Foreign Language Center - Vrancea County Library

The Foreign Language Center was set up in May 2008, after the completion of a one-year and a half international book donation project of sixteen book tones, shared among three county public libraries from Romania. It is the only center of the kind in Vrancea and its activity covers cultural, social, and educational fields and community involvement. The center benefits from the support of generous volunteers, sponsors and donors which sustain the role of the library in the community.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Advocacy for a book

Who says that librarians don’t have to fight these days to regain the lost ground in front of the new technology which carried people off from reading? From my point of view, things have turned over and the culture has changed from a bastion facing the new consumerist tendencies to an outpost which has to be retaken. Ironic paradox...and sad reality. Maintaining culture is a struggle, so you fight to maintain alive the simple pleasure of paging through a book and, more than that, to teach others or to relearn what this pleasure means.

One thing is for sure, you can’t fight alone. There is an old saying, with only one flower there is no spring. But when you have a bouquet? And that’s how we gathered, flower by flower, from the field of libraries, to make a bouquet and to learn to fight for a book.

The initiative came from IREX Romania Foundation, which implements Biblionet Program for Romania's libraries. The IREX team organized from 25 to 29 June 2011 a workshop for Communication, Coalition & Advocacy themes and participants represented County Libraries and communities from 5 counties: Buzău, Ialomița, Vrancea, Tulcea and Vâlcea. Each one had to have a team of six representatives: the library manager, Biblionet county coordinator, Biblionet trainer, one local librarian, one attorney from the local public administration, and one representative of ONG or a mass media/business branch.

Vrancea team

Teodora Fîntînaru	County Library “Duiliu Zamfirescu” Vrancea	Manager
Liliana Mocanu	County Library “Duiliu Zamfirescu” Vrancea	Biblionet Coordinator South Branch Librarian
Anamaria Cătănoiu	County Library “Duiliu Zamfirescu” Vrancea	Advocacy Activities Attorney Coord. Foreign Language Center
Gabriel Funica	County Library “Duiliu Zamfirescu” Vrancea	Librarian, The President of the „Open Books” Association
Tatiana Valea	Municipal Library Adjud	Manager
Cristea Cornel	County council Vrancea	Inspector

Buzău team

Băsceanu Marius	County Library "V. Voiculescu"	head office, program coordinator
Stan Angela	County Library "V. Voiculescu"	manager, trainer
Irimia Iulia	County Library "V. Voiculescu"	librarian, trainer
Grigore Mihaela	County Library "V. Voiculescu"	librarian township Tisău
Soare Maria Antonina	County Library "V. Voiculescu"	the president of the Asociation "Saint Martyrs Alexandru and Antonina"
Soare Alexandra	County Library "V. Voiculescu"	volunteer, Library

Ialomița team

Gina Vișan	County Library “Ştefan Bănulescu” Ialomiţa	head of department
Carmen Daniela Neagu	County Library “Ştefan Bănulescu” Ialomiţa	trainer
Daniela Drăgoi Panțuru	Township Library „Alexandru Graur” Reviga	librarian
Ilie Cioacă	County Council Ialomiţa	manager
Clementina Tudor	Radio CAMPUS Slobozia	manager
Andrei Daniel Stancu	Volunteer Association “Library Friends”	vice-president CJ Ialomița

Tulcea team

Ghionu Ovidiu	County Library Tulcea	manager
Druncea Marian	County Library Tulcea	trainer, head of public relations- marketing
Nurciu Elena	County Library Tulcea	coordinator, head of the collections development. Local monitor
Cantemir Cadîr	Radio Argus Tulcea	administrator
Ilie Ștefan	A.C.O.R. - Luncavița town hall	president A.C..O.R. Tulcea – Mayor

Vâlcea

Maria Ciobanu

Biblioteca Județeana "Antim Ivireanu" Vâlcea

librarian trainer

And…Romanian Parliament

Elena Mitrea

Senate,Work commission of the social protection

senator

The workshop was conceived according to the methodology „all the system in a room.” At the workshop all the main representatives from the library and community made a multidisciplinary team to identify the library problems and to solve them with an advocacy approach. The purpose for this type of work system is to create effective communication methods between the representatives of the community and to improve the techniques and quality of the communication, community mobilization and team work. In addition, the teams have already been combined, a fact that led to an „expanded and diversified team.” We socialized, we got closer to each other, we got to know each other better, we worked together.

The ultimate goal of the workshop was to help us conceive advocacy action plans about pertinent themes for each district, that have to be implementable and financeable for the grants system which will be given by IREX after the workshop.

Five days I was worse at my job. I attended the military program, from 9 to 6-7 PM, where I practiced the term “interactive” more than I thought. Don’t get me wrong. These are the strong points of our SWOT analysis and appreciative terms, not pejorative. I mean there was seriousness and professionalism from IREX who taught us. It was an all around good mood, fun and included Daniela’s energizers (Drăghici-Advocacy IREX Officer) who danced with us and “beat” us twice a day in Tae Bo activities to wake up and to give us efficiency.

The work schedule was very busy and sessions approached themes like: community relations, the best ways to send messages, how we can attract the ones who don’t use the library, team building, the process of making decisions, achieving consensus, target demographics of the public, the identification of support and opposition, message development, and advocacy action plan.

Nevertheless I thing we all have coped successfully and we were productive in all respects: we got to know each other, we socialized online and offline too, I mean in class and after it (the best business is done away from the official frame!), we shared experiences and we learned from each other and, most important, we all sketched for every district, an advocacy plan on a pertinent theme that I backed up at the end through the agency of a role play.

At the end of the class we all were „diplomaed”. That means rewarded with a participation degree to show that we went through the class and didn’t get the diploma for nothing.

I’m talking now from Vrancea team. We’ve already started to work at our project and we’re taking things seriously because it’s a beautiful project, useful for the community of Vrancea and that’s not all.

And now, at the end, let’s meet the dynamic trainers, because that’s how it’s done. P.S. Don’t be mad because I’ve left you behind. A wise word from the old says that the last ones will be the first. Thank you for your patience you bore us and for your seriousness in doing your job. I’ve really learned many things and we put them into practice.

Irex team which taught and supported us

Luminița Petrescu	IREX România	Grant Manager
Jozsef Szocs	IREX România	Regional Coordinator
Andrei Bogdan Anichiforesei	IREX România	Regional Coordinator
Mihaela Milea	IREX România	Office Manager
Monica Grecu	IREX România	PR Specialist
Daniela Drăghici	IREX România	Advocacy Officer

Article written by Anamaria Cătănoiu – Coordinator Foreign Language Center

Translated by Liviu Dîrdală - volunteer

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The Joy of lex

Author: Gyles Brandreth

Published: 1980

Category: Education

The joy of Lex is a unique book! Who knows what edition it has reached since the 80’s until now? Gyles Brandreth is a top editorialist in Great Britain and the United States, a media figure with an Oxford degree and with tens of Scrabble and Monopoly championships in his file. His book, which stole his personality, asked me to simply grab it from the shelf. Brandeth is accomplished... a real word freak and he is incredible in the linguistic domain as well as the cultural one, and the book will surely be well received by English enthusiasts.

The work moves away from what we call “scientific”; it is very different from a treaty, being more of a linguistic compendium in which the reader can enjoy more than 800,000,000 words. The dynamics and games are perfectly combined to nullify the boredom and to create that acquired repugnance towards the “profile books”. Puzzles, games, crosswords, American English vs. British English, rhymes and verses, palindromes, euphemisms, virtual poetry, funny illustrations, sayings and slang elements are some of all the linguistic elements which wait to be discovered by a reader which has the sense of humor and curiosity!

There is no doubt that you will have fun, that you will relax, that you will laugh at the fine humor and that you will be amazed at the craft with which 860,341,500 word – (a BIG number!), were gathered and made fun with.

Who would overlook sayings like: Save water-bathe with a friend, funeral=real fun, or the newer elements of flemglish? I wouldn’t want to miss anything from this book, especially because after a full chapter you will begin to wonder, in English of course: “Is God a woman?”

By reading it, you will gain a lot…that is if you can resist the laughter.

Enjoy!

Beatrice Stoinescu

Student

Franco-Romanian Judicial College, Bucharest

How we were born

At the end of the year 2003 I was in Romania several times as a tourist. I visited all the areas between Bran and Bucharest and all the Monasteries in Moldavia. I also continued to search for information about Romania on the internet. I found out that some volunteers from the Peace Corp are active in Romania and that some of them are teaching English in schools and high schools in different corners of the country. Having a native speaker helps a lot with the process of learning a foreign language – for the teacher as well as the student. But the lack of materials represents a problem. Books in English are expensive and the budgets are low, especially in the rural areas where most of the volunteers teach.

And so I started to send packages with books to the libraries of the schools where I had made contact with the volunteers. In a few years, I’ve sent thousands of books to tens of schools in Romania through my NPO, “A Thousand Books” from St. Louis, Missouri, USA. I received a similar request for a donation from volunteer Eric Bleich, who was working at the Vrancea County Library. The first package contained approximately 40 children’s books and Eric said that the librarians were very pleased with both the physical quality and the content.

That was how the idea (I can’t remember if it was mine or Eric’s) of sending a bigger volume of books was born. Until that moment we hadn’t sent more than two or three boxes to the schools from which we had received requests, but we’re talking about a container of several tons. I told Eric that such a quantity could be shared with other libraries in the country if they could manage to obtain financing for shipping. Otherwise, the books wouldn’t cost a thing. They were donated. And so, the project was born.

Eric and Anamaria Catanoiu, from the Vrancea County Library, presented the project at the National Library Conference at Galati in 2006. Although more libraries were initially interested in participating, the financial aspects of the project limited the final list to these three libraries: The County Library “Duiliu Zamfirescu” from Vrancea, represented by Eric and Anamaria, The County Library “Petre Dufu” from Baia Mare-the American Corner section, represented by the librarians Lia Sabau and Adina Doroltan and The Library of Bucovina “I.G. Sbiera” from Suceava, represented by its Director, Gabriel Carabus. The management of the project was in the hands of Eric and Anamaria. This included the responsibilities of ensuring the books were shipped, dealing with customs, and communicating with the other two libraries.

My job was in America. I had to find thousands of books and a storage place for such a big quantity. And that’s not all: the domains of interest were clearly specified and also they should be interesting, to have a good physical appearance and not to be outdated in order to be really useful and that made my task even more difficult because I felt that I should verify by hand every book to make sure they met the conditions. I’ve done by myself all the work of gathering and arranging. For six months I’ve traveled all around the region to gather the books. Fortunately, in America there are churches and organizations that donate books or sell them at a very low price. They’ve allowed me to choose the best ones. This way I managed to gather quite a big quantity that overcame my expectations and also the librarians’. I hadn’t had the opportunity to weigh the books before sending them (which represented the final request) and what I thought weighed 5 tons, showed up to weigh 16 tons in Romania.

In Romania, Anamaria and Eric were also confronting big bureaucratic problems to finalize the customs papers, to convince the authorities in the port that it is a donation which was tax exempt and to pick up the books from the port along with the other two libraries and to transport them to their destination. Fortunately, the customs commissioner company which handled the transport and the formalities, RCS Comisionar SA from Bucharest, represented by Camelia Guță, constantly collaborated with Eric and Anamaria and that assured the well-being of the project. It took over one year from the initial proposition for the donation until the press conference that announced the end of the project, and the 16 tons of books, equally divided between the participating libraries, were at their destination. At the conference, almost all the involved partners participated whom also explained the idea behind this enormous effort: the money which every library has donated to the project wouldn’t have been enough to buy in Romania not even 1% of the whole bunch that they benefited from. And the quality of the books was appreciated as exceptional from all the points of view! The work of the American partner was over. Now the libraries were beginning a new important stage, that of introducing the books into circulation in order to be utilized by the readers. But a stage of this type needs time. To process 5 tons of books, takes some time…several months or more. The idea of continuity for the project was put to discussion from the very beginning. Once entered into circulation, these books are bound to be put under a special regime of inter-library exchange which will permit the rotation or the borrowing of English books between the three libraries in order to offer the readers a rich palette of documents.

For the County Library of Vrancea, this project meant an important enrichment of the English book collection and was the premise for the establishment of a Library of books in a foreign language which will sustain the educational and cultural process through specific activities.

Despite the fact that for many this project may not seem that big, or the fact that the domain doesn’t represent that much interest, it must be mentioned that it is the first project of this type at a national level because of the quantity of books, on one hand, and because of the involved partners on the other hand. It is the first real example of collaboration and common action between county libraries from Romania and also the first one that proposed the creation of a professional mini-network that works with foreigners. We hope that the positive result will encourage other libraries, as well, to develop similar projects in the benefit of the community that they serve.

All who are interested for more details regarding this project can consult the presentation film created by John Korst, the President of the American organization, with the aid offered by Anamaria Catanoiu at this site.

“A Thousand Books”:
www.AThousandBooks.us

John Korst – president “A Thousand Books” USA
Anamaria Cătănoiu – coordinator Foreign Language Center

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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Advocacy for a book