To serve August 2025-August 2027

The Professional Sections are the primary focus of professional activity within IFLA, specialising in a particular type of library, information service, user group, or education and development for the profession. The Professional Section Standing Committee Members contribute their expertise to activities and resources to benefit the profession globally.

Mi-Voice has acted as the Returning Officer for the election process, which was conducted in accordance with the IFLA Statutes and Rules of Procedure. Mi-Voice is satisfied that all eligible Members, Personal Affiliates and Volunteers received voting instructions and information, and that if they voted, their vote was recorded accurately.

*UPDATE 21 May 2025: IFLA Headquarters was alerted that in the initial results published on 5 May 2025, in some of the Professional Section Standing Committees, certain candidates received more votes than the number of Members and Affiliates registered for their respective Sections. This suggested that the weighted voting system, applicable in some IFLA elections, was wrongly applied to Professional Section Standing Committee elections. In the Professional Section Standing Committee elections, votes are calculated on the basis of one vote per Member or Affiliate registered with the Section, as stated in the IFLA Rules of Procedure R21. 1.2.6. The voting company (Mi-Voice) have the original voting information and have corrected the outcomes to show the results where each registered member or affiliate has one vote.

Mi-Voice has issued the following statement:

“Mi-Voice were responsible for managing the vote calculation process for the Professional Section Standing Committees. We can confirm that the revised results are accurate and based on the correct ‘one vote per registered member’. Unfortunately, the original results published on 5 May 2025 were issued using weighted voting in error. We apologise unreservedly for this mistake and have since conducted an internal review to ensure this does not happen again.”

The Governing Board met on 13 May 2025 to consider the implications of this error, drawing on advice from IFLA’s Parliamentarian and a detailed review of the results. The Governing Board approved a fair and transparent solution to the affected individuals and Professional Section Standing Committees. All involved have been informed. This approach honours the expectations of candidates and avoids situations where someone would be considered unsuccessful after the revision of the voting results. All affected candidates have been invited to serve as full members of the relevant Professional Section Standing Committee for the term 2025-2027.

Questions? Contact your Division Chair or the Elections Team at [email protected].