Libraries and literacy - An EBLIDA statement

12 March 2015

 

The Hague, 17 February 2015.

The European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA) calls on the European Commission to acknowledge the role of libraries in promoting literacy.

Libraries are gateways to recorded human knowledge. Work promoting literacy is important to European libraries. It fits well into the social inclusion agenda that is a key motivator for many library services. It forms part of a broader set of literacies that libraries are keen to facilitate including digital literacy and information literacy, all important living skills of the modern world. It is set within a context of libraries providing individuals and communities with access to ideas, information and works of imagination, and supporting and enriching all aspects of human life, from work to learning, citizenship to leisure and health to creativity. In these ways libraries in Europe underpin the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy by enabling "smart, sustainable and inclusive growth".

Yet the key to unlocking these library resources is literacy.

Read the full statement [PDF]

 

 

 

< back to overview