Cooperation Yields Results In Romania

In 1836, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office hired an impressive number of copyists to transcribe patent documents in order to make them available to the public through all the major U.S. public libraries. An astonishing number of patent documents are also listed in the catalogue of the British Library. This information came as a surprise to the staff of the Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM) when it was brought to their attention by Romania's National Association of Public Librarians and Libraries (ANBPR).

Why the interest of the Association in patent matters? They wanted to cooperate more closely with OSIM in promoting and disseminating industrial property information. That was back in 2002.

The role of public libraries in Romania

Two years earlier, ANBPR had invited OSIM to a five-day seminar on the workings of the country's public library system: each of Romania's 41 counties has a county library that coordinates from 30 to over 100 city and communal public libraries - a total of some 3,500 libraries, receiving over 1,000 visitors daily. Most are young people; the youngest library card holder on record is a one year old.

The County Libraries subsist on monies provided by the local community and, as a result, are under an obligation to provide a service to that community - a mission they live up to. For years County Libraries have survived on meager funding, exacerbated by difficult economic conditions in the countryside. So what community service could they offer without having a computer with Internet access? Simply put, they provided access to knowledge.

In a country where neither parents nor schools can afford the books children need to acquire a basic education, public libraries have bridged the gap. Librarians - working in cooperation with schools, teachers, local administrations and parents - have taken on a supplementary role by making available to children, and guiding them through, the books and materials they need. Thanks to this cooperation, children have not been deprived of their fundamental right to an education and have gained access to culture.

County Libraries are constantly seeking ways to serve the community, and inhabitants adopt the habit of going to the library at a very young age. But at the time, librarians were reluctant to add industrial property protection to their long list of responsibilities.

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