Common Crafts – Common Libraries

Traditional crafts such as ceramics, textile arts, woodworking, instrument making, basketry, and glassmaking have shaped European identity for centuries. This heritage includes not only material objects but also skills,expertise, and communal practices. Processes of industrialisation, urbanisation, and digitalisation place increasing pressure on these longstanding traditions.

Common Crafts – Common Libraries examines how such traditional skills can continue to thrive in a modern world and what potential sustainable methods, digital tools, and artificial intelligence offer for preserving, sharing, and making craft knowledge accessible to new audiences.

Libraries play a key role in this process. Today, they function as open spaces for learning and encounter, where communities come together and knowledge is co-created. As accessible public spaces, libraries can make craft practices visible, provide room for experimentation, and foster exchange between experts, learners, and local communities.

In this way, Common Crafts – Common Libraries creates a framework in which libraries expand their societal role, from preserving cultural resources to actively shaping future-oriented craft practices.

he regional network meeting held at the Goethe-Institut Athens on 3 & 4 November 2025 brought together librarians and experts from art, design, technology, and sustainability to jointly explore how libraries can strengthen their role in preserving craft heritage, supporting resilient communities, and shaping sustainable future models.

During internal working sessions, participants discussed needs, opportunities, and practice-oriented approaches. The meeting was complemented by a public panel discussion on 3 November, in whichtheinvited experts offered valuable perspectives on circular and innovative formats that connect crafts and libraries.

The insights from the network meeting form the basis for developing innovative project formats to be implemented in local Goethe-Institutlibraries in 2026.