From 19 to 21 May 2026, the Technical University of Liberec hosted a meeting of university librarians from the RUN-EU alliance entitled LIBRARIANS CONNECT: Sharing Ideas, Crossing Borders.

Librarians from Ireland, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands arrived in Liberec, while other colleagues joined remotely from Romania, Portugal and Belgium. The only participants missing were the Spaniards. :D Librarians from UKN TUL also took part  — and there were even three university library directors among the guests.

During the professional programme, we discussed open science, databases, publication fees, transformative agreements and the future of librarianship. There was also time for fun: we visited the Faculty of Health Studies’ anatomy classroom, where two real human bodies inspired considerable unease, and no one dared to touch them. We also built catapults in TULab and fired paper balls at each other, etc. 

We also visited the university library, its branch, the Liberec synagogue, and the Regional Research Library, which the foreign participants had specifically requested. The evening programme then naturally included beer tasting at three Liberec pubs.

The meeting was very inspiring. For example, we were interested to learn that at the library of Technological University of the Shannon, students can borrow laptops for the duration of their studies, that the HAMK library is open seven days a week, and that some foreign libraries have acoustic chairs, sell coffee capsules, or print student cards. 

The foreign librarians were very surprised by the Czech Kramerius system and the relatively broad possibilities for digitising books in the Czech Republic.

The three days went by quickly. We gained many new contacts, ideas, and inspiration for further cooperation among European universities.

See the programme at https://bit.ly/TUL202605.

Marta Zizienová

25 May 2026

Note: ChatGPT was used in the preparation of this text.

How to cite:
ZIZIENOVÁ, Marta, 2026. University Library [LIBRARIANS CONNECT: Sharing Ideas, Crossing Borders]. Online. 2026-05-28. In: University Library TUL. Available from: https://doi.org/10.15240/tul/010/025.