From 4th to 11thJune 2022 Dr. Nicoleta-Roxana Dinu from the National Library of Romania, Institutional Development Department, visited the National Library of Sweden (Kungliga Biblioteket – KB) in order to have a proactive discussion with its specialists on the workflow used in both libraries, with a special focus on international cooperation, digitisation processes and legal deposit.
Intensive, detailed and rich in content, the visit programme was carefully prepared by the National Library of Sweden and covered many tasks and projects carried out in the institution. Some activities were traditional, like the legal deposit, but many other were advanced ones, using the latest technologies: digitisation policy and processes for digital cultural heritage, web harvesting of the Swedish websites, open science (open access, open data, citizen science…) and related research activities. Of particular interest for me were the collaboration activities, both national and international, not only between libraries but embracing also galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM). I was impressed with the visit to KB-lab, created 3 years ago, an infrastructure for data-driven research.
I appreciated the mix between the overview presentations with slides of the first two days and the practical on-site visits on the following days.
I was been given a guided tour both into the Humlegården building (the central one of the National Library of Sweden) and the Karlavägen premises. I visited the reading rooms and the Treasure Room where the 13th-century Codex Gigas (“Devil’s Bible”) is displayed for the public (it can be visualised also online, as it is fully digitized). I had the chance to visit and get complete information on the equipment used for digitising manuscripts, audio and video materials.
This intensive week of observing and listening good practices, analysing different aspects of the activities carried out at the National Library of Sweden has been extremely interesting for me. I came back to Bucharest full of ideas to improve the tasks and procedures at the National Library of Romania. Even if we do not have the same resources we can apply some of the acquired experience.
“To step into the historical building of the National Library of Sweden, to discover its valuable documentary heritage, complex activities and ongoing projects, and to get to know several professionals have become a reality thanks to the generous bursary offered by CENL for which I am very grateful.
Many thanks to the team of National Library of Sweden with whom I had an open and enlightening dialogue, and a special thanks to Lars Ilshammar, Deputy National Librarian, who put all his efforts to make my stay as pleasant and useful as possible.” (Nicoleta-Roxana Dinu, Librarian, National Library of Romania)
“It has been a pleasure to host Nicoleta-Roxana Dinu from the National Library of Romania from 4th to 11th June 2022. She is a very focused and determined professional with great potential to contribute to the further development of the National Library of Romania. She has also contributed to mutual learning between our two national libraries during her visit to Stockholm. I wish her all the best for the future and can strongly recommend her competence and knowledge.” (Lars Ilshammar, Deputy National Librarian, National Library of Sweden)
https://www.kb.se/in-english/about-us.html
https://www.kb.se/in-english/the-codex-gigas/film-about-the-codex-gigas.html
https://www.kb.se/in-english/research-collaboration/kblab.html