Who I am and what I do: I’m writing this with a pair of warm woolly socks on, in the corner of my comfortable sofa while the temperature outside has risen (or actually, sunk?) from -21 C to a tolerable -16 degrees. I’m a distance-working part-time (80 %) project manager for Getting Netted, a project funded by the European Social Fund, coordinated by the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences where five Finnish public libraries are co-partners: the city libraries of Turku and Vaasa being the most active. The other partners are the libraries in Jakobstad, Porvoo and Ylöjärvi.
About the project: The project kicked off in September 2009 and closes down at the end of September this year. The aim has been to find new ways of training users in computer and especially web skills. The five libraries taking part in the project have actively sought new partners and new target groups in their community.
The main emphasis has been on user groups in danger of being excluded from the (information) society: the long-term unemployed, people in mental rehabilitation, users with learning and reading difficulties. Interaction, discussions, sharing and a participatory approach have been central for project from the very start.
Manic Monday: as I already confessed on Twitter, my week didn’t get off to the best possible start: I missed an online meeting I should have ‘chaired’ myself. No excuses, I simply forgot.
The view outside my office. Taken last week in Seinäjoki
Since then, things have picked up and I’ve managed to book a speaker for a seminar we’re organising on copyright, e-resources and libraries in April. The 21 other workshops, webinars and seminars we’ll be holding this spring are also shaping up. I’ve been updating the presentation titles and timetables, checking on the speakers and mailing with the project planner in Seinäjoki (as I said earlier, I’m sitting at home, one and a half hours away from Seinäjoki, in Jakobstad).
I’ve also been trying to fit our project into one of the sessions in the IFLA 2012 call of papers, but so far, no luck. We’re working on a poster, though, and will submit an abstract well before the deadline. One of the satellite conferences sounds promising, so I mailed all the project staff (and the library directors) in Turku and Vaasa asking what they thought.
I also informed all the libraries concerned about a piece I wrote on some Finnish public library EU projects for the Scandinavian Public Library Quarterly at the end of last year: Close encounters: Three Finnish library projects make a difference.
But the day’s not over yet, so who knows what will come up before bedtime!
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