At the beginning of December, Klaus-Jürgen Liedtke represented the BSL at the 1st PETRA-congress  in Brussels (PETRA stands for European Platform For Literary Translation) which should come up with recommendations for the EU commission’s new culture programme, recommendations common for both translators and publishers.

EU commissioner for culture and education Mr. Vladimir Šucha talked about language barriers as a challenge to develop our creativity as translators and about the need for thrilling tasks in order to outmanage the market mechanisms. Concrete self-administered projects can promote these skills to use our copyrights in new digital formats.

In a letter to the BSL after the congress Mr. Šucha invites us to prepare a multi-annual cooperation project and apply for EU funds on 1st October.

The new year had hardly begun when the BSL  was  presented at the "Bibliotheca Baltica Think Tank brainstorming meeting" at the National Library of Lithuania. Even the Lithuanian culture minister Mr. Arūnas Gelūnas participated and expressed his interest in a common effort.

The BBTT stands for a group of scholars, librarians and officials within the Bibliotheca Baltica association who meet with the purpose of supporting the economic, social and cultural development of the Baltic Sea region libraries. One important  idea behind the Think Tank is to promote the awareness of "Digital Europe" and boost the information society building process in the Baltic Sea region. It is quite obvious how the BSL contribute to this process by  maintaining a library that is entirely confined to the screen and yet brings together so many people and languages, opening up new ways for research and learning.

One question raised in Vilnius was if we should add Yiddish to our languages and it showed that the National Library of Finland holds collections by the Helsinki Synagogue including collections from former Vilnius Jewish congregation.