20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

418 Corina Anca PervainPreparing and organising the entire book fund (approximately 40,000volumes) on thematic groups and according to the Universal DecimalClassification, selecting and arranging the furniture, equipping with newtechnologies, were the first steps to the librarians’ future activity.The absolute novelty at that time was the opening of a new service, TheToy Library for preschool children and schoolchildren, where the childrenwere to be attracted to reading through games.The Toy Library is equipped with modern furniture, with workstationsfor accessing multimedia documents, toys and games collections and, ofcourse, books.This location offered The Children’s Department librarians thepossibility to rethink their entire activity and to develop new strategies andprojects, new partnerships, and constantly keep in touch with the governmentrepresentatives, non-governmental institutions and organisations, localauthorities and mass-media to identify future partners.This involves signing written partnerships and later carrying on all thejoint activities, trying to identify, by all specific means, the common interestof the two institutions. Taking into account The Children’s Departmentactivities, these partnerships have, besides the usual elements of suchdocument (partners, joint objectives, the partners’ obligations, length andvalidity, managers, final stipulations, signatures), specific elements of thecultural and educational project, chosen by the future partners (generaloverview, the purpose of the partnership, specific activities, work methods,selective bibliography).This work began at the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003 with amajor presence in the local mass-media, and also with activities to attractchildren to the library.Local Schools at “Octavian Goga” Cluj County Library was one of thefirst projects of the new department, in partnership with the Cluj CountySchool Inspectorate, which aimed at reviving the library’s cultural andeducational role, at attracting more students and teachers, involving thelibrarians and the teachers in project activities:• organising reading hours for students in a program set in cooperationwith the participant schools;• organising the information culture classes in an attractive form;• organising entertainment activities, meetings with writers, bookpresentations, creativity contests;• organising presentation and promoting school activities: dance,songs and poetry classes, drawing and handicraft objects exhibits,drama.