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Location
- Bijelo Polje, Montenegro, Serbia & Montenegro

Population served
- 25, 000

Implementer
- 'V.B.Strunjo' Public Library and Cultural Centre

Primary local funder
- Municipality of Bijelo Polje

Other contributions
- Ministry of Culture
- Academy of Science
- V.B. Strunjo Public Library
- Local NGOs
- Community writers, poets, teachers, and volunteer
- Next Page Foundation, Sofia, Bulgaria
- Tolmin Public Library, Tolmin, Slovenia


Operational
- Since 2003


Users:
- Students: Elementary, Secondary
- Teachers
- Adults
- Farmers and/or families of farmers
- Pensioners/Elderly
- Skilled workers
- Housewives
- Roma
- Unemployed: Men and Women
- Groups with special needs: Blind, Deaf, Disabilities
- People displaced by conflict

Communities served: 30



Languages
- Serbian
- Bosniac
- Roma
- Albanian
- Macedonian
- Russian
- English
- French
- German
- Bulgarian

Collection
- 5,000 volumes
- Books: 10 languages
- Periodicals: 3 languages
- Electronic publishers: E-books: 2 languages
- Electronic publishers: Job skills training software: 5 titles, 2 languages
- News media: Special Programs: list of media and reporters
- VHS: 4 languages

Activities
- Reading and study space for students
- Reference service
- Lending library
- Family education
- Public health education and information resources
- General education
- Programs and services for human rights education
- Programs and services for civic education
- Special workshops, such as examination preparation
- Agricultural development
- Multimedia resource centre and classrooms
- Introduction to the Internet
- Computer word processing and educational training

User-Requested Services
- Multimedia workshops
- Foreign language courses
- Sales exhibitions of homemade products
- Food and agricultural product information
- Grants for agricultural production
- Art workshops
- Production and distribution of organic food products
- Programs for entertainment and recreation

ICT Status
- Audio-visual media (cassette tapes, film strips, CD-ROM)
- Personal computer for keeping records
- Personal computer for educational and training programs
- Networked to main library
- (OPAC) Online Public Access Catalogue
- Material downloaded from Internet
- Computer-based drawing and design of school projects

Internet Connectivity Solution
- GPRS mobile technology

ICT Partners
- Internet Training Center, Municipality of Bijelo Polje
- MONET, Montenegrin Telecommunications Company (064)

Approach

An outstanding feature of the InfoBus service in Bijelo Polje is close cooperation within its team and among local institutions. The mayor of Bijelo Polje has committed strong moral and substantial material support to the project, offering input on ways to further enhance development initiatives and improve government-citizen communication in connection with InfoBus. The InfoBus crew takes exceptional care of the vehicle, its contents and its target audiences. With support from the Minister of Culture, continued cooperation with government institutions is close at hand.

The InfoBus team in Montenegro constantly seeks to learn and apply new knowledge in information and communications delivery. Having rolled out the vehicles as computer-equipped lending libraries, the focus now turns to establishing Internet access.

About 9% of the population had never seen a computer before the arrival of InfoBus, and only a small number of scholars and students had used a computer in the educational institutions they attended.
Slavka Lukovic, Coordinator

This allows us to reach the farthest corners of the community.
Tufik Bojadzic, Head, Cultural Centre

The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Support from sources ranging from rural residents to municipal heads to government officials and regional media.

Being located in a multi-cultural environment, InfoBus in Bijelo Polje has  identified creative ways to meet the information needs of its users. The highest demand is placed on Internet connectivity and introductory courses, along with foreign language learning and cultural programs. Human rights education is also key, especially information about rights of women, children and political and civil liberties. Health education is another important component of the InfoBus offerings. And there is great interest among users to develop the rich natural resources for Small and Medium Enterprises related to agricultural development, with special emphasis on growth and distribution of agricultural products and organic food. Women indicate an interest in marketing their crafts, while students request courses in the arts and cultural entertainment programs.

When InfoBus arrived, there was not a single computer in the villages, not at home or in schools. The arrival of InfoBus in the villages has heated the desire of people for the kind of information access that would always be accessible. For that reason, teacher heads of elementary schools have offered an empty classroom, free of charge, for the establishment of small functional multimedia workshops to serve as public service to the community. InfoBus can help toward this purpose.
Slavka Lukovic, Coordinator

Background

In Montenegro there is an evident difference in the under-developed north and other parts of the country. Long stagnation, or better to say regression, has reflected on all social sectors, leading to drastic differences between rural and urban parts of the country. Villages are inhabited by older people, whose children have taken the chance (mostly after their graduation from primary school) to live in towns. In the period when the frontiers were open these children mostly went abroad; thus, for a long period (more than 20 years) the rural part of the republic has been stagnating.

Cultural activities have mostly been performed by Cultural Centres; these have lost their primary role and are no longer economically supported and are unpopular due to their outdated work. In the villages there are a small amount of libraries, each of them with limited book funds and collections. The collections have archaic literature. The daily press is inconsistently delivered due to delivery problems, especially during the winter periods. That means television and radio are currently the dominant sources for information. Young people spend most of their time in cafes and in popular sport betting shops.

The situation has been additionally complicated by the fact that culture is the only social segment of the country where a transition has not taken place. This means that it is still under dominant supervision of the state, both in its program and in the financial sphere. Despite the fact that there are over 500 NGOs registered in Montenegro, few work in rural areas.
 

Last update: October 2005