20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Traditional and modern in partnerships and projects practices 423The activities were various, combining static activities (reading,discussions with book illustrators, book presentations, drawing andmodelling, mask making, film screenings) with dynamic activities (actingwithout a preset script, creating small curiosity books, games), withentertaining activities (pantomime, exhibitions, carnivals and prize awards,etc.), each activity being assessed at the end by filling out a comment cardor a questionnaire.The project team evaluated the results using the questionnaires given toall the participant groups, after each activity and concluded that:• all the participating children were open minded, enthusiastic andreceptive to the project’s challenges;• the children were asked to be imaginative, creative and informed,this being essential for the goals achievement;• team work proved to be productive and the children found itencouraging to socialise and become more self-confident;• the evaluation method allowed us to improve our working methods,to identify children’s real reading and information needs andpreferences, to understand the need to continue the project, giventhe children’s interest in the organised activities.Although the librarians combined traditional methods with the modernones since The Children’s Department reopened in the new location(2002), these methods were used with maximum efficiency only in the pasttwo years. The experience gained in all these years shows that the libraryhas an important role in supporting lifelong learning, by helping its usersto identify their educational needs, to search and find the right learningmaterials and to use the available information organizing tools.From a statistical point of view, we can conclude that although since2006 the number of group visits and participants has increased constantly,the number of used documents and the number of active readers is aboutthe same, if not decreasing. The results show that the services offered byThe Children’s Department contributes to the increase of the book lending,but also the activities that contribute to lifelong learning, to informationand reference services, to cultural, educational and information activities.Nowadays, the cultural, educational and information activities of TheChildren’s Department projects are organised on groups, according to thebeneficiaries’ age, interests and information needs, evaluating the resultsby using:• book and reading promoting activities (The week for reading andfor children books, The children book international day, Publishinghouses week at the library, Holiday programmes – where children