Around 300 workers of the state libraries will participate in the State Meeting of Librarians, which is organized online by the Jalisco Ministry of Culture.
This 2021, the meeting that is called “Inside and Outside the Library; Reflections for Inclusion,” will take place from October 6 to 8, and will give participants an opportunity to reinforce the tools acquired during the period of isolation. The goal is to seek an exchange between library workers, and develop staff training through conferences, talks, and workshops around inclusion.
Creativity plays a fundamental role for librarians and reading promoters to continue their work despite the confinement, says Esmeralda Foncerrada, Head of Libraries of the SC. In addition, she comments that the title arose “because during the pandemic many of the colleagues from the libraries did not believe that they could continue their work with the closed libraries, and it was a very big challenge to explain to them that it was possible to continue with the work of promoting reading, for example through a video or on the networks. Now, many are experts in generating content with these new tools.”
Another of the important points of the meeting, mentioned by the Head of Libraries, is inclusion.
“We will have guests who will address the subject in a very specific way for libraries; we will have a sign language workshop, we will talk about violence from gender, and there will be representatives of different secretariats, among other things.”
The invitation to the meeting was launched openly, both for state employees and municipal employees, who work in libraries in the interior of the state. Thus, around 300 librarians responded to the invitation and they will be in charge of transmitting the learning in their regions for those who could not participate in the meeting.
Finally, Esmeralda Foncerrada highlighted that the State Meeting of Librarians 2021 was held in a context where librarians have developed new skills and revalued the role of libraries in communities. Therefore it will allow an exchange between colleagues, but will also serve to emphasize that libraries play a fundamental role in creating a community in the different regions of Jalisco.