Anissa Medjahed's testimonial

 Being chosen to participate in ILNP was really a great opportunity for me. It was wonderful and beneficial as it allowed me to meet new librarianship professionals around the world and to share librarian issues with them.

This great program gathered colleagues from different backgrounds all over the world and gave them the opportunity to communicate and discuss different issues that concern librarianship.

I encourage librarians to apply in this program, because it'll give them the chance to discover how libraries around the world work, meet new people, get notified by different international events and have the opportunity to attend them.        

I'd like to thank the whole ILNP team for this unique experience and for the great work they do to gather all these people from different time zones and different backgrounds. I also want to thank my partner Lily for the discussions we had, and Jessica O'Neil our liaison for her support and her regular follow-up.

PS: A special thank to my classmate and friend Nadjiba who told about this program.

Anissa Medjahed

Librarian at UBMA library, Algeria

Win Shih's testimonial

Participating in the International Librarians Networking Program (ILPN) program amid the pandemic and social justice movement is a particularly rewarding experience. Due to the time differences, my partner and I communicated mostly via emails. By addressing those discussion prompt provided by ILPN, we learned about each other’s position, library, institution, research interests, career path and aspiration, as well as library profession and organizations in our region. We further shared our thoughts about the changes and impacts at personal, organizational, and professional levels during a time of uncertainty and isolation. The capstone project enabled us to reflect on institutional and personal efforts and strategies in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in access, collection development, and services.

I am grateful for this transformational experience in interacting and collaborating with a colleague abroad. ILPN not only expands my horizon, but also extend my “invisible college” beyond the local “sphere of the known.”

Carmen Lei’s testimonial

My name is Carmen Lei, I’m a Chinese and I have been in the library field for around 18 years, I’m a librarian in Macao Institute for Tourism Studies. I would like to thank the organizer of the ILNP for such a great opportunity to include me as one of the participants which I have a chance to meet up with librarians around the globe.

I was matched with Noorjahan Shaikh, Head and Librarian of AISC Library, India and April Manabat, Expert Librarian at Nazarbayev Univerisity Library in Kazakhstan. The Trio group were able to connect via email, whatsapp and also conducted meet ups via zoom to exchange information and share our experiences in librarianship. As all of us are working in academic library, so we have similar grounds for discussion, we were able to share roles and responsibilities and also focuses on discussion on how we act particularly to support our users in times of the COVID epidemic, discussion not just focus on provision of services and library support but also health and wellbeing of users in the library. The COVID 19 has brought library services in a virtual mode and we all need to work in the ‘new normal’, sharing will surely continues even after our program.

I would like to thank my liaison, April Moyo for supporting us to ensure we are connected, I’m also thankful for the friendship with these two energetic ladies, I hope that when the COVID pandemic is over, I can meet my trio team in person and I would definitely suggest those who would like to enhance your professional experience to participate in this fascinating program.

Aieda Mustafa Salman's testimonial

My name is Aieda Mustaf Salman from Iraq I have a master degree in library and information science from Al-Mustansiriya University  I am librarian and I worked in the library field for 30 years in the central library of Baghdad university , and I have interests in the field of scientific communication, electronic library systems, and open source systems.

it’s a unique experience to participate in this program  I loved to participate  ILNP program because   to help us  on knowledge and experience transfer between to partners and learn, and benefit from each other’s, and  gives us huge chances to develop our libraries.

Though I am worked in largest University library in Iraq, I have the opportunity to meet my partner from Croatia (Jelena Madunić)  who is worked am employed as cataloging librarian at the University of Split Library. and I communicated with her. We talked about various aspects of our academic training, how to develop program training , library systems , and how to use it. We talked about other interests in different aspects of life.

finally I would like to thank all the organizers of the International Librarians Networking Program for this great opportunity to become one of the participants.

and I would also like to thank my supervisor (Jessica O'Neil) who continued to communicate with us during the program.

Jamilu Abdullahi’s testimonial

It is wonderful that through this program I am able to meet my network partner from Indonesia. First, we established contact via email and later through whatsapp. I have sent a message to Mr Rishikesh Paul who is a public librarian in Indonesia stating this: “Hi! it is your partner in the International Librarians Networking Program. Glad to hear from you via email... I wish we will endeavor to discuss more on public libraries and information services” And he replied “Glad to see you here. We will do that together”. That was how it started.

Though I am affiliated to academic libraries in Nigeria, I have the opportunity to learn about Indonesian public library sector. I have shared my career story and the Nigerian public library sector experience with my network partner. I further learnt that regular communication with network partner helps a lot in understanding our different library environment. The International Librarians Networking Program really encourages me to love my profession and career.

Ali Abbas Mahmoud's testimonial

I have been in the library field for 17 years, I’m an Egyptian working in UAE, I’m very proud to belong to this wonderful field as a librarian, we have never heard of such initiatives, but it’s a unique experience since the nomination step in this program and the ease and speed of response in this amazing initiative.

ILNP program based on knowledge and experience transfer between to partners one of them from far east and the other form far west with different culture, different human races to be one team finds ways to communicate, learn, and benefit from each other’s.

This program gives them huge chances to develop their libraries, it has a great impact to change libraries in (services – activities – etc…). 

I’m in Emirates from Arab world, I working in Academic library and have experiences in Public and School libraries and my partner from USA, she is working in Public library, and our coordinator from Korea, we talk together about our qualification and our social life, and our hobbies, our culture, and we found some ways to communicate and start to transfer our knowledge and experiences to each other’s.

Our project it will be about public library transform, we will show you how the Public libraries in Arab world working on transform and will focusing on the good activities what served our community.

It is great chance to say thank you to all teams:

1- Initiative owner 

2- Organizing team 

3- Implementing team 

4- Coordinators 

5- Participants 

For some reasons: 

1- Excellent organizing 

2- Patience with us, Advice, guidance and counseling 

3- Continues following up 

From heart of Arab world (Shokran شكرا)

Ali Abbas Mahmoud MLIS, Ph.D. Researcher Library Manager 

University of Fujairah, UAE 

Email: Aliabas727@hotmail.com

Alena Katina's testimonial

To start with, I would like to thank all the organizers of the International Librarians Networking Program for this great opportunity to become one of the participants. It is a great project which gave me a great communication experience with LIS specialists from different countries. When I became a participant I have no idea that I will meet such a great people interested in the theory and practice of the librarianship.

In addition, this program became very important for me because during the Pandemic I felt a demand in communication with students who can also understand you on the professional level. Thus lifelong learning is very important for young specialists in LIS (to whom I belong), this program seems like one of the ways in achieving this goal.

In conclusion, I should note that my program partner Teresia Atieno Cochumba, a Senior Library Assistant of the Technical University of Mombasa Library helped me to feel better personally and professionally. I also got a mouthful of motivation for future development in LIS field and we initiated a joint online project for LIS students. I hope, our project will help LIS students to know more about LIS schools, programs, interesting educational and research projects which will motivate them just like this program motivated me.

P.S. I would like to thank my supervisor, Associate Professor, Dr. Albina Krymskaya for a chance to join this program.

Alena Katina

PhD Student of the Library and Information Science Department

St. Petersburg State University of Culture