Partnerships are essential to libraries, core both to who we are and what we do. In three sessions at the Information Futures Summit, participants explored what partnerships mean and can mean, and what is needed to make more of them. Thanks in particular to Ashleigh Lowry, Secretary of ALIA Queensland, whose participation and note-taking made this report possible.

One of the new features at the IFLA Information Futures Summit, held on 30 September – 3 October in Brisbane, Australia, was a set of three sessions on ‘From Trends to Practice’.

Organised as unconference sessions, these offered an opportunity to start a conversation about how the trends presented in the Trend Report, as well as other topics on the agenda at the Summit, could mean for the way that libraries work together, both with each other, and with communities and partners.

These partnerships are at the heart of the IFLA President’s theme for 2023-2025, Stronger Together, and complement each other. For example, working together as a sector allows us better to serve communities, as well as being a more effective partner for other stakeholders.

Meanwhile, libraries’ links with communities are a unique strength, which can be brought to collaborations with other libraries, as well as represent an asset when justifying investment in libraries to partners.

And partnerships with other actors – governmental and otherwise – can allow us to go further in supporting communities and working together as a sector.

The sessions were all marked by active and participant-led discussion, which raised many key points about what partnerships can mean, and how we can strengthen them. Thanks to Ashleigh Lowry, a volunteer at the Summit and Secretary of ALIA Queensland, we were able to capture this discussion, and so are happy now to share an overview here.

You can download the report from our Repository.

Take a look, take inspiration and we look forward to continuing to work with you to strengthen our work on partnerships.