Within the framework of the Erasmus school library project “School libraries promoting readers, values, literacies, skills and inclusion”, took place in EBS de Canelas from 6 to 10 September its first meeting – Short-term joint staff training events – Erasmus + KA229, integrating 6 teachers from Poland, Greece and Italy joined by 4 Portuguese teachers. This first meeting was organised to promote an exchange and sharing of good practices between the representatives of these four countries. Issues such as the role of libraries in the education and training of young people and their importance at school to foster numerous literacies were analysed, as well as reading activities and good reading literacy practices existing in each of the schools represented. During the week, there was also a workshop about the School Libraries Network (RBE) and the organisation of school libraries in our country, led by the Inter-Municipal Coordinator of School Libraries of Gaia and Porto, Dr. Maria João Castro, who had the opportunity to present the virtues of this structure of the Portuguese Ministry of Education, reminding, at the same time, the professional demands and challenges it poses to teacher librarians and school libraries. It was concluded that our system is the most evolved among the four European countries at this level of library organisation. In the other countries, a system equivalent to Portugal’s was still in place in 1996, when the RBE was created. Only in Poland there are also library teachers, although they do not work with the support provided by the RBE and they are unaware of the library evaluation system in force in Portugal.
The purpose of this Erasmus project is also to found a library in the Greek school in Crete and to support the transformation of the precarious space existing in the library of the Italian school. The dates for the next mobilities and the books about the Holocaust that will be presented to the students as reading proposals throughout the project’s duration were also defined. A set of procedures associated with the management of the project and its implementation were also defined.
The cultural part of this Erasmus meeting focused on the cities of Gaia and Porto, with visits to the Condes de Resende Manor House, the Lello bookshop, Torre dos Clérigos, Palácio da Bolsa and Igreja de S. Francisco, among other areas of cultural interest in the historical areas of the two cities.
It is worth mentioning the enormous empathy and friendship that coexisted throughout the past week among the group, which could not be otherwise among teachers who share a passion for books and reading. A fantastic week of professional development and knowledge of other cultures!
