Academic libraries in Romania: Cooperation and partnerships as seen through the eyes of library directors

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the results obtained from a study on cooperation, collaboration and partnerships between academic libraries in Romania.

The study is limited to the answers received from interviews with 11 of the 15 invited directors/heads of academic libraries from Romanian universities, but the findings can be extrapolated to assess the overall situation in this country.

The results’ analysis indicates that 73 percent of the participants (8 participants) consider cooperation in the activities of Romanian academic libraries as being at a low to medium level. National cooperation can be found only in relation to access to electronic information resources. Collaboration between libraries and other departments and services within universities exists, but collaboration with students and the teaching staff is less developed. Despite the small number of partnerships and collaborative projects in which Romanian academic libraries are involved, there is a desire to further develop such activities.

The study is the first of its kind undertaken in Romania and paves the way for further research on this issue.