Home If Librarians Ran Europe – The Amsterdam Summit of The Europe Challenge at OBA (Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam) 26 September 2024


The recent event If Librarians Ran Europe – The Amsterdam Summit of The Europe Challenge, held at the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam (OBA) in late September, brought together 57 teams from 24 different countries to illuminate the vital role public libraries play across Europe. With 65,000 public libraries across the continent, the summit illustrated their unique position as centres of social experimentation, lifelong learning and innovation. The event showcased a wide range of initiatives developed by library teams to tackle pressing local and global challenges, including social isolation, inequality, disinformation, and climate change.


The summit underscored the immense potential libraries hold in fostering creativity and promoting positive change across diverse communities. It highlighted the capacity of libraries to act as spaces for collaboration and learning, making them ideal partners in creating educational and training courses tailored to the cultural and creative sectors and industries (CCSI). Libraries can play a pivotal role in delivering new skills such as digital literacy, fostering civic engagement, and addressing community needs.



Over the next 3-5 years, there is a clear opportunity for EIT CC to collaborate with libraries across Europe to design and implement new courses and training programmes. These courses could focus on equipping individuals with the skills to navigate the challenges of misinformation, climate action, and social inequality, while also nurturing creativity, entrepreneurship, and cultural engagement. The Amsterdam Summit vividly demonstrated that libraries, with their established infrastructure and deep community ties, are not only places of knowledge but also hubs for innovation, making them key players in the future of education and training in Europe’s cultural and creative sectors and industries.


From EIT Culture & Creativity, Gijs Gootjes Director of Co-location Centre North-West and Rolf Hughes Education Director attended the event, which was organised by the European Cultural Foundation in collaboration with OBA Public Libraries Amsterdam and the City of Amsterdam. The Europe Challenge was initiated by the European Cultural Foundation and supported by Fondazione Cariplo, Scottish Library and Information Council, with public funding through Arts Council England, and Deutsche Postcode Lotterie via Deutscher Bibliotheksverband e.V. (dbv). The delivery partners for this 2024 edition were Including Society, Changency, Main Library Aarhus, Public Libraries 2030, and OBA Public Libraries Amsterdam.


On the following day, Bernd Fesel, CEO of EIT Culture & Creativity, joined Vivian PaulissenIsabelle SchwarzAjda MilneGijs Gootjes and Rolf Hughes for a morning of important discussions at the OBA between EIT CC and the European Cultural Foundation during which exciting ideas for future collaboration were outlined.


Text & photos: Rolf Hughes, Director Education

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