Develop to Sustain: Collaboration, Projects and Fundraising in Libraries as Means to Encounter a World in Change

The ruptures and uncertainties around us today underscore the importance, both in libraries and elsewhere, of close and candid cooperation with similar actors and key stakeholders. Interactions are essential for tackling new complexities and building on shared interests related to libraries and their role in society. Current transitions also seem impactful due to their effect on pervasive conditions, such as funding, which contribute to the unpredictability of the environment. In this presentation, we explore how the need to nurture institutional and research cooperation aligns with project and fundraising capabilities that can make networks more effective and powerful. In the National Library of Finland, the importance of cooperation and networks has been emphasised consistently in various sections of the organisational strategy for the years 2021–2030. Similarly, a new organisational structure, inaugurated in October 2024, built on similar motives. One notable revision to the structure was the creation of a new cross-cutting function dedicated to project collaboration and fundraising. The goal was to create a new internal platform for exchanges that could facilitate mutual learning and joint planning of activities related to these topics. Although the function was created around existing activities, it brought together competencies and job descriptions that had been carried out in somewhat secluded, separate settings. Along with two other new "functions" devoted to data services and IT capabilities, the new entity was intended to advance the overarching goals of the new structure. One of these goals was to promote the idea of the NLF and its various service areas as a single entity. At the same time, collaboration and funding were seen as important ways to overcome challenges related to current transitions by improving the ability to communicate, act, and spread messages in concert with other actors. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the new entity that manages joint capacities in project collaboration and fundraising as described above. We will describe related operations before and after the reorganisation, and explain how the new function was organised in 2025. We will also discuss observations made during the process. Six different dimensions were provisionally identified to conceptualise essential aspects for further internal planning. We will explain how these areas could serve as alternative priorities in further progressive development. The presentation will emphasise one of the six dimensions related to external networks and stakeholders. We will discuss how collaborations must be seen as integral to an organisation's functions and responsibilities; how they can increase understanding and the ability to monitor wider operational environments; and how they overlap or converge with the daily collaborations of the library's various experts. Finally, to outline future trajectories, we will ask how institutional capabilities could be cultivated to adapt to a rapidly changing operational landscape.