The 7th Knowledge Café was held at the 2019 WLIC in Athens, Greece.  This program was co-sponsored by three Standing Committees – Knowledge Management, Continuous Professional Development and Workplace Learning and Library and Research Services for Parliaments.  

Approximately 150 information professionals attended this meeting to share and learn from their colleagues on a number of interesting table topics.  The first program was held in 2013 in Singapore and I am pleased to say that we have established a successful opportunity for IFLA colleagues to discover, share and takeaway new ideas at our Café every year since then.

This year’s theme was “Change, Literacy: Digital, Collaborative, Creative.”  Change is the currency of our libraries, communities, parliaments, organizations, and world.  Whether it involves digital transformation, partnering with traditional or non-traditional agencies, or creating new and exciting engagement opportunities, change is at the heart of our activities.  Learning, growing, developing and succeeding in the face of change are our challenges.  

This was an interactive session using twelve round tables and facilitators with a number of different topics such as “Developing new communication tools: keeping up with advances in technology”; “How library spaces affect learning”; “Managing staff in tough and uncertain times”; “Developing library leaders of the future”; and “Creative uses of social media in libraries.”  This is just a sample of the topics – there were many more.  A full report with summaries is available here.  We hope you will join us at the 8th session in 2020 in Dublin!

IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, invites bids from IFLA Members to host the 17th IFLA Interlending and Document Supply (ILDS) Conference to be held in September or October 2021. This conference typically runs 2 to 4 days in length, attracts between 150 and 200 delegates, and operates with a budget of approximately EUR 50,000.

Deadline: 28 February 2020

Introduction

IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, invites bids from IFLA Members to host the 17th IFLA Interlending and Document Supply (ILDS) Conference to be held in September or October 2021. This conference typically runs 2 to 4 days in length, attracts between 150 and 200 delegates, and operates with a budget of approximately EUR 50,000.

Interlending and document supply is one of the cornerstones of any library's operations. The continuing development of technology and the increasing use of electronic resources make this conference an exciting opportunity for the international community to come together to discuss the delivery of quality services to users. Interlending and document supply is an integral part of the IFLA Strategy to Inspire, Engage, Enable, and Connect.

Recent conferences have been in:

• 2019 - Prague, Czech Republic
• 2017 - Paris, France
• 2015 - Istanbul, Turkey
• 2013 - Beijing, China
• 2011 - Chicago, USA
• Complete list of ILDS Conferences

The IFLA Document Delivery and Resource Sharing (DDRS) Standing Committee assumes all responsibility for soliciting and selecting papers to be delivered at the conference.

In collaboration with the DDRS Committee, the ILDS Local Organizing Committee is responsible for all local arrangements, including venue selection, catering, web site development, promotion and marketing, social events, setting the conference budget, registration, fundraising and corporate sponsorship, soliciting and selecting exhibitors, and assisting speakers and delegates with visa or travel questions. The host will provide lunch, coffee breaks, and one gala dinner for conference attendees.

Organization of the conference is carried out completely by the host organization, which must be willing to commit the amount of time and level of staff required to plan an event of this magnitude. Applicants may use a Destination Management Company if they so desire to assist with conference logistics.

Criteria against which submissions will be considered

Candidates are advised to provide information on all the criteria. Submissions should be made in electronic form (see below).

1. The host

a. IFLA member responsible for the bid and, if successful, is legally and financially able to be contracted by IFLA to host the conference and form the ILDS Local Organizing Committee.  The host organization is responsible for securing all conference funding; IFLA does not provide financial assistance. Please also include names and contact details of the persons responsible for the bid.

b. The host will provide opportunities for local and regional professionals to participate in this internationally focused conference to further cultural exchange and professional information sharing.

2. Local and regional professional activity

a. Professional activity and innovative ideas that would be of interest to delegates;

b. Proposed dates – the conference is ideally held in October.  Please advise if there are any local or national events that might conflict with, or enhance the conference. If there may be a conflict or a more beneficial date, please propose alternative dates for the conference;

c. Other conferences scheduled in your region for 2021 that may also attract ILDS conference delegates, or detract from ILDS conference attendance. If you are proposing that the conference could be held jointly with, or adjacent to, a national or regional conference, please give details including the advantages and disadvantages for IFLA;

3. Levels of wider support

a. Capacity of the ILDS Local Organizing Committee to secure financial support and sponsorship; estimate expected level of financial and other support for the conference;

b. Visa policy and process, and restrictions on any countries for the issuing of visas;

c. Ability to provide assistance with visa questions.

4. The venue*
 

Main Conference Hall including AV equipment (PC with internet connection, a projector and sound system)

+/-200 seats

Ability to live-stream and record presentations (desirable)  

Free Wi-Fi for delegates

 

Speakers rehearsal room (optional)

with 1 PC

Registration area

 

Exhibition area

with space for +/- 10 tables

Lounge area for coffee breaks & lunch

 

Baggage storage room

 

*The venue should be accessible to people with disabilities

5. The location

a. Accessibility via air and rail travel routes.

b. Local sites of interest for pre- or post-conference tourism.

Please submit any further supporting documents, such as official letters to provide evidence of any promised support.

Deadline

Submissions should be sent to pcoll@upenn.edu
by 28 February 2020

Selection Process

Call for submissions opens

December 2019

Submissions due

28 February 2020

Submissions considered by the IFLA Document Delivery and Resource Sharing Section for recommendation to the IFLA Governing Board

27 March 2020

Governing Board decision

30 April 2020

IFLA enters into a formal agreement with the successful bidder

TBD

Successful bidder announced

May 2020

The Official Announcement will be made via IFLA.org and IFLA-L mailing list

Contacts

For more information, please contact:

Marie-Emmanuelle Marande
IFLA Conference Officer
conferences@ifla.org

For more information on the professional programme, please contact:

Peter Collins
Chair of the Document Delivery and Resource Sharing Section
pcoll@upenn.edu

 

On 23 November 2019, UNESCO adopted a recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). This marks the culmination of a long effort to which IFLA has contributed from the perspective of libraries. It is with a great enthusiasm that IFLA welcomes this consensus of UNESCO's Member States.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are "learning, teaching and research materials, regardless of format and medium, that are in the public domain or protected by copyright and have been published under an open licence allowing free access, reuse, reassignment, adaptation and redistribution by others."[1]

After almost twenty years of work to promote access to educational resources under free and open licenses, accessible to all, the new UNESCO Recommendation represents useful progress.

The History behind the Recommendation

In 2002, a UNESCO Forum popularised the term "Open Educational Resources", particularly to boost access to education in developing countries. The educational community, the core producer of these resources, has mobilised to promote the production, sharing and access of these resources to the public.

Ten years on, in 2012, UNESCO organised a congress on OER in Paris to exchange with ministers of education, experts, policymakers and researchers to discuss the evolution of these initiatives. At this, the Declaration on Open Educational Resources was accepted to call on governments to support their development and use.

This Declaration, consistent with UNESCO's commitments on knowledge sharing, included the development of several principles. These include the idea that publicly funded materials for education should be open-licensed; that we should support capacity building; that we should promote collaboration; and that we should promote studies on Open Educational Resources.

In 2015, UNESCO published guidelines for OER in higher education (here, available in several languages) and in 2017 prepared the second Global Conference on Open Educational Resources to determine an action plan on these issues with stakeholders such as educators, teachers, librarians, learners, parents, and policymakers. This in turn called for work on a formal UNESCO Recommendation.

Coming to Agreement

The Recommendation was the subject of a number of consultations and meetings. Cecile Swiatek, Secretary General of the French Association of directors and staff of university and document libraries (ABDU), represented IFLA at an expert consultation meeting in May, successfully highlighting both the role of librarians in curating and giving access to OERs, but also to underline the importance of exceptions and limitations to copyright as well as open licencing.

On 20 November 2019, UNESCO's 40th General Conference debated and finally adopted the Recommendation, noting that this text and the associated action plan supported UNESCO's efforts to succeed in achieving the UN 2030 development agenda objectives.

This text includes 5 strategic objectives: 

_ Building the capacity of stakeholders to create access, use, adapt and redistribute OER; 

_ Developing supportive policy; 

_ Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER; 

_ Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER;

_ Facilitating international cooperation.

The adoption of this text aims to reduce costs in a simple way but also to promote innovation. Through work on these strategic objectives, it will be possible to support cooperation across countries to reduce duplication and enhance existing resources; encourage governments and educational and research organisations to develop policies with open licenses for related materials; support educational and research communities to create, modify, distribute with open licenses; develop sustainable models for educational resources.

We look forward to working with our members to make the most of the Recommendation in your work.

[1] Unesco Website, Unesco Recommendation on Open Educational Resources, 20 november 2019. https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-recommendation-open-educational-resources-oer

 

The Moscow Kremlin State Historical and Cultural Museum and Heritage Site invites you to take part in the XVII annual conference Museum Libraries in Modern Society.

The 2020 subject of the year: Custodians of Book Collections.

We offer you to talk about the librarian’s role in the history of museum and library book collections. In the course of the conference we will discuss the following issues:

- historical book collections and their custodians;

- librarian: the history of the profession;

- library custodians of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries - academic scientists;

- librarians and bibliophiles;

- the time of change: the role of the librarian in preserving funds;

- librarian as a researcher and popularizer of book collections.

The following discussion is planned: “Librarians: keepers or researchers?”

If you are interested in the aforesaid range of issues, we are waiting for you at the annual conference Museum Libraries in Modern Society.

The conference will be held on 21-23 April 2020 at the Moscow Kremlin Museums.

To participate in the conference, you should register on the official website of the Kremlin Museums.

The program committee accepts presentations in the form of in-person reports for consideration, as well as poster presentations in the form of posters (for a presentation of a poster, a special time in the conference program will be allocated).

Preliminary publication of abstracts of conference reports is planned.

The Reports should be registered until 30 December 2019. Abstracts should be emailed in rtf or docx format (edited text with a maximum of 4000 characters; notes within the text) by 30 December 2019 to an email address: library@kremlin.museum.ru. The organizing committee reserves the right to select reports. All the expenses of the participants excluding those who are working in Moscow are paid by the sending party.

Applications for participation in the conference without reports as listeners are accepted until 1 April 2020.

Digital inclusion was one of the main themes at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2019 in Berlin (25 - 29 November), presenting opportunities to highlight the role of libraries in providing meaningful access to the internet. Ramune Petuchovaite, EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme Manager, shares highlights from the event.

Digital inclusion was one of the main themes at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2019 in Berlin (25 - 29 November), presenting opportunities to highlight the role of libraries in providing meaningful access to the internet. Ramune Petuchovaite, EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme Manager, shares highlights from the event.

Digital inclusion was one of the main themes at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2019 in Berlin (25 - 29 November), presenting opportunities to highlight the role of libraries in providing meaningful access to the internet. Ramune Petuchovaite, EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme Manager, shares highlights from the event.

The OpenAIRE project has become a fully-fledged non-profit organization - OpenAIRE A.M.K.E - creating a permanent platform for open science policy alignment, development of open scholarly communication infrastructure and open science training in Europe.

The OpenAIRE project has become a fully-fledged non-profit organization - OpenAIRE A.M.K.E - creating a permanent platform for open science policy alignment, development of open scholarly communication infrastructure and open science training in Europe.

The OpenAIRE project has become a fully-fledged non-profit organization - OpenAIRE A.M.K.E - creating a permanent platform for open science policy alignment, development of open scholarly communication infrastructure and open science training in Europe.

Today is Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

In a message sent to IFLA members today, IFLA Secretary General Gerald Leitner underlined that it is an important day for everyone who cares about the principles the Declaration contains, but has particular relevance for libraries.

Through their work to deliver intellectual freedom – including freedom of access to information and freedom of expression – our institutions help deliver on rights around the world. This both represents a unique strength, but also creates a responsibility.

As set out in IFLA’s Intellectual Freedom Statement, which turned 20 in March of this year, libraries have a duty to safeguard this freedom in their own practices and as far as possible in their outward facing advocacy.

As set out in the IFLA Global Vision, we must be champions of intellectual freedom. As a step towards this, IFLA is therefore launching its Intellectual Freedom Checklist today.

This is intended as a tool to help libraries, library and information workers and library associations break down the different elements of the Statement, assess what is going well or not, and reflect on what they – and IFLA – can do to promote its principles.

As the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression, Ellen Tise, has said:

The protection and promotion of intellectual freedom represents a core responsibility of libraries, as well as an area where they can make a real contribution to realising human rights. Twenty years on from its agreement, IFLA’s Intellectual Freedom statement continues to provide both a reference, and a starting point for work to realise this potential.

Access the IFLA Intellectual Freedom Checklist.

Presenter

Professor Ramesh C. Gaur, Dean and Director (Lib & Inf.), Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA)

Title

Plagiarism, its detection and avoidance: Role of Librarians in Enhancing Quality

Abstract

The presentation introduces both intentional and unintentional plagiarism, how to detect it and various ways of avoiding plagiarism.  Knowledge about plagiarism, its consequences, its detection and avoidance are very important ensuring quality research writings.  It is also important for libraries and librarians to understand how they can play a key role in enhancing the research output of an institution and how they can engage with the researchers in the role of a teacher-librarian

The key highlights of the presentation are as follows:

• Understand what constitutes the plagiarism
• Types of plagiarism and its detection using various Plagiarism detection Tools
• Use of Reference Management tools such as Mendeley, Endnote and Zotero
• Various open access Electronic Thesis and Dissertation initiatives
• How Librarians can play a significant role in creating awareness about plagiarism, its detection and avoidance
• Examples of National Plagiarism Regulations - India

Biography

Ramesh C. Gaur is presently Dean, IGNCA & Professor & Head-Kala Nidhi Division at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, Ministry of Culture, Government of India. During the period October 2011-January 2018 he was the University Librarian, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. A Fulbright Scholar (VT, USA), Dr Gaur has been honoured / received 12 awards in recognition of his exemplary work. Prof. Gaur is the first Indian nominated as Member- International Advisory Committee (IAC) UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) Programme. He is also member of Expert Consultation Committee for setting up of International Centre on Documentary Heritage (ICDH) in South Korea. Important affiliations include: Member-Governing Council-INFLIBNET, Member of Research Council (RC) for CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR), New Delhi (formerly INSDOC) Member-International Consultative Committee on Digital Dunhuang, China, NDLTD Board of Directors, Member of UGC National Committee for Implementation of Submission and Access to Electronic Theses and Dissertations in Universities in India, Member Governing Council-INFLIBNET, Member-National Advisory Board-E-Shodh Sindhu National Consortia, Committee Member, IFLA ARL, IFLA RSCAO.

Date and Time

12 December 2019, 14.30 (Indian Standard Time)

Join the webinar

Series organisers: Reggie Raju reggie.raju@uct.ac.za; Xin Li xin.li@cornell.edu

Chair of ARL: Gulcin Cribb gulcincribb@smu.edu.sg

This session is in a series of presentations on topics relevant to Academic & Research Libraries.

The Open Repositories Steering Committee is now accepting applications for fellowships to attend OR2020 in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

The fellowship programme allows a limited number of qualified librarians, repository managers, developers, or researchers in digital libraries or related fields to participate in the conference.

The fellowship covers travel, accommodation, meals and incidentals, as well as full conference registration, including the poster reception and conference banquet.

Applicants must address the following:

1) Financial need;

2) Reasons you wish to attend and how participating in Open Repositories will support your professional development and/or educational goals;

3) How you will share what you learn with others, and;

3) Willingness to participate in the conference as evidenced by submission of a conference proposal, live-blogging or tweeting, and/or shared note-taking during the conference.

Preference this year will be given to applicants from the African continent, although all applications will be considered.

Application deadline:  20 January 2020

Notifications:  17 February 2020

Apply now:  https://forms.gle/YQEGhSi8r5rmXRFVA

The post Open Repositories 2020: Now Accepting Fellowship Applications appeared first on Duraspace.org.

Join this webinar to find out more about the Phenom free and open source multi-tenanted journal publishing platform from Hindawi, which is one of the world’s largest publishers of peer-reviewed, fully open access journals. 

Andrew Smeall, Chief Product Officer at Hindawi, will introduce the Phenom manuscript submission and peer review platform, and show how it can be adapted and reused by other publishers. 

Join this webinar to find out more about the Phenom free and open source multi-tenanted journal publishing platform from Hindawi, which is one of the world’s largest publishers of peer-reviewed, fully open access journals. 

Andrew Smeall, Chief Product Officer at Hindawi, will introduce the Phenom manuscript submission and peer review platform, and show how it can be adapted and reused by other publishers. 

Join this webinar to find out more about the Phenom free and open source multi-tenanted journal publishing platform from Hindawi, which is one of the world’s largest publishers of peer-reviewed, fully open access journals. 

Andrew Smeall, Chief Product Officer at Hindawi, will introduce the Phenom manuscript submission and peer review platform, and show how it can be adapted and reused by other publishers. 

On 5-6 December 2019, the IFLA Government Libraries Section organised a conference on Informed Parliaments, Engaged Citizens, Effective Governments. Participants from around the world explored the changing roles of information and decision-makers, and how libraries could help.

Through providing access to information, and support to use it, all types of library help the communities they serve pursue their goals by taking better decisions. This is particularly true for government and parliamentary libraries, whose job it is to support decision-making in cases that will affect thousands, if not millions of people.

Yet at a time that the possibilities to use information are expanding rapidly – for good or otherwise – and the expectations of users with them, how can libraries continue to provide high-quality support?

The conference, organised at the UK Department of Work and Pensions in London by IFLA’s Government Libraries Section under the theme ‘Informed Parliaments, Engaged Citizens, Effective Governments’, shared examples of good practices and challenges, focusing on how to build strong institutions – the objective of Sustainable Development Goal 16.

The Power of Information

In his keynote speech on 5 December, Trevor Huddlestone, Chief Analyst and Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Department for Work and Pensions illustrated the powerful role that information and analysis – including of historic data and texts, played in developing policy in the country’s largest government department.

Information helped not only to ensure that ministers were better placed to take crucial policy decisions, but also supported planning and operational changes.

Other speakers underlined the opportunities provided by social media not only to reach new audiences, but also to start conversations with users who no longer accepted being told what to do by governments.

Cinzia Iossa, of the library of the Italian Ministry of Education, shared the powerful example of her library’s work to give access to its own collections from the fascist era. This supported ongoing educational efforts to combat hatred, as well as encouraging other institutions to recognise their own role in the events of the past.

The Role of Libraries

Nonetheless, concerns about misinformation and disinformation could not be avoided. Nick Poole, CEO of CILIP, underlined that this did, potentially, serve to underline the uniqueness of libraries, given both their expertise and adherence to a code of ethics that offered real reassurance in a time of uncertianty.  

Penny Young, Librarian of the House of Commons, stressed the high level of appreciation that Members of Parliament had for the work of the library and its research service, an experience shared by the European Parliamentary Research Service, with the challenge being more to manage demand.

Nonetheless, as IFLA underlined, the connection between effective use of information and strong institutions was not always understood. Libraries needed to work – through evidence and advocacy – to make this connection.

In doing so, they could place themselves at the heart of efforts to deliver on SDG16, and develop the capacity needed in governments and parliaments to deliver transformative policies.

Find out more about what IFLA is doing around the SDGs.

The Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) is calling on the international scholarly community to support three vetted and vital open infrastructure services. The services are: The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), a digital directory of peer reviewed Open Access books and Open Access book publishers; and Open Access Publishing in European…

The post OpenCitations, DOAB and OAPEN and PKP latest services to earn SCOSS recommendation appeared first on LIBER.

This Saturday, 7 December 2019, IFLA wishes to highlight an important date for European libraries: we are 18 months from the final date of the implementation of the new European Copyright Directive in Europe, the Digital Single Market Directive. 7 June 2021 will be the deadline for the implementation procedure. 

This law concerns many private but also public actors such as libraries. Libraries in each country will need to be involved in this process, because it is the decisions taken in national capitals that will determine how much the new rules benefit libraries and their users.

This is because while European law has proposed a general direction, countries have a number of crucial choices to make when putting this into practice. It is exactly at this moment that libraries and their users must make themselves known and be recognised by their governments as actors and especially beneficiaries to be taken into account in the discussions!

Each country has its own way of dealing with this implementation: open public consultations, closed consultations via questionnaires, meetings with actors open to all or targeted at pre-identified actors.

Why should Libraries be part of the discussion on the Digital Single Market Implementation?

Libraries are the best stakeholder to explain their work and set out what they - and their users - need. Here are just a few reasons why libraries should engage on each provision.

Text and Data Mining (Article 3 and 4)

1. Libraries should care because enbaling text and data mining on all legally accessed materials without unnecessary barriers promises to support reesarch, innovation and journalism.
2. Libraries should care because they should be able to give access to their users to carry out text and data mining on-site and remotely.
3. Libraries should care because they should be sure that technological protection measures (digital locks) are removed from materials within 72 hours or be able to remove it themselves.   

Use of Works in Teaching Activities (Article 5)

1. Libraries should care because they support education themselves, and should benefit from new possibilities to copy works to support learning.
2. Libraries should care because they need to be able to respond to their users' needs for digital copies and non-digital copies for education purposes.
3. Libraries should care because online and cross-border education provide new opportnities to give access to infomration and develop skills.

Preservation Of Cultural Heritage (Article 6)

1. Libraries should care because cross-border preservation networks, which provide a key means of carrying out digitisation in a cost-effective way, should enjoy a solid legal basis.
2. Libraries should care because they should be able to make preservation copies without having to wait until it is almost too late.
3. Libraries should care because they should ensure that the widest possible range of works is covered (i.e. not limit the new rules to physical works, but also those held on third party servers to which they have open-ended access).

Contract Override and Technological Protection Measures (Article 7)

1. Libraries should care because their work must be simplified by the law, and reduce the obligation to check contracts every time they want to make a legitimate use.
2. Libraries should care because they should be able to provide access to the material protected by technological protection measures (digital locks) within 72 hours.
3. Libraries should care because they need clarity on the process for removing or circumventing technological protection measures.

Out-of-Commerce Works (Article 8-10)

1. ­Libraries should care because they need a legal and usable means to give access to collections of Out-Of-Commerce works.
2. Libraries should care about the definition of where exceptions or licences apply, to ensure that works are not left in a no-man’s-land where libraries cannot use an exception, but no collection society is willing or able to offer a licence.
3. Libraries should care because if the rules for deciding if a work is out-of-commerce or not are too difficult, libraries are not going to be able to use them.

Works of Visual Art in the Public Domain (Article 14)

1. Libraries should care because they care about encouraging and support research through public domain visual art reproductions in the public domain.
2. Libraries should care because they should be able to provide access to all users of works in visual art in the public domain. 
3. Libraries should care because they will gain from the development of a clear definition of the public domain in their national law.

Press Publishers’ rights (Article 15)

1. Libraries should care because they should not need to pay more to make use of clippings or short extracts from press publications as non-profit, public educational institution.  
2. Libraries should care because they can help limit the damage to the research, education and cultural heritage communities by defining an extensive list of excluded websites (such as blogs, social media, news site, press agency, scientific journals).
3. Libraries should care because news aggregators are a great tool for promoting media and information literacy.

Use of protected content by online content-sharing service providers (Article 17)

1. Libraries should care because their users rely on the rights of freedom of expression and access to information. Platforms supporting the work of cultural heritage and research institutions should therefore be excluded by having a very clear definition of “Online Content-Sharing Service Provider”.
2. Libraries should care because they are working with all types of scientific and educational repositories falling in the scope of this provision.
3. Libraries should care because they and their users need to be able to enjoy exceptions and limitations to copyright when using platforms, and not face filtering or restrictions imposed by service providers.

We invite you to contact your government to take part in the exchanges, suggest your recommendations and/or through your library association with whom you can join forces.

IFLA and its partners invite you to discover our guidelines for libraries to follow the implementation and benefit from the best laws for our field.

Feel free to take part in the discussion list on this topic.

For many libraries, good relationships with local town halls and councils are essential. But as IFLA President Christine Mackenzie set out in interventions at the World Congress of Local and Regional Leaders, libraries can also be key partners for success.

With a strong focus on providing adapted services to users, libraries are strongly implanted in their communities. Increasingly, in addition to providing access to books and other writings, they are helping to support stronger communities and partner with others.

In three separate interventions at the World Congress of Local and Regional Leaders, organised by United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) in Durban, South Africa, IFLA President Christine Mackenzie spoke alongside mayors and senior officials from major world cities to encourage them to work with, and through, their libraries in order to achieve their goals.

In one intervention, she focused on the role that libraries can play in future local cultural policies. Through their focus on universal access, on stimulating creativity and on making connections with other services, libraries offer an effective means of ensuring that culture really is for all, and has the maximum impact on wellbeing.

In a further speech, she talked about the application of the concept of the right to the city to libraries, and how they helped deliver on this. The potential for libraries to act as centres for interaction and connection-building within communities, as well as a gateway to information as a precondition for participation, is clear form many examples around the world.

A third panel discussion allowed her to underline again the role that culture can play in development, and the need to support libraries – often the most visited and nearest by cultural institution – in order to realise this potential.

IFLA looks forward to continuing to work with UCLG, and in particular its Agenda21Culture initiative, to build understanding of, and support for the work of libraries at all levels, around the world.

Read our submission to the Human Rights Council on how libraries advance human rights at the local level.