Stay up to date with our latest developments, initiatives, and new resources!
IFLA Headquarters joined partners from UNESCO representing civil society and beyond at the 16th International Forum of NGOs in Official Partnership with UNESCO. This was held in person from 15‐16 April 2024 in Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) with the theme, “Sustainable Cultures”.
This year, IFLA will finalise its next Strategy. Following five surveys of our members and volunteers, we're now proud to share a first full draft, as approved for sharing by the Governing Board. Now it's over to you - let us know what you think by 11 June!
The March 2024 issue of IFLA Journal features articles derived from conference papers presented at the BOBCATSSS 2023 conference through an editorial process that strove to mentor early career researchers through the writing and peer review process. The articles cover a wide range of topics related to libraries, information science, and accessibility. Overall, the issue provides valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities facing libraries in the 21st century.
Leading European library associations and organisations have released a manifesto calling on candidates for the European Parliament elections to ensure libraries realise their potential to build a stronger, fairer, more sustainable Europe.
You are invited to contribute to the IFLA Women, Information and Libraries Special Interest Group (WILSIG) Newsletter.
Here is a new IFLA Academic & Research Libraries (ARL) Section blog post, sponsored by the Library Publishing Special interest Group of IFLA, and kindly contributed by Talea Anderson, a Scholarly Communication Librarian at the Washington State University, USA.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be about to usher in a golden age of access to knowledge. The power of AI to treat text, audio and images as data and to find patterns in them promises new types of deeper search. Services like recommendation, personalisation of information and translation are improving to make it easier for all to access knowledge. Generative AI’s ability to summarise and synthesise is evolving to make it easier to use and create information. Read more about how the AI SIG supports learning around information access and AI.
UNESCO has opened the call for candidates to be World Book Capital City from 23 April 2026. IFLA warmly encourages libraries to engage with city authorities to explore submitting bids that celebrate and strengthen the contribution of books and reading to urban development.
Headlines for this issue include the registration link to IFLA Division D Mid-Term meeting in Istanbul, Turkey for this June; updates on the next (and this time, virtual) always awaited yearly IFLA ARL Hot Topics session – and much more!
The internet is fundamental to library publishing facilitating the publication, dissemination, discoverability and preservation of scholarly works globally through open access publishing platforms and institutional repositories, and serves as a catalyst for community building and professional networking within the Library Publishing Community, exemplified by initiatives like the Global Library Publishing Map produced by the IFLA SIG. The internet we want will further empower library publishers to expand their reach, enhance discoverability, uphold the values of global knowledge dissemination, and will build on universal access initiatives.
How can information on the internet be categorized, related and interpreted? We’ve all had experiences searching and getting results that are not what we were thinking, such as searching for feline jaguars and getting motor vehicles or a sports team. If only we could get across what kind of thing we’re looking for, this noise could be reduced. Read more about how the IFLA LRM (Library Reference Model) and the jointly-developed LRMoo (Library Reference Model Object Identifier) make for successful searching.
Thinking about a hybrid event? Here are some tips from the IFLA Management & Marketing Section Experience
I’m happy to be writing to you, just a day after the IFLA Governing Board’s first in-person meeting of the year has come to an end! It was great to see colleagues together in The Hague for a really positive and productive meeting – the three days flew by, but I believe that we are making excellent progress against the commitments set out in August of last year.
In addition to core funding received from host institutions, governments or others, libraries represent great partners for others who share our commitment to supporting sustainable development. The results of a project made possible by Stichting IFLA Global Libraries, and carried out by The Doyenne Project, give an idea of who has a track-record of supporting libraries among private donors and public development agencies.
The IFLA Local History and Genealogy Section explores the internet as access point for cultural heritage, through a project to digitize cultural heritage artefacts at the Serbian National Library.
Libraries of different types, through providing inclusive access to information can make a major contribution to making the right to health a reality. Governments, in turn, can and should help realise this potential through law, regulation and funding, as a new statement from IFLA underlines.
It was four years ago on 21 April 2020 that, during the early days of the COVID pandemic, the IFLA/DDRS committee launched an initiative to share resources with libraries throughout the world.
Take a 5 minute survey on the Data Structure and Exchange Standards Landscape and share your needs, ideas, projects and challenges in transforming library metadata.
In its attempts to establish contacts with the library community in the region the IFLA Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Regional Division Committee has compiled a list of information on library associations in the regions.
We’re thrilled to publish the high-level programme of the Summit, setting out the key themes we’ll be exploring and questions we’ll be looking to answer.