The visit of the staff of Vilnius College of Technologies and Design to Pallas
Recently Pallas was visited by 4 non-academic staff members from Vilnius College of Technologies and Design. As our long time Erasmus partners of 15 years, this visit was perhaps even long overdue. Rasita Kunikauskaite, public relations officer, Egle Matuseviciute, secretary of the college director, Head of Library Audrone Karnoliene and librarian Vilija Lozovskiene visited several different departments that were of interest to them and shared their experiences and collaboration ideas with the staff of Pallas UAS.
Edith Hermann, the head of library at Pallas UAS had prepared a presentation of the library’s main talking points, focusing on the library’s specialty of art literature. Her Vilnius colleagues shared their experiences and while the sizes of the two libraries are vastly different the issues people face are quite similar – best practices for collaboration with the rest of the administrations in a school, how the Coronavirus affected the structure etc. The librarians spoke that the library at Vilnius College of Technologies and Design also conducted non-contact book rentals and relied heavily on e-materials. On the plus side, however, everyone was happy to admit that a good portion of work can be done remotely as well and it does not bring down the effectiveness. Edith commented that she was especially delighted about the invitation to go and visit Vilnius now.
Pallas’s office manager Maire Luud was happy to compare notes and experiences on information systems and motivational packages for both students and staff. Our colleagues from Vilnius expressed their delight on several occasions and claimed to have found good ideas to take home and think about. The Pallas staff already has Erasmus stipends and Maire commented that she would be happy to visit the International Week at Vilnius College of Technologies and Design which happens in the spring this year, instead of its usual time in the autumn.
Another conversation took place with the Public Relations Office and Maiken Austin. Representing the school and enticing future students were the main topics here. Different approaches to social media, web design and layout, newsletters and live events were discussed and their usefulness then compared and analyzed. Overall – one can say that the tendencies show a similar movement in both Lithuanian and Estonian high school students and with what one can communicate our best practices. A lot of good ideas were exchanged and we will definitely discuss implementing a few of these with our own staff and faculty.
These types of exchanges among the non-academic staff have proven to be very valuable to bring fresh outlook to one’s approach to work. We really appreciate the visit from the staff of Vilnius College of Technologies and Design and hope that we can continue our already long and thriving collaboration.
Photos by Riina Gendrikson
