The LibrarIN project, coordinated by Athens Technology Center (ATC), has released its third policy brief: Collaborative Innovation and Best Practice Diffusion in European Libraries: Adapting for Local Impact. Authored by a team of experts from Rete delle Reti, The Lisbon Council, the National Library of Latvia, the Austrian Institute of Technology and Athens Technology Center, this brief explores how European libraries can effectively share, adapt, and scale innovation to meet local needs. The brief is a joint effort between the LibrarIN project and the Erasmus+ TELL project for transparent European learning libraries.
Following the first two policy briefs -focused on collaboration and evaluation- this third edition turns the spotlight on how good practices travel, and what it takes for libraries to successfully adapt innovations to different socio-economic and cultural contexts.
Libraries as Laboratories of Innovation
European libraries have long been pioneers in providing not only access to knowledge, but also social value, digital literacy, and civic engagement. From hosting elections Q&A platforms to promoting democratic literacy, libraries are redefining their societal role.
Yet not every “best practice” can be copied and pasted. The brief critically examines what makes a practice truly transferable and sustainable. It categorises practices into three types:
- Best practices: high-visibility, high-investment, and often politically backed
- Good practices: widely adoptable, field-tested solutions
- What works: local, resourceful innovations grounded in real constraints
From Inspiration to Local Impact
The brief identifies four risks in blindly replicating best practices: lack of scalability, overgeneralisation, poor alignment with local needs, and missing indicators. Instead, it encourages libraries to adapt practices through analysis—internal, contextual, and sectoral.
With vivid examples—from Oodi in Helsinki to LocHal in the Netherlands—the brief illustrates the gap between iconic infrastructure and shrinking public investment in libraries. It calls for scalable, flexible, and demand-driven approaches that meet diverse local realities.
Tools for Innovation and Policy Alignment
The brief introduces two key resources:
- The LibrarIN What-Works Database: a curated collection of transferable, field-tested innovations
- The LibrarIN Policy Tracker: a dashboard monitoring the uptake of EU policy recommendations at national level
Both are designed to support library professionals and decision-makers in scaling innovation with evidence and context.
Policy Recommendations
The authors put forward five major recommendations:
- Adopt the LibrarIN 4-phase framework for demand-driven innovation
- Sustain the What-Works Database and Policy Tracker at the European level
- Promote exogenous indicators to complement internal library metrics
- Establish EU standards for library infrastructure investment based on demographic and social data
- Encourage localised innovation by aligning services with European Commission Partnership Agreements
