On December 2014, the Lithuanian-American Community, Inc. appointed dr. Dalia Cidzikaitė, a senior researcher at Lituanica Department of the National Library of Lithuania, as its new representative in Lithuania.
5th International HERITY Cultural Heritage Conference “Services for Culture: a visit of quality” took place in Florence, Italy, on December 4-6. A three-day event, dedicated to cultural services and its quality brought together cultural heritage research, monitoring and management experts from more than ten countries who presented papers on cultural heritage policy sustainability, cultural, economic and physical accessibility, and cultural heritage management issues.
Prof. dr. Renaldas Gudauskas, HERITY board member and the director of the National Library of Lithuania, talked about digital cultural heritage in the context of data-driven economy. Another representative from the National Library of Lithuania, head of Lituanica Department, Jolanta Budriūnienė discussed the tools which the Library uses to collect documentary heritage, produce analytical data and manage archival content ensuring the changing needs of today’s society. On the last day of the conference, the HERITY board members talked about the future of the organization in order to more effectively analyze and evaluate the activities of memory institutions in the field of cultural heritage and the opportunities applying them to public needs.
HERITY is an international cultural heritage quality management organization, founded in 1994. Its main mission is to inform the public about the well managed heritage objects, highlighting their historical-cultural value, protection status, communication capabilities, and the wide range of services.
On November 14, 2014 Ramūnė Sakalauskaitė-Jonaitienė, the editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian Canadian weekly Tėviškės žiburiai(The Lights of the Homeland), visited the Lituanica Department at the National Library of Lithuania. The newspaper, established by the Lithuanian Catholic Canadian Cultural Association Žiburiai (The Lights) in Toronto, has been published since 1949.
In the meeting organised by the Lituanica Department, the guest talked about the origins of the newspaper, discussed the past and the present-day challenges. Since last year, the newspaper is also available on-line; nevertheless quite a number of readers still prefer to subscribe to a paper format. Most of Tėviškės žiburiai readers are older, not everyone is able or willing to use the computer, and Ms Sakalauskaitė-Jonaitienė predicts that the newspaper will be printed on paper for another five years or so. However, she is convinced that the time will come when the only Lithuanian newspaper in Canada will be available only on the Internet.
Those who are interested in Tėviškės žiburiai can find it in the reading room of the Lituanica Department. And those who are unable to visit the library, can access it on-line through www.epaveldas.lt website. This became possible a few years ago when the National Library of Lithuania signed a cooperation agreement with Tėviškės žiburiai.