The Estonian Librarians Association (ELA) has over 800 members across various libraries in Estonia. ELA organizes annual events and publishes a yearbook and magazine. It also provides vocational training and professional certification for librarians. Recently, ELA has been focusing on youth work and engaging young librarians through a Young Librarians group. This group has been meeting and communicating online to discuss goals and plan activities to attract more young members and spread awareness of ELA's work, with hopes of making the group official and obtaining financing for a larger summer meeting. Some opinions expressed are that ELA's activities are not very visible and it's unclear what exactly they do and for whom, while important

1. Me and the Estonian
Librarians Association
Brigitta Kivisaar
March 2014
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2. Introduction
• Overview of ELA-s activities
• Youth work at ELA
• Future plans
• Opinions about ELA
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3. For this presentation…
• Public information:
1. ELA homepage
2. ELA Facebook page
• Opinions from non-members
• No information from official
spokespeople 3

4. About me
• Tallinn Central Library
• Head librarian of information
services
• Not a member of ELA
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5. About ELA (1)
• 800 individual members + several
libraries
• Special sections and work groups
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6. About ELA (2)
• Annual events
• Yearbook and magazine
“Raamatukogu”
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7. About ELA (3)
• Vocational training
• Professional certification
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8. About ELA (4)
• Information from Facebook page?
• Reevalutating my scepticism
• Visibility
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9. ELA – youth work so far
• Why isn’t anyone doing anything?
• Young Librarians group – Liina Tamm
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10. Young Librarians Group
• Inviting ELA members
• 30 e-mails
• Very little interest
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11. Members
• Finding young librarians elsewhere
• Our cooperation
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12. What have we done so far?
• Meetings and e-mails
• Goals have been set
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13. What have we done so far? (2)
• Utilizing contacts
• Finding interested young librarians
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14. Activities and future plans
• Spreading the word
• Making it official?
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15. Activities and future plans (2)
• Financing from projects
• First bigger meeting this summer
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16. Opinions on ELA (1)
• Something is done, but what?
When? For who?
• Very little visibility in public
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17. Opinions on ELA (2)
• In ELA important people are doing
important things – no benefits for a
simple librarian
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18. Opinions on ELA (3)
• Visibility and accessibility in social
media
• Offering mentorship
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19. Opinions on ELA (4)
• Points we should think about when
planning our activities
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20. QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!
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