American Library Association IR Webinar (11.11.2025)
November 16, 2025 by Giuseppe Vitiello
On November 11, 2025, the American Library Association (ALA) International Relations Round Table focused on European library policy. Marieke Willems (The Lisbon Council), Ioana Crihana (ANBPR), and Giuseppe Vitiello (Rete delle Reti) discussed European policy and related projects.
Taking an investigative approach, they followed the money to describe the European library policy making. From available reports, and complementary sources, an analysis of the funding shows that the EU budget invested in libraries is small: as little as € 0.76+ and € 0.023+ per capita through European Structural and Investment Funds and EU Action programmes (Erasmus+, Creative Europe, etc.) over ten years. Despite this modest investment, professional partners fiercely compete to access these grants. Why? Because EU-funded projects play a role in shaping a European library policy.
Marieke Willems described the policy enacted by the LibrarIN project (funded by the EU Horizon programme), as well as the policy briefs useful to develop new library services. She also presented the “What Works” and the “Library Policy Tracker” platforms, which respectively collect best practices in European libraries and monitor the progress of the Council of Europe Recommendation on Library Legislation and policy in Europe.
Ioana Crihana and Giuseppe Vitiello presented the TELL project and its objectives: drafting a Guide to the Council of Europe Recommendation based on TELL’s national reports, creating an innovative curriculum, organizing 2 Winter schools, and implementing a Road Map leading to the inclusion of libraries in the European Structural and Investment Funds for 2028-2034.
