Meet the Members Council: Uldis Zariņš

Hi! My name is Uldis and I am a librarian. I enjoy making sense of things, and I like when things make sense. I like to understand why things are the way they are, how they interconnect, and how they can be changed to work better. This is probably why I am now the head of strategic development at the National Library of Latvia and vice president of Latvian Library Association.

At the National Library, my main duty is to develop the library's strategy, to define our priorities, to keep track of how they are implemented and, if necessary, to revisit the way things are done. I’m also involved in development of external planning when there’s any impact on libraries – national library strategy, national digitisation strategy, library law, copyright law, legal deposit law. In short – I have to make sure the interests of National Library, and Latvian libraries in general, are looked after.

The National Library of Latvia. Image: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY SA.

This led to me working with Europeana. The National Library of Latvia has been involved with Europeana since the EDLnet project and has taken part in many Europeana related projects – Europeana Travel, Europeana Local, Europeana Newspapers, Europeana Sounds, Europeana Awareness. As my unit is responsible both for international projects and the digital library services of National Library, which includes aggregation of Latvian content into Europeana, I have been closely involved in collaboration with Europeana for the last six years, which has led to my participation in the development of Europeana strategies and business plans, and now – to the Europeana Association Members Council.

Achieving our shared potential

I think that Europeana is an incredible service with lots of untapped potential. I think the previous years could probably be thought of as the formative childhood years – a time of rapid development, when some things have been brilliant, and some, a learning curve. It’s okay. That’s why they are called growing pains! Now, it’s the time for Europeana to mature and to realise its full potential – and all the signs that this is happening are there.

One of the most important changes is the revised governance structure of Europeana. Europeana has always excelled at involving its stakeholders. The rebirth, however, of the informal Europeana Network as a Europeana Association, a formal structure with strictly defined responsibilities both towards the stakeholders and the Europeana Foundation, is a great step forward in making sure there is strong bond between the Foundation and the wide Network of content providers and other stakeholders.

A recent event, 'Europeana for Education and Creative Industries' at The National Library of Latvia. Image: Europeana, CC BY SA.

The content providers are the lifeblood of Europeana – without them it would not exist. It is vitally important that there is a strong feedback, that the stakeholders can identify with the goals of Europeana and can directly steer the way it develops, as well as fully enjoy the benefits from being involved in Europeana. There are many benefits, both direct – for example, an increased flow of visitors to their web resources (and I welcome the development of the dashboard!) and indirect – such as opportunities to share best practices and borrow from experiences of other Network members. I believe the Network is something bigger than the sum of its parts and with establishment of the Europeana Association, it will only grow stronger.

A platform, an infrastructure, an enabler

This multiplier effect applies more widely, to society in general, too. The fact that Europeana makes centuries of European heritage and knowledge available has an enormous impact, and no single institution could achieve this. The true potential of the content can be realised fully once we stop thinking of Europeana as a go-to destination and reimagine it as a platform, an infrastructure, and an enabler. Europeana should not be a single well; it should be a whole irrigation system.

As such, I am truly excited about the current focus on Europeana as a platform. I think it benefits us – content providers – enormously. It allows us to benefit from Europeana’s collaboration with third-party content re-users and distribution channels – from Wikimedia and Pinterest to the users of Europeana API. This lets our content reach audiences we could never have dreamed of reaching – provided we let our content go to the places people expect to find it.

We – both content providers and Europeana – have to be ready for unexpected and previously unthinkable synergies with different partners. We have to realise that alone, numbers – of digital objects or visitors – do not really mean anything. It’s all about impact we achieve, and to have an impact we have to have a sound strategy; we have to make sure our content and services are of the highest quality, relevant to user needs and easy to use. I am happy that these are all priorities in Europeana’s strategy and I am honoured to have the chance to help implement and refine this strategy through my work with the Members Council. #AllezCulture!