The IFLA Governing Board is meeting for its first in-person meeting since August on 1-3 December 2025 at IFLA’s Headquarters in The Hague. 

This will be the first time that the board is able to spend a significant period of time together in-person, creating the opportunity to explore and define key priorities for their two year-mandate. With both the opportunity of IFLA’s centenary (IFLA100) coming up, as well as a need to progress further in our sustainability strategy, this will be a crucial mandate.

In particular, the Board will be covering the following:

  • Wider strategic discussions on the priorities the Board wants to accomplish during its mandate. In this context, it will discuss papers around a variety of topics, including how we can better mobilise and engage volunteers and members in our work, how we can support impactful and innovative projects, key advocacy goals, future work on trends, and IFLA100 itself. 
  • A workshop exploring our long-term financial sustainability, considering forecast revenues and spending, and the different options open to IFLA. In particular, we will be considering how best to invest in building capacity for sustainability across the field.
  • Updates on IFLA’s finances (a meeting of the Finance and Risk Committee is taking place ahead of the GB meeting), including the where things stand against our 2025 plans, and a look ahead to 2026.
  • Update on the review of our vouchers scheme, and the options for the future development of this.
  • Update on our relationship with Stichting IFLA Global Libraries, which administers the money given by the Gates Foundation to support IFLA’s work
  • Approval of new members, as well as an overview of trends and future membership fees. We will also be discussing plans for a new CRM (customer relationship management) system in order to improve the user experience for members.
  • A review of our elections process, to draw early lessons that could be applied in future (taking account, also, of the results of the Governance Structure Health Check).
  • The report on WLIC 2025, as well as updates on 2026 and 2027, and the process for a call for a Professional Conference Organiser for future years.
  • Reports from our Professional and Regional Councils, as well as the Management of Library Associations Section. We will also review reports from our Advisory Committees, and have a live discussion with the Chair of the Advisory Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression

We look forward to sharing more about this work in the round-up to come after the meeting.