Welcome to the March 2024 LIBER Mailing

Posted: 16-04-2024 Topics: LIBER Quarterly Mailing Strategy 2023-2027

This mailing is sent directly to LIBER Libraries and is posted publicly on the LIBER website. Please feel free to share this mailing with others. 

Dear Members, 

Welcome to LIBER’s first Quarterly mailing of 2024. A little later than usual, but still packed with valuable insights. The year kicked off with a strong start, marked by three events in February. Two of those were webinars, one held by the LIBER RDM Working Group on Data Management Plans: Use and Reuse, and one for the DIAMAS Project, Navigating Europe’s Institutional Publishing Landscape. The third event was a joint one, OCLC-LIBER Facilitated Discussion #2, Building for the future: Data-driven Decision Making. We are looking forward to many more inspiring events this year.

LIBER is thrilled to introduce its newest Participants to the network. Since January, we welcomed:  

LIBER ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2024 IN LIMASSOL 

We are pleased to announce that registrations for the LIBER 2024 Annual Conference taking place in Limassol, Cyprus, are now open. 

Book your tickets today and join us at the Cyprus University of Technology in Limassol, from the 3-5 July 2024. To remind you, our theme of this year’s Conference is ‘State-of-the-art libraries in the service of science and society.’ 

  • Early Bird Registration: Open until 30 April 2024 
  • Standard Registration: Open until 3 June 2024 

For step-by-step details on how to register, visit the LIBER 2024 website registration page. Do you have questions about the registration process? Contact info@easyconferences.eu. 

We look forward to welcoming you to #LIBER2024!   


MEETING OF PARTICIPANTS 2024: HOW TO VOTE
 

All Institutional and Organisational Participants are welcome to vote on issues to be discussed at the Meeting of Participants taking place on Thursday 4 July 2024 during the Annual Conference. Participants unable to vote in person at the Annual Conference can vote by proxy. The application form to do so can be found here. 

If you are the official representative of your organisation and have the right to vote, please indicate this in the registration form for the 2024 LIBER Annual Conference. You will get your voting slips at the registration desk.

LIBER EXECUTIVE BOARD APPOINTMENTS TO THE BOARD, JULY 2024 CALL FOR NOMINATIONS  

In accordance with the Statutes and the Rules and Regulations of the LIBER (Stichting) Foundation, appointments are due to be made at the Meeting of Participants (i.e., Annual General Meeting) on Thursday 4 July 2024, for the following vacancy on the LIBER Executive Board:  

APPOINTMENT: LIBER Board Member 

Nomination Process
Board Members Appointments to the LIBER Executive Board are open to nominated candidates in all current LIBER Libraries in the Institution and Organisation categories. Candidates may be proposed by the nominee’s home library or by another LIBER Library. The candidate’s consent should be obtained by the proposer before a nomination is submitted. Candidates from current LIBER Libraries can also nominate themselves with the support of a proposer.    

Completed nominations on the Nomination Form should be returned to the Secretary-General by email (anja.smit@dans.knaw.nl).  Closing Date for Nominations is Thursday 19 June 2024.  Please note that the LIBER Executive Board welcomes candidate nominations from libraries in countries in all parts of Europe and from younger candidates.  

If you are interested in reading more about the role of LIBER’s board members, please take a look at our Join the Board page. 

REAPPOINTMENTS:  The following five Executive Board members will have completed terms of office by July 2024. They are eligible for re-appointment for a further term of two years and are willing to stand for re-appointment:  

Cécile Swiatek, Paris Nanterre University, France  

Adam Sofronijević, University of Belgrade, Serbia   

Anna Clements, University of Sheffield, UK  

Dóra Kalydy, Academy of Sciences, Hungary  

Sara Lammens, Royal Library of Belgium 

 If you have any questions about the appointments at the 2024 Meeting of Participants, or if you would like further information, please contact me at anja.smit@dans.knaw.nl 

Anja Smit Secretary-General, March 2024
 

LIBER WINTER EVENT 2024 – SAVE THE DATE!  

We are happy to announce that the 2024 edition of the Winter Event will take place at the University of Maribor Library, Slovenia, the 26th and 27th of November 2024. The event will be preceded by a national pre-event in collaboration with the Slovenian Library Association, on November 25th, 2024.  Save the dates in your calendars!
 

LIBER EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING MINUTES – OCTOBER 2023 

The minutes of the October 2023 Executive Board meeting minutes are now available for download. You can find them on our website as well, along with a list of all previous meeting minutes.

 

LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE RECEIVES CARA AWARD FOR LIBER CONFERENCE 2019 

By: Helen Shenton, Librarian and College Archivist, The Library of Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin 

The Library at Trinity College Dublin was awarded a Fáilte Ireland Conference Ambassadors Recognition Awards (CARA) at a special awards ceremony on November 22nd, 2023. Fáilte Ireland is Ireland’s National Tourism Development Authority. The awards honoured Conference Ambassadors who have been influential in hosting an international conference in Ireland of 400+ delegates between 2019 and 2021.  

The Library at Trinity College Dublin was awarded a CARA award for hosting LIBER 2019. We were supported throughout the planning by Fáilte Ireland because conference delegates are a vital source of income to the country. As Chair of the Conference Committee, I thought there was enormous professional value in hosting the important, pan-European annual LIBER conference − from showcasing the wonderful libraries across the country during delegates’ visits, to involving volunteers from libraries all over Ireland in looking after the 450 delegates. In addition to the enormous professional benefits of hosting the LIBER conference, the CARA award was in recognition of the economic value to the Irish economy which amounted to over €680,000. 

Helen Shenton and Sharon McIntyre of the Library of Trinity College Dublin, receiving Fáilte Ireland Conference Ambassadors Recognition Award 

Are you interested in hosting one of LIBER’s flagship events? Please, contact Martine Pronk, LIBER Executive Director for further inquiries.

 

CODE OF CONDUCT 

The LIBER Code of Conduct has been updated as per the edits made during the EB February 2024 Meeting.  

LIBER is committed to maintaining a welcoming, inclusive, and respectful environment—one that will strengthen collaboration, promote intellectual freedom, and support open dialog and debate. We are dedicated to ensuring a safe and open atmosphere for everyone, regardless of sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion, or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age, or sexual orientation (1) 

LIBER does not tolerate personal attacks, harassment of any kind, or disruptive behaviours in conferences, events, meetings, online forums, or any other LIBER activities. All attendees, speakers, sponsors, vendors, partners, as well as LIBER Office staff and officers at the LIBER Annual Conference and any other LIBER events are required to adhere to the LIBER Code of Conduct. 

If you feel unsafe in any way, or notice that someone else feels threatened or unsafe, or have any other concerns and you do not feel comfortable communicating with the individual that has affected you negatively, please bring this to the attention of LIBER. Depending on the situation, you might want to contact the following contacts directly or via a third party:

LIBER will take every signal seriously and will act appropriately to remedy the situation, taking into account the relevant rules, regulations and laws. 

  1. Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 


SUPPORTIVE MEMBERSHIP FEE PROGRAMME
 

In December of last year, LIBER launched the Supportive Membership Fee Programme 2024. With this Programme, LIBER offers participants (members) the opportunity to contribute a one-time € 2,500 or € 5,000 which replaces the standard annual fee for their institute for one year. Seeing that the first initiative was already successful, thanks to many contributors, we are happy to announce that we will continue the Programme in 2025. More information will be communicated the following months. 

Why contribute a supportive membership? 

In 2023, LIBER presented its new LIBER Strategy for 2023-2027. It is a strategy that is full of ambition to better represent the voice of research libraries. Part of its actions is organising activities, which contribute to strengthening the library workforce for all our members. To realise this ambitious strategy, and keep LIBER services affordable for all our members, we ask our community for support. By taking part in the Supportive Membership campaign, members will help LIBER to continue working for librarians and research libraries all over Europe. On behalf of LIBER and as Executive Director, I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks for all libraries that took part in the 2024 Programme. 


If you have any queries about the content of this mailing, or if there is any further information that we can provide, please let us know via email (liber@libereurope.org).

Kind regards,
Anja Smit
Secretary-General
LIBER EUROPE  

 

[Photo by Lukas on Unsplash]