CELSTEC en Biebkracht CoP

On January 15th 2010, Biebkracht was launched. Biebkracht is a learning network of the public libraries of Gelderland, a province of the Netherlands. In the network the libraries of Gelderland and Biblioservice Gelderland collaborate in order to share knowledge and to develop the libraries. CELSTEC, a research institute of the Open Universiteit, supports and gives guidance to the project.

Communities of Practice
The Biebkracht network wants to be a learning network, aimed at sharing knowledge and developing new knowledge on library development. The nucleus of the network is formed by Communities of Practice. This are collaborative communities of groups of staff members of different libraries who work together on the same themes and challenges. Within the CoP’s they exchange knowledge, views and experiences and they learn to jointly find new ways of dealing with these problems and challenges. They do this partly in a secure, and partly in an open environment.

Media knowhow
The first quarter of 2010 Biebkracht will be chiefly used by the Community of Practice (CoP) De Werkplaats/Mediawijsheid (the workplace/media knowhow. Later other CoP’s will find their space within Biebkracht.

Library School
Biebkracht has much ground in common with the Library School project in which CELSTEC and the Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken (VOB) jointly develop a learning network which includes a schooling and learning programme on an academic level for library staff. The experiences of Library School will be introduced within Biebkracht.

More on Biebkracht…  (in Dutch)
Follow Biebkracht on Twitter….  (in Dutch)
More on Library School…