The message below accompanies the December 2024 edition of the IFLA Newsletter.

Welcome to the December edition of the IFLA newsletter!

As every year, in addition to the rush to get everything done, December should also be a time for celebrating successes, as well as making sure that we are drawing what lessons we can from our work over the year.

In short, we need to have a focus on impact, measuring what we have been able to achieve, and exploring what we can take into 2025 to do better still.

IFLA has made a priority over the past years of building the knowledge and skills, frameworks and tools as well as habits to evaluate and demonstrate impact. This work runs from our Library Map of the World to the impact training programme, which has significantly broadened the community of librarians able to spread a culture of monitoring, evaluation and learning.

At the heart of this newsletter is therefore a story summarising results of the work in building an impact focus, work done by IFLA’s impact trainers in all regions of world, and of the transformation they have been able to encourage.

In addition, we have exciting news from our professional units, not just concerning their own work about impact, but also with the publication of two new IFLA standards, covering both the more technical (our new Object-orientated Library Reference Model) and library services to displaced persons.

You can also read about the latest activities of IFLA’s President, Vicki McDonald, our activities around advocacy (including our presence at COP 29 and the prolongation of the Knowledge Rights 21 Programme), and our work at the regional level, including the formal signing of our agreement with the host of the IFLA Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa, Qatar National Library.

Furthermore, as always, we welcome new members to IFLA, and look ahead to upcoming events and opportunities.

Finally, IFLA’s own office will be closed between 24 December and 1 January inclusive, so please do bear with us if it takes a little longer to reply.

Happy reading, and for those who are celebrating, a very Happy Christmas and New Year.