ESTONIA Ülle Talihärm Ministry of Culture/ adviser for libraries

Estonia in Figures 2016 Area: km2 Population: ( ), 30 inhabitants per km2 Population: ( ) 15 counties 213 administrative units (incl.30 cities, 183 rural municipalities)

Network of Libraries Libraries in Estonia public libraries (municipal) 556 ( ) 549 ( ) 540 ( ) specialized and scientific libraries5044 school libraries

Challenges of public libraries The population of Estonia has been decreasing since 1991 (the restoration of independence) The number of immigrants has increased to 4,000 The number of emigrants stayed around 6,000 The population of Estonia is ageing Local Government Reform and State Reform Digital access - to make the collective digital library services stronger, more visible and more efficient National Library of Estonia - digital infrastructure Competencies of a librarians Library network is annually getting smaller

Ministry of Culture subsidy for public libraries – EUR Grant programme “Development of libraries” Public libraries activity support - county libraries labour costs - for 15 county libraries (subsidy up to 4 employees ) Public libraries acquisition (subsidy)

Grant programme “Development of libraries” An extra possibility to finance training and innovative projects in libraries 2015 annual project grants: o 36 library projects provided grants

Legislation - Legal Deposit Act - Storage Copy Act Amending Legal Deposit Act the Ministry of Culture developed the draft Storage Copy Act, which the Government approved and presented to the Parliament of Estonia (Riigikogu) on (planned to come into force ) The main purpose of the draft legislation is to update the submission, collecting and preserving of publications important for the Estonian culture. The draft legislation takes into account the digital developments of the future and includes publications regardless of their form and way of distribution - the collecting, preserving and making available to library users of the digital source material of printed publications and film will be added.

How does the new Act affect (also libraries)? Printed publications and films published from 2017 will no longer have to be digitised separately, as the digital source material will be submitted together with the completed publication - the need to digitise publications already born digitally in libraries for the purpose of preservation will significantly reduce; the National Archives will receive an additional duty to collect the source material of film to ensure the preservation and availability of the film heritage; publishers will receive an additional secure digital storage environment for storing their publications, which enables them to reuse sent digital publications and source material the availability of publications to partially sighted persons will improve.

The opportunities for the Estonian population to use digital information in the future will expand as such: the publications of the public sector, journalistic publications of organisations or also other publications, which have so far been spread out on many different websites, can be read more conveniently from one digital archive the availability of the newer digital publications and digital storage copies of works from the digital archive and computer terminals, which have been set up for this purpose in the specified 5 libraries, will improve their usage without the intermediation of a customer service assistant;

The organisation of the collection of storage copies is easier for the submitters of copies and more convenient for libraries (planned): there are a total of 4 storage copies instead of the previous 8; all publications for preservation are submitted to the National Library of Estonia that will send them to the preservers (4): o the Estonian National Library itself, in some cases one additional copy sent to the National Library is intended for making a digital copy and is not to be stored; o the Archival Library of the Estonian Literary Museum, o the Academic Library of Tallinn University o the University of Tartu Library; the availability of storage copies from the digital archive is ensured by special computer terminals, which will also be in the Tallinn University of Technology Library in addition to the listed libraries.

Legislation - Public Libraries legislation reform General principles of the cultural policy up to 2020 (approved 2014) Agenda of the Ministry of Culture - strategic planning of library network activities 2016 – The Ministry of Culture is prepearing preliminary draft of all regulatory changes of the Public Libraries Act. o Problems o Solutions

Estonian Librarians Assotiation’s activities The vision of the Estonian Librarians Association is to bring together different types of libraries and librarians while acting as a policymaker, treasurer and moderator of information. The Association is a trustworthy partner for the state, civil societies and the private sector. Libraries vision document in 2015: Library in the 21st century : the future of Estonian librarianship in the winds of social and technological change : libraries and their mission, position and courses of development

Thank you!