Common Crafts – Common Libraries brings together nine Goethe-Institut libraries in a shared process of learning and exchange. The starting point was a regional network meeting held in Athens in November 2025, where librarians, designers, and cultural practitioners explored how craft practices can open up new perspectives for library work. By engaging with craft heritage, the programme enables new forms of mediation and sustainable development. 

At its core, the programme understands craft as a form of knowledge that extends beyond books. Practices such as ceramics, textile work, bookbinding, repair, or gardening make knowledge tangible, strengthen relationships, and create opportunities for encounter. Libraries take on an active role as spaces of making, where people can learn, apply, and collectively reflect on craft practices.

The programme builds on participatory formats, sustainable approaches, and the thoughtful use of analogue and digital methods. Against the backdrop of digital transformation, the relationship between craft and digital tools is reimagined through hybrid approaches that connect hands-on practice with digital documentation, archiving, and knowledge circulation, creating contemporary models for the responsible care of knowledge.

At the same time, these approaches unfold in diverse contexts: libraries operate under different conditions, with their own dynamics and resources. Common Crafts – Common Libraries understands this diversity as a key strength and as a foundation for exchange, shared experimentation, and sustainable mutual learning.
 

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.