The adventures of Transcarpathian librarians in Poland (PHOTOS)

From July 28 to August 1, as part of the project "Public information centers in Vinnytsia, Transcarpathian, Lviv and Rivne regions – II phase", librarians of Transcarpathia were studying Polish experience in providing electronic services and operation of e-governance in several Polish cities.

During their stay, visitors from the Western regions of Ukraine visited the Service Bureau for residents of Lublin City Council, the IT-department, the district council of the city of Krasnik, City Administration of Pulawy, eldership of Lenchney County, and Lublin Science Public Library.

 It should be noted that the range of e-services in Poland is very broad. Citizens receive information on various issues: residence registration, building permits, land permits, income statements, tax reporting, and more. As a rule, all information requests and letters are answered by several employees of the government bodies. For example, the office of the city administration, which has four employees, in the city of Pulawy with 50,000 residents, in 2013, accepted, processed and responded to 30 thousand citizens’ appeals.  Compared with the current state of Transcarpathian e-government, it is a shocking performance!

 Equally shocking was the visit to the Public Library of Lublin. The Director of the library personally met her colleagues and immediately began a tour from her office. Librarians were impressed by the interior, open spaces, comfortable furniture and the number of departments in Lublin library. The registration in the library is free. Each reader is assigned an identification code, with which he or she can order books and other documents from anywhere over the Internet.  In the modern periodicals sector, users can view the press electronically even for the last centuries.   

  At the end of the tour, the delegation of Ukrainian librarians left their entries in the "Book of honored guests of Lublin library."

  Experience and information that were obtained during the Polish visit is very important and useful for the further development and implementation of e-government functions at the local level and in communities throughout Ukraine.