The project ‘Daily innovators and daily educators in the libraries’ aims at the preparation of supportive educational ecosystem for adult learners, with special regard to those living in the areas/districts having poor access to lifelong learning programs and recent cultural developments, as well as to those belonging to groups in danger of social exclusion (such as: unemployed, immigrants, elderly or disabled people). The core of the project infrastructure is a library - a trusted place, a space between the two usual social environments of home and the workplace.Librarians and other local cultural activists, due to their hitherto experience and project achievements, will be expanding their roles and raising their qualifications of local cultural educators for the adult library users. The model and educational materials elaborated within the project will upgrade local cultural educators’ competences, so that they will be able to help adult library users’ improve their basic and transversal skills, in particular social and civic competences, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship as well as cultural awareness and expression. The identified learning deficits of both adult users and cultural educators have been collided with the most recent library development trends; on their verge we have specified the areas of intervention in accordance with the users and institutions desired directions:- library as a creative incubator,- library as a center of social innovations,- library as an intercultural dialogue facilitator. The logic cycle and structure of the project will focus on the following elements:1) Research and preparation of a report ‘Learning experiments in the European libraries’: a summary of achievements of European libraries, with special regard to the participating countries. The report will contain:a) the performed analysis of the most substantial issues, affecting the situation of adult library users, local cultural educators and infrastructure & capacity of libraries themselves,b) the profile of educators, trends and tendencies in the contemporary library development,c) the institutional analysis: strategy, factors of successes and failures and ability to evoke the social change.The research report will be supplemented by the outcomes of the learning activities: short-term joint staff training events in the participating countries, providing the details of cultural sector development at the national & EU level.2) The above-mentioned short-term joint staff training events, organized as a series of workshops with on-site visits will be dedicated to the in-depth immersion into the local context in each participating country. The cycle will be summed-up during the foresight workshop in Brussels and will give the basis to the elaboration of new library model. 3) The main intellectual outputs tailor-made for the local cultural educators (librarians and local activists collaborating with the libraries) as well as for the adult library users are: a) MIC (multicultural, innovative and creative) library model: mission, vision and main assumptions of the new library role together with the presentation of library place in the network of internal and external relations.b) Educational materials for local cultural educators: a new curriculum/self-study/study with the expert materials/scenarios strengthening their qualifications in the selected areas as well as giving them a general preparation to work with the adults, manage and carry out the independent projects, communicate and cooperate efficiently. c) Teaching scenarios developed in accordance with the methodology of adult learning processes; enhancing the skills and competences of adult library users to raise their awareness and develop the creative expression, engage in the local community integration processes also with the special regard to the cultural minorities.4) The prepared materials will be tested by the group of ca 20 local cultural educators from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Norway in their mother institutions. Once the process of preparation is over, the series of 4 national seminars and 4 international conferences for ca 225 participants will follow. The seminars and conferences will show the results of the project and possible impact of the developed materials, as well as the present good practices, guidelines and recommendations for the local/international policy makers and other important stakeholders. The project will be implemented in a partnership of five organizations:1) The Information Society Development Foundation (Poland),2) The Culture Information Systems Centre (Latvia),3) The Martynas Mažvydas National Library (Lithuania),4) The Oppland County Authority/Oppland County Library (Norway),5) The Reading & Writing Foundation (Netherlands and Belgium).

Apheleia – Integrated Cultural Landscape Management for Local and global sustainabilitySustainability became a dominant key-word at the onset of the Brundtland report and, moreover, after the Eco-92 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Yet, 25 years later, the balance could not be other than to recognize our planet stands in a more unstable and less sustainable position, despite all intentions. The Rio+20 Summit, when addressing poverty as the core issue of sustainability, called in fact for a revision of the original concept, going beyond the so-called TRB (triple bottom line, considering the environmental, social and economic dimensions). Yet, a new understanding needs to build from human understandings and cultural diversity is crucial, and a new specific framework of reference is required, to address the challenges of Rio+20 and to converge with other global initiatives, such as “Future Earth” and the proposed “International Year of Global Understanding”. The strategic partnership Apheleia aims at structuring a convergent set of tools that will foster the need for a properly Integrated (as opposed to dispersed) Cultural (i.e. human and diverse) Landscape Management (rooted in human understandings and leading towards governance through awareness and critical thinking) for Local and Global Sustainability (addressing the great global dilemmas, but also focused on individual anxieties and needs). Such a program implies a high degree of complexity to be dealt with by the academia, but also requires efficient operative tools, that render such complexity simple for non-academics and for daily lives. Apheleia (Ἀφέλεια), the spirit of simplicity in ancient Greece, stands as the leading and inspiring word for the current partnership, since rendering simple the complexity of things is an academic obligation and an urgent need to foster tangible down-the-line convergent actions.Moreover, the Apheleia project specifically aims at contributing for an European contribution towards the global challenges as they are beeing internationally designed. Europe has been the cradle for many of the best practices in terms of sustainability, including its address to science and society interaction, and it must now promote a new framework of reference, anticipated but not yet consolidated. An European contribution must, per definition, be open to other cultures, interests and perspectives, make the most of European diversity itself, and involve universities, the private sector, NGOs and local and regional public authorities, i.e., be based on a multi-stakeholders basis. At the same time, partnerships should be focused and leading to clear and tangible results.Main aims:1. To establish a solid consortium, involving academic and non-academic partners, focusing in education and best practices that for students’ applied training in transdisciplinary innovative approaches to integrated cultural landscape management. 2. To train a selection of EU students on the complex use of convergent multidisciplinary tools for cultural integrated landscape management, through theoretical teaching and collective applied training, as well as tailored made individual study and essay, all combined in a new Intensive Program on Integrated Cultural Landscape Management for Local and global sustainability, rooted both in academic knowledge and in regional authorities co-operation.3. To collect, analyze and synthetize the rich field experiences gathered by the partnership members on diverse case studies distributed worldwide in order to present practical testimonies, records and professional perspectives to the involved students.4. To involve basic disciplinary core required competences (archaeology, technology, economy, law, sociology, geography, history, urban planning, etc., permanently integrated through transversal competences on materiality, anthropology, communication, leadership and entrepreneurship.5. To produce a common lexicon + website and a series of reference publications on the topic, merging theoretical and applied knowledge.6. To pave the way for a new European Master on the topic, as a follow up of the partnership, alongside successful case studies of innovative policies.This is Apheleia (Ἀφέλεια).