Romanian Libraries and Community Development: The case of the Community Participation Contest

Biblionet is a five-year grant from the Gates Foundation for the development of the Romanian library system. The grant provides computers and training to public libraries, and has a subgrant competition called the Community Participation Contest (CPC) that allows librarians to apply for up to $2500 in funding to use technology in a new community program. A descriptive case study was conducted to study the ways that four iterations of the Community Participation Contest have operated in rural, suburban and urban environments. The field of Community Informatics and Diffusion of Innovation theory informed the analysis of how librarians and library users think about the library and the CPC. The participatory design of the grant process allowed the programs to be tailored to the needs of the community, and it was perceived as a successful innovation in library services