THE TEMPUS - PHARE PROGRAM: THE HUNGARIAN CASE OR THE BENEFITS OF INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMES

Niels Ole Pors, Library Link Convenor

This piece is a kind of personal account relating to my more than 4-year involvement in the Hungarian Library and Information Science educational scene.

The Tempus program is an EU-funded program that is directed towards the development of the East European countries. In reality it is a co-financed program, because it will normally be impossible to participate without investing some of one�s own resources.

In 1994 a Tempus project started and ran for a 4-year period. The overall objective of the programme was to modernise the curricula of the two library schools in Nyiregyhaza and Szombathely and to introduce IT-oriented teaching. Two of the objectives were to build up computer labs at the schools, and introduce teaching in the field of business information. Another interesting feature of the program was that it involved quite a lot of student mobility, especially Hungarian library schools students going to the west for practical field experience. The Tempus project continued with a 1-year Phare programme in Szombathely. Its objective was to establish a part-time Master�s programme in Business information for librarians.

The partners in the project were the library schools in Nyiregyhaza, Szombathely and the library at the University of Economics in Budapest. Western partners were the library schools in Stuttgart, Aberdeen and Copenhagen. The De Montfort Library at Leicester also participated. The total support through the grant from EU was over �200,000. On top of that should be added the investment - especially for the western partners - in labour costs when conducting workshops and so on.

Programs like these give, of course, a lot of benefit to the eastern partners. They obtain computer equipment and training in using it. They participate in workshops and travel widely in connection with the programs. They increase their institutional or departmental influence and prestige by being able to establish this kind of co-operation. On the whole they simply become more attractive, and from their students point of view.

But what do western partners get out of engaging in activities such as these? First of all I think it is important to emphasise that in terms of manpower it is costly to engage in this kind of co-financed activity. Your cost is not covered unless of course you do not really deliver.

There are at least 3 interconnected answers. They are about internationalisation, staff development and networking. During the latest 10 - 15 years internationalisation has become a mantra for higher educational institutions as well as libraries. It is due to the opening of borders, the influence of technology, the search for new markets and partners for development and most of all a need to be attractive in relation to staff, customers and (future) students. It is about opportunities and a kind of marketing in that area.

The staff development area is important. Engaging in a Tempus project means that staff members are confronted with new challenges. They have to operate in different cultural and social settings, and they have to conduct workshops and seminars in institutions with quite different educational traditions and management structures. On the whole the western educational institutions believe that these challenges, at the end of the day, will produce staff members that simply are becoming better as a result of these challenges.

A very important by-product of involvement is of course the international aspect of co-operation. The western institutions receive a challenge in relation to their national policies. Most important is the aspect of networking that comes from this international co-operation. New patterns of co-operation emerge and alliances are formed which are often used as basis of further international co-operation in new ventures. Another important aspect is that a successful participation in EU-founded projects makes it much easier to apply for new projects.

There are mutual benefits in participating in these projects. The next paper in January in the online resources section will look more specifically at some of the issues concerning IT - implementation in libraries in the Baltic States and some managerial problems in this regard.

It would be interesting to know why different institutions get involved in specific projects oriented towards development of institutions in other countries.

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