IFLA/OCLC Fellows in Europe
In the last week of May, four IFLA/OCLC Fellows came to Europe, after a 4-week training programme at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio. The Fellows visited the Dutch and German National Libraries, the Leiden and Frankfurt University Libraries, the Amsterdam Public Library, and the IFLA headquarters in The Hague.
Coming from countries as diverse as Morocco, Uganda, South Africa and India, the 2008 fellows came to learn from the OCLC programme and also from each other. They were also able to compare their experience in the USA with that in Europe. Cyrill Walters (South Africa) said: "I had expected that the American libraries would have been more advanced than the European ones, but I found that they are very much on par. I was also surprised by the priority that public libraries in Europe get by the governments." Atanu Garai (India) noted differences in education and architecture of the buildings.
With the newly gained knowledge that they bring back from the IFLA/OCLC Fellowship, the young librarians will bring their local activities to a higher level. "I will make sure we will cooperate even more," says Hanan Erhif (Morocco). "We already are doing that with African and European countries, but I will work on extending that cooperation to the US."
The fellowship made Sarah Kaddu Birungi (Uganda) even more enthusiastic about her work: "Being a librarian is often not the first choice profession in Uganda. I will now visit more libraries and tell my colleagues what this job is really about, encourage them, make them proud of what they can achieve for our country," she says.
For the next edition of IFLA/OCLC Fellows, there will be six positions. These 2009 fellows will be announced at the IFLA Conference coming August.