Welcome to our Helpdesk page where we will provide detailed information about library and membership transfer and provide assistance along the way.
We plan to close the British Council library on 1 July 2008 and then transfer our stock, including books and multimedia to British Library at the Tbilisi State University.
We invite our current and potential British Council library members to join/renew their membership at TSU library from October 2008.
Far from it. Although we are handing over our resource centre to our partner library at Tbilisi State University, British Council in Georgia will continue and intensify our involvement in all other activities linked to a new range of strategies and target groups.
There are a number of reasons for the library closure:
•The first is that the uniqueness of the offer has gone: British Council has used libraries to good effect for much of its 73-year history. There was a time when a library provided a unique offer in almost any location. Even today our libraries reach 318,000 members, but this figure is down from 401,000 in 2000/01.
•We constantly monitor the cost of our running libraries against the impact achieved and the expectation is that higher impact could be obtained by investing the money in other activities.
•We are trying, through our work, to reach millions more people; libraries cannot reach substantially large numbers. In Georgia we now have approximately 900 members, which is far from the number of people in Georgia that we would like to reach. In other countries, even libraries that have tried very hard to increase membership (e.g. Malaysia) find their customer base numbers, at most, in the lower thousands.
The British Council library will operate until the end of June 2008 in the present British Council library premises and will be handed over in September 2008.
The main objective of the British Council library was to create equal opportunities for all members, which meant that all those wishing to use our services could enrol in the library. According to the agreement with the Tbilisi State University, all British Council library members will be able to join, or renew their memberships, at the Tbilisi State University library from October 2008.
All materials borrowed from the library should be returned by 30th June. Our library staff will be available at normal working times: Monday – Friday: 12:00 – 18:00, and Saturday: 12:00 – 14:00
If you require any further information, you should contact Tamar Kvachadze, Knowledge and Information Services Manager at British Council, 34 Rustaveli Ave. Tel.+995 (32) 250407; 988014; 923402
e-mail:tamuna.kvachadze@ge.britishcouncil.org
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