Emerging leaders’ workshop launches work on Trend Report learning tools

Building on the IFLA Trend Report 2024 and the discussions around it at the Information Futures Summit, a group of emerging library leaders met at the State Library of Queensland to explore how to maximise the Report’s potential to support learning. This activity was made possible by a grant from Stichting IFLA Global Libraries.

The launch of the IFLA Trend Report 2024 was a key highlight of the IFLA Information Futures Summit, held from 30 September to 3 October in Brisbane, Australia.

The Report provided a reference point and structure for discussions over the three days of conference and subsequent associated events, challenging participants to reflect on what libraries need to do to be ready for the future of knowledge and information.

Similarly, the Report is also designed to be a trigger for conversation and reflection across the global library field, helping build resilience and sustainability. This, in turn, will help us better serve our communities and shape the future.

The Report already includes suggestions about how to use the trends and scenarios shared in order to organise discussion and support planning in their own settings.

However, it also has valuable potential to be a learning tool, helping not just to support greater understanding of the issues it raises, but also to build capacity to think about the future.

To start this process, we organised a workshop on 4 October, bringing together emerging leaders who had participated in the Information Futures Summit. The event was kindly hosted by the State Library of Queensland.

The first half of our time together built on work carried out by the leaders throughout the week to identify the skills and knowledge needs that the trends in the Trend Report made necessary. We looked in particular both at how important different skills were, as well as how well the library field is already developing them.

This work will lead to a skills agenda for the future of knowledge and information, a supporting document to the Trend Report designed to support discussion in associations and elsewhere.

In the second half of our workshop, the leaders reflected on potential learning tools  that could be developed, based on the Trend Report.

Drawing on a reflection on the most effective learning experiences each leader had had, ideas ranged from massive open online courses (MOOCs) to applied learning, with a strong focus on what could best engage and support learners.

We are grateful to the leaders for their time and energy, and look forward to working with them going forward in order to turn their suggestions into outputs that can benefit the library field as a whole.

The participation of the emerging leaders was made possible by a grant from Stichting IFLA Global Libraries (SIGL). SIGL was set up by IFLA and the Gates Foundation to administer a grant awarded to IFLA to leave the global library field stronger.