Radical change requires radical action from libraries, in their advocacy and practice. Come to one of our launchpad sessions, ahead of the President and President-elect’s sessions at our Congress, to hear ideas, insights and inspiration, and generate your own!

The library field and the communities that we serve are facing challenges that are as unpredictable as they are unprecedented. Yet we are not powerless.

Turbulent times call for active attitudes and responses. As a field we need to be ready to be clear about what runs against our values and missions, as well as to innovate both in what we do and how we do it, for our own sake, for that of the communities we serve, and for that of our successors.

Already through the IFLA Strategy, we have established a vision of what we want: sustainable futures for all through knowledge and information. 

With our Trend Report, and the discussions at our Information Futures Summit, we further explored what this means, where we may need to focus to make it happen. Yet this is no time to rest. 

IFLA’s President Vicki McDonald and President-elect Leslie Weir will therefore be focusing their sessions at this year’s World Library and Information Congress on taking this discussion up another gear. 

Their complementary presidential themes – Stronger Together and Be Bold – will come together in a programme focused on how we respond to this need, drawing on exciting and inspiring experiences from colleagues globally.

In preparation for this, and in order to bring the widest possible range of colleagues together, Vicki and Leslie held two online launchpad sessions, starting the conversation in advance, on 14 July and 15 July.

These sessions and our wider preparations have drawn on inputs from:

  • Silvia Ernhagen, Secretary General, Swedish Library Association, Sweden
  • Sam Helmick, President-elect, American Library Association, United States
  • Jonathan Hernandez Perez, Researcher Library and Information Research Institute IIBI-UNAM, Mexico
  • Masud Khokar, University Librarian and Keeper of Brotherton Collection · University of Leeds, United Kingdom
  • Tommi Laitio, Independent Consultant, Finland
  • David Lankes, University of Texas, Austin
  • Rebecca Lawrence, Chief Executive of the British Library, United Kingdom
  • Pilar Martinez, CEO Edmonton Public Library, Canada
  • Cher Pong Ng, Chief Executive Officer of the National Library Board (NLB), Singapore
  • Elena Ramirez, Director, National Library of Mexico
  • John Szabo, City Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library, United States

So mark your diaries, and we’ll see you there!