The National Library of Lithuania is implementing a national competence development project “Improvement of general, managerial and professional competences in the cultural sector” from 2023. The project aims to ensure systematic, targeted and long-lasting competence development of cultural sector employees, directly contributing to qualitative changes in cultural services. The project is financed by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and has a total value of GBP 2,774,080.00 (2023-2025).

Project objectives:

• To increase the supply of general and management competencies for quality assurance of cultural services.
• Promote inter-institutional networking and a culture of cooperation among cultural organizations.
• To develop the professional competencies of library staff to ensure they are able to provide relevant and quality services that meet the needs of a changing society.
• Develop tools to enable a systematic process of professional development for cultural staff, ensuring accessibility, good management, and monitoring of the process.

In 2023, lists and descriptions of generic, managerial, and professional competencies were developed. Inventories of professional competencies have been developed for the areas of archives, libraries, museums, and cultural centers. A learning environment, the ‘Competence Library’, has also been developed. It has created accounts for 265 organisations: 67 libraries, 10 archives, 17 museums, 13 theatres, 7 concert venues, and 151 cultural centers. At the end of the year, the total number of users/licenses was 5,280 (now over 8,000).

Key results for 2023 in the development of professional competences in the library field:

• A description of the “Professional competences for libraries” has been developed. In preparation for the inventory, several workshops were organised for library professionals at different levels to discuss and identify the most relevant skills and knowledge for library staff and the projected competences needs for the future.
• A training plan for the development of professional competences was developed and implemented. The focus was on improving competences in data analytics, digital marketing of library services, and the development of educational programmes for target audiences. During 2023, 838 unique participants attended the training.
• Coordinated implementation of the professional internship programme for the library sector: 7 Lithuanian libraries participated in the internship programme: the National Library, five county libraries and the Lithuanian Audiosensory Library. Library professionals from these libraries were trained in 14 European countries: Poland, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Portugal, France, Belgium and Israel. Sixty library staff participated in the traineeship programme. Two remote presentations of the traineeship results to library staff were also organised (over 600 participants).

In 2024, the National Library of Lithuania will continue the work of administering the learning environment, organising professional training for the library sector and implementing the internship programme.