A Letter of Appreciation to the Jagodina Library

On Sunday, 13^th April the Beekeepers Association Bagrdan from the village of Bagrdan marked the 20^th anniversary.  On that occasion, the library hosted an agricultural lecture Fast development of bees for acacia grazing. The speaker was Miljko Sljivic, whose lectures are always well-presented and interesting. Also, friends, associates, sponsors and donors of the Beekeepers Association received Letters of Appreciation as a symbol of cooperation and mutual respect.

The Jagodina Library has had cooperation with the Association since the opening of the Bagrdan library in 2010. They are beneficiaries of the services of both the village library and the town library. The Letter of Appreciation they gave to the Jagodina Library is a confirmation of the success of the Agricultural libraries project.

The president of the Beekeepers Association, Branko Milanovic, addressed the audience and expressed his satisfaction regarding the cooperation with other beekeepers associations, donors and sponsors and to the Jagodina Library on whose support the existence of the Association depended at some points in the past.

Milija Brajkovic, a beekeeper from the village of Lovci, talked about the history of their Association which was founded in 1994. The members are not only beekeepers from Bagrdan, but also from neighboring villages, i.e. the entire municipality. This Association is the only village beekeepers association who is a member of The Serbian Federation of Beekeeping Organizations.

Agricultural Libraries in Serbia

Beyond Access, local governments of Kragujevac, Vranje, Rekovac, Aleksinac and Jagodina and Serbian Ministry of Culture and Information are interested in supporting the project Agricultural Libraries in Serbia. The project would be developed according to the model of the project that has been implemented in the village libraries in the municipality of Jagodina for more than three years.

The project Agricultural Libraries includes modern village libraries available to all residents in rural areas.
 Megan Volk, the deputy director of IREX's Bibliomist program, visited the Jagodina Library as a representative of Beyond Access.

She visited the City Council of Jagodina, which has been a partner of this organization for more than two years. Ratko Stevanic, the Major of Jagodina, met with the Jagodina Library director and Megan Volk. He expressed his satisfaction with the idea that organization such as Beyond Access is a partner to the City Council. Megan Volk praised this cooperation and the project by the Jagodina Library and expressed readiness to continue the cooperation.

„Beyond Access is an initiative that believes libraries can be a good partner for economical and social development of the community. It brings together libraries, governments and civic societies from 30 countries around the world and Agricultural Libraries is one of the most impressive projects. I am here to explore what local communities and partners can contribute to the implementation of the project and on the other hand what our contribution could be. Our aim is to develop resources, share experiences from other countries and work together on the project, so we can improve lives in the communities”, said Megan during her visit to the City Council of Kragujevac.

The meeting was hosted by Dobrica Milovanovic, the member of the City Council in charge of international cooperation, Slavica Djordjevic, Assistant to the Major for cultural heritage protection and urban planning. Mirko Demic, director of the Kragujevac library, Vesna Crnkovic, director of the Jagodina library and Jelena Rajic, the project coordinator attended the meeting.

Afterwards, Megan Volk had the opportunity to visit two rural libraries in the Kragujevac municipality, Cumic and Stragari, which will be included in the project.

On the same day, the Jagodina Library hosted a meeting for director s of libraries and representatives of local governments that will be future project participants. The discussion was focused on the needs on local communities and what kind of support local governments could offer.

„I saw that a good work was done in the libraries I visited. This project is one of the best in the world, said Megan Volk for RTS, national TV station.
On the next day, Megan Volk visited one of the rural libraries in the Jagodina municipality. It was the library in Bagrdan where she was warmly welcomed by farmers and other users of this library.

The most important meeting for the realization of the project in other Serbian libraries took place at the Ministry of Culture and Information where possible future cooperation of Beyond Access and the Ministry of Culture was discussed.

Dejan Risitc, a state secretary expressed his satisfaction and readiness to start a partnership and told Megan Volk and the director of the Jagodina Library that it would be very important to start the activities for the realization of this cooperation.

Two agricultural lectures on modern cultivation of strawberries and cherries delivered at the central library and a rural library

On Saturday, 15 February, hosted by the jagodina Public Library and within the award-winning project of the development of rural agricultural libraries, there were two lectures on modern cultivation of strawberries and cherries. The speaker was Dr Mihailo Nikolic, a professor of fruit growing at the Agricultural Faculty in Belgrade.

The first lecture was hosted at the central library and the participants were strawberry growers and people interesting in this business. The audience was very attentive and took active participation in the discussion with the speaker. The lecturer highlighted that the region where Jagodina is situated- Pomoravlje is very suitable for strawberry growing and encouraged farmers to continue with their production, or to increase it, but also to connect with other producers so they can jointly offer their produce to fruit wholesalers.

After the lecture in the town, the Bunar library hosted a lecture on modern cultivation on cherries, for cherries growers from Bunar and neighboring villages, who had the opportunity to hear the prominent speaker talking about planting, growing, harvesting in modernized ways. The reading room of the Bunar library was too small to accept all farmers who were interested in this topic.

 Both lectures were very useful for fruit growers in  the Jagodina municipality,  because of  the open discussions after the lectures where the attendees could consult with the lecturer, hear good advise, examples, recommendations, etc.

Some of the participants in the lectures pointed out how they would never have a chance to talk to great experts directly if it weren't for the library.

 The aim of such lectures is to encourage farmers to start agribusiness or to improve their own farming methods.

In the Spotlight, a radio program & Agricultural Libraries in Jagodina

In the Spotlight is a program at the national radio station Radio Beograd 1 from Belgrade that, by selecting speakers and topics, contributes to the affirmation of a positive way of thinking, encourages people to have a creative attitude towards reality, helps those in need. It is in line with current social events and challenges. Every day, there is a discussion with exerts, leaders, participants related to important issues.

Modern agricultural production involves the use of technology in order to make farming much easier and profitable. However, in Serbia production is performed in exactly the same way as three or four decades ago. In this week's program, on 13 February, the focus is on helping farmers acquire the necessary knowledge-economic, technological, scientific and practical.

The guests in the studio were Advisor for Agriculture to the President in Serbian Chamber of Commerce-Vojislav Stankovic ; Director of the Institute of Agricultural Economics-Drago Cvijanovic and the Editor of the website moba.rs-Mile Gosnjic. The Director of the Jagodina Library was telephoned and broadcast live.

She discussed ICT training for farmers conducted at the village libraries and possibilities for farmers to find necessary information available on the Internet.

The creators of the program wanted Mrs Crnkovic to be a part of the discussion because the services at the modern agricultural villages in the Jagodina municipality serve as an example of good practice.

Computer training for farmers continues

The computer training for farmers continues in 2014. This time, at the Glavinci Library for seven farmers.

This model of training was encouraged by the idea of integrating rural residents into social and economic life of the community. The interest at the village libraries in acquiring basic computer skills is very big and the ICT lecturer Bojan Novcic highlights that this group of farmers is eager to learn how to use computers independently. Therefore, they come to the library between the lectures, so they revise what they learned.

Farmers' expectations are not very high when it comes to ICT technologies in general, but as soon as they start learning how to type, use an email, browse the Internet, copy and save documents, photos,etc, they realize how ICT can contribute to their well-being and change their lives.

  

With a Computer in a Field - a newspaper article

The media interest in the project Agricultural Libraries by the Jagodina Public Library does not cease.

This time, the daily newspaper Politika published an article With a Computer in a Field with the aim to introduce the situation in rural areas and how farmers benefit from agricultural services at the village libraries.

They write about three AgroLib online marketplace users: Ljiljana Vulic, who sells all her handicraft produce through the Library’s marketplace to customers from other towns in Serbia; Rade Damjanovic, who is an agricultural engineer, and started using the AgroLib services and is now engaged in fruit growing and gives advice to other growers online and Milija Brajkovic, who uses Internet to sell his honey with great success and passes on important information he extracts on the Internet to his fellow beekeepers.

According to the statistical data there are 326 village libraries in Serbia, out of which 132 have computers. Only 18 village libraries have Internet access and it is almost unbelievable that only 12 of them provide Internet access to their users. Majority of rural residents are ICT illiterate and in numerous villages it is impossible to set up Internet.

As for the Jagodina Library, it was very unusual that until the project started in 2010, there used to be no farmers who were the Library beneficiaries. Today, farmers in five villages are regular at the libraries. They either use computers to search for information online, or to read agricultural newspapers, or simply to gather at the libraries.

The results after almost a year - Agricultural Libraries in Jagodina

Agricultural Libraries in Jagodina-Empowering farmers to connect, share and grow.

The Jagodina Public Library, Serbia

January 2013-November 2013

Description:

Due to political and economic crisis during the 90s, investment in rural areas declined. Impoverished villages came to the point where it was necessary to find new patterns to modernize backward agricultural production, in order to improve socio-economic status of rural residents.

Therefore, the Jagodina Public Library realized that in order to meet the needs of rural residents, village libraries had to be renovated and turned into information, communication and educational hubs of local communities. The challenges were to provide relevant agricultural information to farmers and to raise their awareness on computers and the Internet and encouraging them to use AgroLib online marketplace. 

Key achievements:                      

·      Opening of one more agricultural library in the village of Majur

·      In five rural libraries, 28 farmers were ICT trained through a series of five ICT trainings

·      14 agricultural lectures were hosted for farmers on various topics, such as blueberry growing, beekeeping, truffles growing, etc.

·      401 farmers attended the lectures

·      1 on-site agricultural lecture at the blueberry plantation

·      More than 10 speakers at the lectures

·      54,931 visits to the portal www.agrolib.rs and the online marketplace www.agrolib.rs/pijaca

Recognitions and awards:

·      In May 2013 by the World Summit of the Information Society Forum in Geneva, Switzerland in the category Access to Information and Knowledge

·      In June 2013 by the ERSTE Foundation for Social Integration in Vienna, Austria. 

Promotion of the project nationally:

·           At the 41st Annual Assembly for Librarians of Srem in Stara Pazova with presentation Rural libraries as information and communication centers of local communities

·           In October, our colleagues from the Belgrade City Library, members of the Independent Culture Union led by Mr Mirko Markovic, the advisor of the director of the Belgrade City Library and the president of the above Union, visited the Bagrdan Library in order to learn more about the project-Agricultural village libraries.

·           In October 2013 the branch of the library Milutin Bojic in Ovca hosted a gathering Small conversation about big library events in 2013. The director of the Jagodina Public Library, Vesna Crnkovic, talked about IFLA.

·           The seminar-workshop Information and Media Literacy was hosted by the Jagodina Public Library in October.

The Jagodina Library has launched a successful media campaign, receiving over 100 mentions in national and local media (both TV and radio stations) and in electronic media, raising the awareness of problems in rural areas, ICT illiteracy of farmers and how library services adapted to the needs of rural residents can contribute to solving these problems. The library participated in numerous meetings and events of librarians of Serbia and showcased the project services since the library public in Serbia is interested in the project replication.

Promotion of the project internationally:

·      At the Regional Conference -Public libraries encourage innovations in the community- in Radovis, Macedonia. The Library director talked about new services in agricultural libraries.

·      At the PLM meeting in Cape Town, South Africa at the workshop Libraries for Development

·      At WSIS Forum in Geneva, Switzerland at the IFLA workshop - Public Access to the Internet: How Libraries are Acting as Agents for Development.

·      At Spark Conference in Granada, Spain at the session- Rural Development, Agriculture and Telecenters.

·      At the IFLA Conference in Singapore with the poster Fostering Cooperation between the Library and Local community at the Poster Session.

·      In Bali, Indonesia, participation at a regional gathering Beyond Access 2013: Asia.

Project partners:

·      The City Council- funded renovation of the fifth library, new furniture, the librarian’s salary.

·      The Agency for Small and Medium Enterprises and Registered Agricultural Households- their expertise in organizing agricultural lectures, selecting speakers and topics; reaching out to farmers.

·      Local TV and Radio station-advertising the Library services; for example agricultural lectures or ICT training for farmers.

·      Agricultural cooperative-Prima borovnica- consultations regarding important topics, selecting speakers, etc.

Future:

The Ministry of Culture has finally recognized the services of the Jagodina agricultural libraries as necessary for economic and social development in rural areas. There are ongoing negotiations with the Ministry representatives on the scaling up the project and its dissemination in other municipalities in Serbia.

What our users say:

“I registered at the AgroLib marketplace and managed to sell 1 ton of pears. The buyer asked for more pears, but unfortunately my plantation is not that big. I hope I will expand the production.”

“I regularly read agricultural magazines at the library and was absolutely delighted when the librarian told me I can use Skype at the library to talk to my family in Austria.”

“I was contemplating the idea of starting a new agribusiness, and after the onsite lecture at the blueberry plantation, I will plant blueberries. Not a lot, just 20 seedlings for the beginning.”

“I am regular at beekeeping lectures because I am new at that business. I always hear useful information regarding treating the beehives and bees, etc.”

“After losing my job, I am happy to say that now I am my own boss. I run my own handicrafts workshop that I expanded with the state’s incentives. I wouldn’t accomplish all of that if it weren’t for the Library and its partners. They introduced me to the AgroLib marketplace, I started selling online and that’s how it all started. “

The Majur Library

Librarians from Belgrade visiting the Bagrdan Library

ICT training

A lecture on beekeeping

Lively discussion

Spark Conference in Spain-Presenting the AgroLib Project

Poster Session at IFLA 2013

Presentation of the project in Pancevo, Serbia

First online library conference in Serbia

Honorary award by ERSTE Foundation

Award by WSIS Forum

Beyond Access Asia