining according to his employer's needs or his own interests. The development of information technologies helps the distance learning to be very open for everybody interested in it, and it also helps overcome various barriers in the access to education.

In the Czech Republic there are no projects like ProLIB of our Slovak colleagues that Milena Tetřevová, the head of the project team from the University of Technology in Košice, informed us about on the first day of our seminar. For this year, the Training Centre plans to develop a draft of a distance-learning programme in co-operation with universities and to start implementing it in 2001. International seminars, conferences and workshops on individual units and themes of distance learning are to be an integral part of the distance-learning programme. Full texts of papers and materials from the seminars will be published in the proceedings and made available to all interested parties. The first international event of the Centre is this seminar for librarians, CASLIN 2000. Other seminars that the Training Centre plans to hold will be less formal and more work-oriented than this prestigious CASLIN seminar.

6 Topics for the Centre's Further Development

The first quarter of the year 2000 showed to all of us in the MOLIN Training Centre for Continuing Education of Librarians how difficult it is to get a national project involving continuing education of librarians from all types of libraries under way. We already know that for the achievement of our objectives we shall need more time (beyond the three-year horizon of the project) and more resources (both financial and human resources) for the development of individual sub-programmes included in the unified concept of continuing education of librarians.

A major boost for our plans came when the principles of the State Information Policy (SIP) in Education were approved by the government of the CR on 1 April 2000. It is a very specific and detailed document that puts schools and libraries at the same level as educational institutions with regard to their responsibilities for enhancing information literacy among the Czech population. Some parts of the document deal with the training for teachers and librarians who are to spearhead the programme of introduction of information and communication technology to all schools and libraries in districts. The Ministry of Education, which bears most of the responsibility for the SIP implementation, has earmarked 1.3 billion CZK for the project for next year. The total budget of the SIP implementation has been estimated at about 7 billion CZK. For this year alone, out-of-school education of librarians has a budget of 13 million CZK. In its chapter on Education of Librarians, the approved document also mentions the MOLIN Training Centre that is supported by the Soros Foundation (OSI).

Positive developments and the general emphasis in the society on enhancing the information and computer literacy of librarians has led to an introduction of a kind of professionalism in the Training Centre. The preparation of the principles of the concept of continuing education for librarians includes specific programmes of accreditation for individual courses, the development of their uniform curricula and teaching materials, final written tests and a new evaluation system for final oral exams. The first of such courses is the English for Librarians course now under way. It was developed and is now managed by Jitka Manová from Brno with tutors from the Information Studies College *, the British Council and Masaryk University. The tutors used an entrance examination to assess the level of language skills of the participants, which in turn will help them select the teaching methods, textbooks, cassettes and other study material. The course will provide training in everyday language as well as in topics related to libraries and library-related vocabulary. At the end of this three-month course there will be a final test and those how pass it will receive a certificate.

Czech librarians need an introduction of a unified type of a certificate that would be approved by the Central Library Committee (ÚKR). In co-operation with the Association of Library and Information Professionals of the Czech Republic (SKIP), the Committee ÚKR can enhance the prestige of such certificates with employers in the Czech Republic and, most importantly, guarantee their validity. The new systemic classification of positions for librarians and information professional together with the career scheme will not only provide the right kind of incentives but they will also help reward course graduates. The Training Centre itself is to be assessed by the Central Library Committee, SKIP, MOLIN consortium, as well as the Centre's advisory board and organizational and management committees. Assessment of the Centre's work by course graduates on its web pages could also help improve its work.

The National Library of the CR filled the vacuum in the field of research in 1999 when it gathered interesting source material during its Survey of Age, Education and Salary Structures in Czech Libraries. The areas investigated in the survey, particularly on qualification and retraining, will serve as an important source of information for the Centre and its analysis of the present situation in education in this country and abroad. Some of intermediate results of the analysis were presented here yesterday by our colleagues from the National Library in Prague, Zlata Houšková and Vít Richter. Also valuable as resource material for the development of a concept of continuing education of librarians is the final report [1] of the International Commission Education for the 21st Century. Working at UNESCO and chaired by Jacques Delorse, the Commission came up with the concept of continuing learning throughout one's whole life emphasizing the need to return to learning in order to adjust to new situations in one's life and career as the key issue of the new "learning society" of the 21st century. The need for continuing learning is to spring out of the interest in, and joy of, learning and even to stimulate our "intellectual curiosity". The text of the Bologna Declaration [2] on the status and development of European integrated system of university education may serve as the starting point for interlinking lifelong learning provided by universities and courses of continuing education of librarians organized by the Training Centre. Jiří Cejpek's publication Information, Communication and Thinking: Introduction to the Information Science [3] is of utmost importance for us.

7 Conclusions

We all know that changes in the librarian's job description are a sine qua non for the survival of our profession in the future. Each of us should be already computer and functionally literate and should be teaching the art of working with information to the others. The Training Centre's project is one of attempts of making the difficult road to further education for librarians easier. In conclusion, let me recall Professor Andrew Lass, who cannot be here with us today, by quoting from the concluding part of his speech [4] at the LIBER Conference:

Everyone's potential to be both a learner and a teacher
has not only been increased, it is being transformed.
The real problem is whether we know the basic skills.
Do we know how to read and write? Do we hear what
the other is saying? Do we see what we are looking at?
Can we speak and is anybody listening? Does anybody care?...
The new technologies allow us to exist in ways we have
perhaps imagined but had never experienced before.
But can we get along or will the new heterogeneities feed
the fires of intolerance?... I believe firmly, and say so
resolutely, that the new libraries and the new librarians
can play a positive and pivotal role in this transformation.
Under one condition: That they too can get along!

References:

[1] Učení je skryté bohatství: zpráva mezinárodní komise UNESCO "Vzdělávání pro 21.století". - Praha: Ústav pro informace ve vzdělávání, 1997. 125 s.
[2] Haug, G. - K evropskému prostoru pro vysokoškolské vzdělávání (Boloňská deklarace).- In: Univerzitní noviny: list Masarykovy univerzity, č. 2 (2000), s. 53-60.
[3] Cejpek, J. - Informace, komunikace a myšlení.-Praha: Karolinum. 1998. 179 s.
[4] Lass, A. - Virtuální knihovny v komunitách našich představ: je v budoucnosti veřejných služeb i kus minulosti? - In: Národní knihovna, č. 5 (1999), s. 226-227.

* College in the sense of tertiary education of non-university type. Back to the text