Academic libraries as learning organisations: a Romanian perspective

The learning organisation appears to be the ideal model to which all structures should turn nowadays especially in the context of the need to maximize their responsiveness to the complexity of the challenges and changes in the external environment and with many of them in the process of implementing the knowledge management function. Libraries in the western developed countries have moved faster in this direction and also innovated a lot during the past 20 years in terms of their internal practices and information services for users proving they have what it takes to be a learning organisation. But what is the situation of libraries in other countries? Within 2004 - 2009 we conducted a research on knowledge management in Romanian academic libraries which resulted in developing a strategic model for implementation of this process and also a framework for creating a culture of learning and knowledge sharing in these structures. In 2012 we resumed our research at the level of Romanian academic libraries this time focusing on their transformation into learning organisations and on their co-operation relationships. This paper will present the results of one of the studies in the current research which tried to determine if there is openness and interest in becoming learning organisations, if Romanian academic libraries display characteristics and practices which define a learning organisation, how learning is perceived at the level of these libraries’ directors, how the issue of the continuous improvement is approached and what internal learning programs are in place. The study is based on the result of interviews with academic libraries’ directors and library branch heads in Romania. The interviews were conducted through e-mail using a structured and open-ended questionnaire. Even if the results of our study do not represent the most vibrant example of libraries as learning organisations and are not related to the experience of libraries from western countries, we consider it as a relevant and edifying example of the current situation and of how things work at the level of academic libraries from a East European country in terms of learning and professional experience sharing.