Digital-Travellers • News

Final Digital Travellers Meeting

27 October 2021

Earlier this month, the Digital Travellers team met up at the Muntpunt Library in Brussels for a final meeting. As the project draws to an end, this was an opportunity to take stock of the next steps for this project. The team took this as an opportunity to hear from Michael Horgan from the VET and apprenticeships unit of DG EMPL at the European Commission. Michael Horgan took the team through...

Lessons from a Digital Traveller – interview with a Polish librarian

1 October 2021

Through the Digital Travellers project, we support people who are at risk of digital exclusion or have insufficient skills to use digital services and devices. In this project, we cooperate with libraries that carry out digital education activities aimed at people with special needs. We talk to Anna Zyskowska, a librarian from the "On Baleya St." Library – a branch of the Public Library in the...

Workshops With Vulnerable Groups: Initial Feedback

17 August 2021

We are happy to share the news that librarians participating in the Digital Travellers project are now delivering workshops on digital skills to vulnerable people across Europe. These workshops are key to tackling the digital divide which is at the heart of the Digital Travellers project. Now let’s take a look at what is happening on the ground. In Poland, workshops are in full swing...

Hacking at the library

23 June 2021

What do libraries and hackathons have in common? For starters, public libraries are key actors in bringing digital making and helping their community learn the digital skills they need to navigate the digital world we are entrenched in. They offer this in an informal environment where library users can experiment and fail safely. In more recent years, some libraries have acquired makerspaces...

Media literacy and the Digital Travellers – International Event 3

26 May 2021

On May 4 we hosted the third international networking event for our digital travellers. With this session, the Finnish Library Association spotlighted an initiative from Lahti and the Lahti City Library. Inka Jouseau, the Service Manager of Media Education and Music Services presented the dialogue activities they had been carrying out in the library. A key aspect of this series of dialogue is the...

From “librarians” to “digital helpers”: A look into the training sessions held by BSF Belgium

23 April 2021

Turning libraries into places of digital inclusion If the current situation has taught us anything, it is that the digital divide leads to social, informational and cultural isolation. In my opinion, as public and social service actors, it is our duty to do everything we can to reduce this divide. Lindsay Merseman – librarian in Quiévrain, a participant in the Digital Travellers...

International networking event 2

19 March 2021

You may have seen that last month, the Finnish Library Association hosted the first international networking event for the librarians taking part in this project. On March 16, we had a second networking event for the librarians to discuss various new questions and brainstorm together. This meeting was split into two breakout rooms so that the librarians could get to know each other better in...

Sharing facilitation tips and best practices

11 March 2021

While the pandemic has meant that each partner is delivering training sessions at their own pace, in line with pandemic restrictions in their country, the librarian training sessions are now well underway! Librarians from all countries were able to participate in the first international online librarian networking event hosted by our partner the Finnish Library Association (FLA) in February, and...

The European Union and digital education

26 February 2021

Education may not be a competence of the European Union (EU), however, the EU has developed and made available various strategies, frameworks, and tools to support the learning community. Introducing the new Digital Education Action Plan The European Commission launched a new Digital Education Action Plan (DEAP) in September 2020 with the aim of creating a high-quality, inclusive, and...

The Digital Travellers first international networking event

22 February 2021

As part of the piloting period of the Digital Travellers project, the Finnish Library Association (FLA) is running a series of virtual meetings between librarians. While we have developed national databases for the librarians to find resources in their language, we want to develop a Digital Travellers community that will support, inspire, and empower each other. To get this community started, the...

Digital Travellers in Poland share their experiences

1 February 2021

The time of the pandemic means the time of challenges for libraries. Lockdown prevents them from hosting on-site workshops, and both educational and cultural events have been suspended. However, this does not mean that they are closed! On the contrary, this is a very busy time for libraries in Poland. They continuously develop their offer, adapt their activities for online delivery and provide...

The Digital Travellers Databases are live!

12 January 2021

We are excited to announce that the English, Finnish, French, and Polish Digital Travellers databases are ready! We will be training librarians in four Digital Travellers pilot countries to use the databases and resources for their digital education activities. But, these databases are not just for us, they are for you to use in your activities! Do have a look through our databases to find...

Digital Travellers adapts to the pandemic

14 December 2020

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to impact our lives across Europe, we are all increasingly reliant on digital technology for everything from staying connected with friends to banking online. The focus of the Digital Travellers project on reducing the digital exclusion of vulnerable groups has therefore arguably never been so important. But we too have had to adapt the project to respond to the...

Strengthening libraries to make them places of digital inclusion

27 October 2020

The crisis we are going through has highlighted the extent to which digital technology, when not mastered, isolates the most vulnerable from the world. And what if, to respond to this educational emergency, libraries became places of digital inclusion throughout Europe ? This is the ambition of the “Digital Travellers” project. Launched by 6 European partners to boost digital education on a...

Hear from the librarians embarking on this journey!

15 October 2020

We’ve started recruiting librarians for the Digital Travellers journey and we want to showcase some of the librarians that will be taking on this experience! We have a video and a written testimonial from two wonderful librarians. You’ll hear from Katja Pettersson hailing from the library of Hyvinkää in Finland as well as Ian Scharroo from Biblionet Groningen. Check out their stories...

Coming up with new ways to work

18 September 2020

At the time of COVID19 digital awareness has grown exponentially and the need for learning the basic digital skills has reached every citizen. The Digital Travellers project intends to reduce the digital exclusion of vulnerable populations, help people to manage daily digital tasks such as online banking, government services and using different devices like cellphones and computers. But...

How did the Digital Travellers journey start?

18 August 2020

Earlier this year, we embarked on the Digital Travellers journey and as we progress, we want to look at what drives this journey. The jumping off point for this project was the Voyageurs du Numérique initiative spearheaded by Bibliothèques Sans Frontières France. In France alone, digital exclusion affects 13 million people. Despite various organisations fighting to democratise the...

Take a sneak peek into the Digital Travellers database!

23 July 2020

In May, we mentioned that we had reached the first important milestone in our Digital Travellers journey, and had successfully mapped, under the leadership of the Dutch organization and project partner the KB, over 250 resources to help digitally excluded groups improve their skills! This was the first step towards setting up the European Digital Travellers database which will be a one-stop...

We need more digital tools – A Finnish perspective

24 June 2020

The Finnish Library Association started working on the Digital Travellers project in early 2020. This project gives us an opportunity to get a clear picture of how libraries in Finland provide digital education. In Finland, we like to think that we have some of the best libraries in the world. Naturally, we like to extend that thought in thinking that our libraries are also giving a digital...

Using the DigCompEdu framework in libraries

2 June 2020

The editors of the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) describe it as a “scientifically sound framework describing what it means for educators to be digitally competent. It provides a general reference frame to support the development of educator-specific digital competences in Europe.” As we have based our resource mapping on the 5 areas of...

Mapping the Digital Travellers journey

13 May 2020

We have reached the first important milestone in our Digital Travellers journey! Over the past few months, under the leadership of the Dutch organization KB, we have mapped over 250 resources to help digitally excluded groups improve their skills. These resources will form the basis of what at the end of this trip, in October 2021, will become a European database of at least 500 resources for...

Embarking on the Digital Travellers journey!

25 February 2020

We have officially launched the Digital Travellers project! This EU (Erasmus+) co-funded project brings together six partners from four different countries. Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (Belgium) – BSF Be Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (France) – BSF Fr Fundacja Rozwoju Spoleczenstwa Informacyjnego (Poland) – FRSI Koninklijke Bibliotheek Nationale Bibliotheek van...