Georgian Library Association participates in 2009-2012 (ext. to Jan 2013) European Commission TEMPUS project “NEW MASTERS PROGRAMME ON LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE” (Project 14502 l-TEMPUS-2008-UK-JPCR).

Main Features of the Project: 
 Library and information and archives studies are to be modernized; development of these curricula will benefit university administration research and teaching.
 Staff from Armenia, Georgia and Uzbekistan will undertake masters degrees at EU Universities and staff from the EU Universities will teach masters courses in the partner countries' universities; in preparation English language courses will be included. 
 Library and Archive students will undergo placements in EU universities. 
 The infrastructure in institutions in the partner countries will be strengthened to provide modern technology including virtual learning environments and institutional repositories. 

Long-term perspectives:
 Through the development of the core skills, competencies and abilities of staff, the project will transform the partner country LIS faculties into first class learning centres in the republics and a sustainable source of further development of human capacity for the global labour market. 
 Through increasing the commercial, methodological and consultancy activities and through philanthropic donations and grants, the project’s legacy will be to generate additional financial income streams to support the development of new academic programmes. 
 Through the Virtual Learning Environment platform, established in partner country LIS faculties, the project will serve the needs of students from other Universities and other lifelong learners. 
 The project will share courses between partner country LIS faculties, thereby saving financial and human resources. 

Specific Project Objectives:
Planning, preparing and implementing new Library and Information Studies and Archives Masters and Lifelong Learning courses in line with EU standards
Piloting the training of partner country academic staff and students
Development of a Lifelong Learning infrastructure
Establish validation and quality control for these Masters and Lifelong Learning courses

Partners:

Middlesex University  (London, UK) (Grant Contractor)
International Scientific Educational Centre of the National Academy of Sciences (Yerevan, Armenia)
Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences (Yerevan, Armenia)
Ilia State University (Tbilisi, Georgia)
Georgian Library Association (Georgia)
University of Parma (Parma, Italy)
Rēzekne Higher Education Institution (Rēzekne, Latvia)
The Robert Gordon University (Aberdeen, Scotland)
University of Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
Tashkent Institute of Culture (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)
Tashkent University of Information Technologies (Tashkent, Uzbekistan)

More information:
Masters course at Ilia State University “Information management” created through this project.
Project website (Main features, reports, publicity materials, image galleries, bibliography, etc)
Project booklet