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IFLA took the floor three times during the General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva, calling on ministers, heads of intellectual property offices and diplomats to agree on copyright reforms that will allow libraries to do the best by their users.
The WILSIG 2016 Action Plan is now available for viewing.
View the complete issue online
Starting tomorrow, the Member States of the World Intellectual Property Organisation will meet together in Geneva. For IFLA, highlights will include discussions on future work on limitations on copyright for libraries, Ms Sylvie Forbin's first major event as Deputy Director General, Copyright and Creative Industries, and a celebration of the entry into force of the Treaty of Marrakesh. The latter shows that WIPO discussions can lead to results that offer wider access to knowledge, with dividends for growth, equality, human rights and well-being.
Three years and three months after it was signed, the Treaty of Marrakesh enters into force today. It is a time to celebrate a major advance in the struggle to give people with visual impairments equal access to knowledge. IFLA looks back at the work that brought us where we are today, and forwards to the challenges still ahead.
In 2017, the IFLA Health and Biosciences Libraries Section and De Gruyter Saur will publish a book titled: Action to impact: librarians working at the heart of health communities.
Libraries have always been about preserving and giving access to information. At all levels, they readily work with other actors in order to achieve this. The first International Day for the Universal Access to Information is the occasion for a joint statement between IFLA and the International Publishers Association (IPA). This sets out areas where we can progress, together, towards this key objective.
Deadline: 31 Octoberr 2016. IFLA Journal is an international journal publishing peer-reviewed scholarship on Library and Information services and the social, political and economic issues that impact access to information through libraries.
Last week, the European Commission published proposals for legislation which would implement the Treaty of Marrakesh. The benefits of EU ratification could be high, potentially more than doubling the number of countries involved, and making a wealth of European language works available to some of the most vulnerable people around the world. IFLA and EBLIDA, in a joint statement, welcomed these proposals, but cautioned that more work will be needed to ensure that no new barriers to access to knowledge are created.
Exceptions and limitations have been a key part of the international copyright system since its inception, protecting and promoting the goals of education and innovation. Increasingly, they are shaped by the text of trade deals. What impact will this have for access to knowledge, and the institutions that promote this? IFLA is organising a panel discussion at the WTO Public Forum on 28 September to find out.
We have changed the name of our section from Classification & Indexing to Subject Analysis and Access
Do library patrons get the best information for the topic they are looking for? Do they have the skills needed to use Wikipedia as part of a research process that helps with learning and advancement of human society?
12 presentations from our recent Satellite Conference "Collaborative Strategies for Successful Library Design and Innovative Use" held at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago now available online
After years of promise, today saw the launch of proposals for copyright reform in Europe. Despite much talk of the need for modernisation of the rules to reflect the new possibilities and expectations created by digital technologies, what has been published will make only limited progress towards this goal.
With proposals on European Union copyright reform imminent, IFLA continues to push for ambitious reforms that boost learning, innovation and creativity. It has recently co-signed a letter to seven EU Commissioners, underlining our goals in the process.