Libraries for Europe
Libraries are curated, public, safe spaces where people of all kinds of national, cultural backgrounds and ages meet.
We regard the establishment of a programmatic connection between (public) libraries all over Europe, engaging millions of citizens, as a stimulus for the emergence of a new European Social Network that can fuel a culture of solidarity between individuals and communities, across differences, borders and nationalities.
The Europe Challenge
The Europe Challenge is an annual programme that brings together teams from libraries and communities across Europe to address today’s most pressing social, digital, and climate challenges by developing, sharing and implementing creative solutions with support from the European Cultural Foundation and its partners.
At the heart of the programme lies the belief that libraries and their communities are fundamental to shaping a more inclusive, connected, and sustainable Europe.
Click on the button below to read more about the Europe Challenge.
Public Libraries 2030
ECF supports PL2030 – a network of European public libraries – to research and prepare for the launch and implementation of a Europe-wide programme which will leverage the potential of public libraries to meaningfully engage with citizens, nurture communities, and connect across borders, thinking in particular about re-building trust and solidarity post-lockdown. In June 2020 Public Libraries 2030 hosted a series of sessions to explore topics concerning the impact and implications of the Coronavirus for the library community.
OBA
Driven by the common interest in the contemporary and future meaning of a public space, the digitalisation as a fundament of building new communities and Europe as the living context of local engagement and international collaboration, ECF and the OBA (Amsterdam Public Libraries) explore programmatic collaboration that will seek to further consolidate and strengthen Amsterdam’s position as a European cultural and learning hub (both offline and digital).
ECHO Mobile Library
There are approximately 115,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Greece, many of whom live in camps that lack basic facilities, let alone sources of adult education, knowledge exchange or any kind of cultural enrichment. They are often stuck in the interminable insecurity and boredom that arises from navigating the Greek and EU asylum processes, a limbo between unsafe origins and uncertain destinations. In this context, ECHO Mobile Library distributes language-learning resources and lends from a collection of over 1000 books – literature, non-fiction, educational and children’s books – in 13 languages from Farsi to French. ECHO acts as an interface of cultural and linguistic exchange on the Southern border of Europe. Read an interview here.
