With information integrity now recognised by the UN as a key policy priority, librarians from across Asia and Oceania met in Brisbane to reaffirm their commitment to this goal, and explore how best to achieve it.

The United Nations Global Principles on Information Integrity were published in June 2024. They offer strong and welcome recognition of the importance of equitable access to accurate, reliable and verifiable information.

As highlighted in IFLA’s news story, this in itself is a major step forwards, with questions around information too often either neglected or taken for granted in the past. Yet the Principles arguably do not do enough to recognise the role of libraries.

This leaves an important role for our field both in finding the most effective ways to support information integrity, and in making this clear to governments and others.

Information Integrity: The Case of Asia-Oceania was a half-day event organized by IFLA’s Asia-Oceania Regional Division Committee in Brisbane, Australia, on 28 October.

Taking place just before the Information Futures Summit, this already addressed key questions around the future of information, and the confidence and skill of individual people in working with it.

Moderated by Jayshree Mamtora and Nina Nakaora, members of the Asia-Oceania Regional Division Committee, speakers from across the region shared their insights both on the issues, and the practical steps that libraries are already taking to address them.

After the Chair of the Committee, Lin Li Soh of the Singaporean National Library Board set the scene, Dr Basheerhamad Shadrach from the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia explored the concept of information literacy itself and highlighted the elements of the UN Global Principles. He talked about specific priorities in the region, such as popular confidence, the potential positive role of businesses, questions around the (mis)use of personal data, and the future of media.

Dr Imilia Ibrahim from the Universiti Teknologi MARA highlighted the practical activities carried out in Malaysia to build awareness of information integrity issues and give students the toolkit necessary to navigate the information environment confidently and safely.

Lorin Pai and Gyaneshwar Narayan Junior from the University of the South Pacific connected the issue to that of research integrity, and presented the wide range of initiatives taken at the University to promote integrity in general, including tools, training and wider awareness-raising. This was particularly relevant as use of AI intensifies.

Finally, the meeting received an update from IFLA Headquarters, underlining the opportunities for libraries across the region to connect with local UN Country Teams in order to explore how they can get involved in information integrity projects.

Key recommendations coming from the meeting are as follows:

  • Libraries should stay up to date on questions around information integrity in the region, including the impacts of new technologies and business models;
  • In particular, libraries should be aware of the applications of AI and their implications, and translate this into the support that they offer to users;
  • Libraries should be imaginative in how they make use of their strengths in order to support information integrity, helping users to value it and identify it;
  • Libraries should be ready to partner with others, building on their own unique characteristics and making use of what others can offer
  • Libraries should advocate for a broader understanding of information integrity than the operation of social networks and large digital platforms
  • Libraries should reach out to UN Country Teams in order to get involved in efforts to implement the UN Global Principles

We are grateful to the State Library of Queensland for hosting this session, and will continue to work across the region to promote information integrity.

The participation of some members of the Committee in the meeting was facilitated by the Gates Foundation, via Stichting IFLA Global Libraries.