The facade of the Livraria Lello & Irmão, in English referred to as the Lello Bookshop, in Porto. Image – Getty: Giorez
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Lisbon’s New Platform for Library E-Lending
Lisbon’s Direção-Geral do Livro, dos Arquivos e das Bibliotecas (DGLAB)—the “Directorate-General for Books, Archives, and Libraries”—has launched BiblioLED, a new digital lending library platform.
Accessible to all registered users of libraries in the Portuguese National Network of Public Libraries (RNBP), BiblioLED is expected to impact public access to ebooks in Portugal.
Awarded through an international public tender by the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, the project has been handled by Québec’s digital content distributor De Marque, which has overseen the new platform’s implementation.
The assignment included designing the platform architecture, managing its development and rollout, providing technical support, training library staff, and supplying a catalogue.
De Marque, which announced the project to the news media on Monday (February 3) created a training program for the more-than 440 National Network of Public Libraries staffers, and that included more than 20 in-person training sessions across mainland Portugal. This provided more than 250 librarians with skills in using BiblioLED.
In addition, De Marque also created tailor-made videos and educational materials to support library users, available in Portuguese, English, and Spanish to ensure their availability to the general population.
BiblioLED is one of multiple digital libraries from Cantook Libraries, De Marque’s branding for its main platform.
Other public library networks using Cantook include systems in Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and Argentina.
More from Publishing Perspectives on book publishing in Portugal is here, more on digital publishing is here, more on libraries in the world publishing industry is here, and more on issues and trends in publishing in Europe is here.