IFLA has responded with sadness to the destruction of the Central Library of the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, and calls on the Venezuelan government and others to do more to protect libraries.

The last days have brought the sad news of the apparently deliberate destruction of the central library of the Universidad de Oriente, in Sucre, Venezuela.

Coming in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a period of intense economic difficulty for many, this is an additional blow to the staff, university community and country as a whole.

As set out through UNESCO’s Unite for Heritage campaign, such destruction causes losses not just in material terms, but also lasting social and cultural damage.

It also runs against the spirit of the Safer Schools Declaration, which underlines the need, in any situation, to protect the ability of schools and universities to provide opportunities for learning and development.

Both initiatives make clear that governments, both under international law and as a duty to their own people, have an obligation to act to ensure the safety of libraries faced with the threat of violence.

IFLA President Christine Mackenzie said:

‘It was so sad to hear about the destruction of the library at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela – my heart goes out to its staff and users, and I wish them courage and strength at such a difficult time. It is so vital that libraries are seen – and protected – as key to the present and futures of the communities they serve. I urge governments to recognise this, and to give the necessary support to make it a reality’

IFLA Secretary Gerald Leitner said:

‘Whenever a community loses access to its library, it loses a key part of its infrastructure for learning, research, and the enjoyment of cultural rights. When this is the result of deliberate action, this is doubly tragic. On behalf of IFLA and the global library community, I send my condolences to the staff and users of the Universidad de Oriente, and call on the government of Venezuela and all other countries to ensure the protection of our institutions and teams’.

Find out more about IFLA's work on cultural heritage.

In response to the death of George Floyd and others globally, IFLA President Christine Mackenzie and Secretary General Gerald Leitner have made the following statement.

IFLA condemns all forms of racism as fundamentally contrary both to human rights, and to the values of our profession.

Libraries are institutions with a mission to improve the lives of the individuals and communities they serve. They do this not just through rejecting discrimination, but through actively promoting inclusion, giving everyone a meaningful opportunity to realise their rights to information, culture, information and science. Racial discrimination and race-based violence – most recently in the case of George Floyd, but also worldwide – have no place in the society we wish to build.

As a global organisation, IFLA is committed to enabling all to engage in and benefit from our activities, without regard to citizenship, disability, ethnic origin, gender, geographical location, language, political philosophy, race or religion.

Through the IFLA-UNESCO Public and School Library Manifestos, as well as the Statement on Intellectual Freedom, these same values apply to the work of our institutions. As highlighted in the Multicultural Library Manifesto, this requires an conscious and meaningful effort to solicit, understand and reflect the needs of all members of the communities we serve in our collections, practices and staffing. Furthermore, it sets out a duty to advocate proactively for inclusion in wider society.

Alongside our colleagues at the American Library Association, Australian Library and Information Association and elsewhere, we therefore stand in solidarity with those who are subject to racial discrimination both inside and outside of our field. In doing so, we will continue to work to promote library and information services that make a reality of a better society for all.

Christine Mackenzie
IFLA President 2019-2021

Gerald Leitner
IFLA Secretary General

 

5 June 2020

The IFLA/ UNESCO Public Library Manifesto identifies the public library as being central to freedom and equity of access to knowledge and information for all people.

Since it was agreed in 1994, it has proclaimed UNESCO's belief in the public library as a living force for education, culture and information, and as an essential agent for the fostering of peace and spiritual welfare through the minds of men and women.

In order to ensure this Manifesto stays relevant for the global library field, governments and others, the IFLA Public Libraries Section has set out to review the Manifesto in 2020. This process will identify areas that can be updated to ensure the document reflects the missions of public libraries today.

The important first step was to hear from the global library field.

And hear from the field we did!

A survey collecting feedback and suggestions on the usability and effectiveness of the Manifesto was circulated earlier this year. Thanks to the translation work of the Public Library Section and IFLA Translation Centres, we were able to offer the survey in 14 languages.

Following the closing of the survey on 31 May, we are happy to announce that we have received over 750 responses from librarians around the world!

The Results

Librarians have shared stories of using the Manifesto to advocate for improvements in their libraries, to show elected officials and budget-holders the importance of funding public libraries, to defend free access and resist censorship, to cite in research, to develop more impactful library activities for users, and much more.

Some suggestions for ways that the Manifesto can be improved to reflect the mission of public libraries today include:

• Consider the role of libraries in today’s information society  
• Reinforce the principle of inclusion
• Include the role of the library in addressing local needs and access to local culture, as well as collecting and preserving local archives  
• Focus more on learning and creativity at all ages

Next steps

The Public Library Manifesto, together with IFLA Headquarters and our UNESCO partners, will further analyse the results of this survey. This will form the basis for outlining the updates to the Manifesto.

Stay tuned for more information concerning the update to the Manifesto in the coming months.

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Last February we spotted the great action being taken by the Library Association of Latvia (LAL) in order to make the IFLA Strategy a reality at the national level. LAL planned to make the Strategy central to this year’s Festival of Latvian Libraries 2020, organised in close collaboration with the National Library of Latvia.

Of course, COVID-19 forced plans to change, but it did not stop them!

The IFLA Strategy continued to inspire them and even during such extraordinary circumstances, LAL found new and innovative ways to strengthen and develop the skills of Latvian librarians.

Take a look at this inspiring story which showcases a great example of engagement by a library association with the IFLA Strategy.

The Online Congress of the Library Association of Latvia: “Inspire, Engage, Enable, Connect!”

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The IFLA Strategy proved to be a great inspiration and a unique engagement opportunity for the Association, as they transferred their conference into a virtual one, providing a strong example of how to engage with the IFLA Strategic Directions and Key Initiatives 1.3, 2.4, 3.3 & 4.3

The 13th Congress of Latvian Librarians itself took place on 23 April 2020 with the theme “Inspire, Engage, Enable, Connect!” as the highlight of the country’s Library Week.

For the first time in the history of Association, it was organized online using Zoom.

The event gave a unique and unprecedented experience to Latvian librarians, strengthened LAL’s ability to keep up with the times and use innovative technologies, as well as providing an opportunity to LAL members to test their ICT skills and engage with IFLA activities.

With the incorporation of the IFLA Strategy as the conference’s theme and the many online presentations closely connected to the IFLA Strategy, plus our IFLA President Christine Mackenzie’s keynote to open the Congress, LAL managed to turn a global agenda into local action.

The video of President Mackenzie’s speech is now available on LAL’s YouTube channel.

IFLA President Christine Mackenzie said:

The IFLA Strategy is an offer not just for IFLA HQ or for the GB or for the sections, but for the whole library field. My presidential theme is ‘Let’s Work Together’, and I’m convinced that in this time it’s more important than ever that we do that. So, I’d ask you to work together to make libraries as good as they can be.”

How they did it:

To help Latvian librarians understand the theme of the Library Week, engage with the IFLA Strategy, feel comfortable with their virtual conference participation and provide support for remote library activities to the public, LAL created a number of useful resources.

 

They:

• Made the IFLA Strategy available in the Latvian language and shared it with the library

• Translated the IFLA Membership leaflet into Latvian and shared it with the library community in order to promote IFLA and the importance of the international dimension of the library field

• Asked their keynote speaker, the IFLA President, to record her speech and created Latvian subtitles before sharing it with the library community

• Created and shared instructions for using Zoom

• Created and shared instructions for the online elections and voting in the Congress

• Organised an introductory webinar of the online congress

Moderators were available during all the time of the online congress giving participants the opportunity to call in case of confusion or problems connecting to or working in the online platform.

The theme “Inspire, Engage, Enable, Connect” in the emergency situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has proven to be particularly strong, as people need inspiration, involvement, opportunities and unity in these circumstances, and libraries are the ones who can help people withstand this hard time.

Although Latvian libraries were limited in their ability to organise Library Week events on site, they took advantage of contemporary technologies to convincingly demonstrate the role and importance of libraries in the society.

In order to provide support for remote library activities to the public, LAL offered free online Zoom space to their members, which strongly connects to the IFLA Strategy Key Initiative 2.4.

This gave libraries the possibility to organise their own online events,  virtual meetings with authors, online conversations and other online creative events—linking them to the IFLA Strategy.

Together with the free use of a platform, LAL also offered moderation and consulting support for webinars, an offer taken up twice in the Library Week, with seven more planned subsequently. This provided a great support for Association members, and it made it possible only to make financial savings but also to acquire new skills, support and motivation to use innovative ICT tools.

More than 250 Library Week activities happened online, from all types of libraries. Some of those campaigns gained great visibility in national magazines, like the campaign “Revive the book – interpret the cover”.

See LAL's detailed report with the examples of what the online Library Week inspired by the IFLA Strategy meant on a local level in Latvia, to give inspiration for the rest of the global library community as well. 

Conclusion

In every situation, you can find both something bad and something good. Thanks to the Library Association of Latvia’s online Congress and online Library Week in these special circumstances, so many interesting and creative events related to the IFLA Strategy took place, demonstrating the courage and skills of librarians and strengthening the contemporary role of libraries as important and modern cultural institutions which are able to inspire, engage, enable and connect Latvian society, and the global library community.

Feedback on LAL’s online congress and library week has been uniformly positive. LAL President and Chief librarian of the Library Development Center at the National Library of Latvia, Māra Jēkabsone said:

 If there was no forbiddance to organize on-site events because of Covid-19, we wouldn’t have dared to organize an online Congress. The IFLA Strategy has given us great inspiration to move this forward and transform our major event into a virtual one. Most importantly, it also set the ground rules for the importance of providing tools and infrastructure that support the work of libraries (Key Initiative 2.2), supporting virtual networking and connections (Key Initiative 2.3), empowering the field at the national and regional levels (Key Initiative 3.3)”.

Make your library association next

Let’s consider this as a precious time to enable organisations to engage with the IFLA Strategy, self-reflect, plan their own strategy and its implementation.

IFLA Secretary General Gerald Leitner said:

Technology gives us a great opportunity to get not only connected, but also inspired, engaged and enabled, just like our IFLA Strategy states. This is as important now as ever before. I invite other Library Associations around the world to think outside of the box, get inspired, engaged, enabled and connected globally using the IFLA Strategy. I do hope to see more actions like those in the future in other countries globally.”

How is your library or library association engaging with the IFLA Strategy? Let us know! Contact Despina Gerasimidou, IFLA’s Strategic Development Officer at despina.gerasimidou@ifla.org and we’ll figure this out together.

We are IFLA
Somos la IFLA
Nous sommes l’IFLA
Wir sind die IFLA
ИФЛА – ЭТО МЫ
我们是国际图联
نحن اإلفا

Submission Deadline: 30 September 2020

Best Practices for physical and digital storage

IFLA Journal, IFLA’s Preservation and Conservation Section, and PAC Centres are pleased to announce a call for papers for a special issue focused on storage as a strategic long-term function of libraries, including practices for physical and digital collections based on risk, value, and cost in terms of institutional mission and resources.

Storage of collections and information in ways that support their availability and accessibility is an ongoing requirement, and in many cases a very challenging requirement, for libraries around the world. It tackles both technical and organizational challenges and requires a good understanding of process management. Consideration of many factors are needed to determine how best to provide secure, reliable, and sustainable storage and access solutions in light of budgetary limits, environmental impacts, and the near term and long range goals and obligations of a particular library, archive, or information organization.

IFLA Journal invites papers for a special issue focused on strategic practices for long-term storage and access of both physical and digital collections. Papers should be written in English, of 5,000-10,000 word length, and have an abstract as part of the paper.

Guest Editors:

Reinhard Altenhöner
Deputy Director General
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz
Germany

Jacob Nadal
Director for Preservation
Library of Congress
United States

Papers should explore the general topics of:

• Storage and access strategies and requirements for different types of collection, physical or digital, such as general published works, pre-print or unpublished works, rare or special collections, or collections with various usage restrictions.
• Security issues for storage systems, or for different types of collections.
• Balancing the goals and requirements for a storage strategy with the costs of storage and sustainability practices.
• Deciding between commercial solutions, cooperatives and partnerships, or sole institutional responsibility for various storage strategies.

Topics of special interest related to physical collections storage are:

• Best practice for one of the major climate zones (e.g. tropical, subtropical, temperate, or cold) in terms of temperature, humidity, light, and pest control.
• Additional requirements for general, rare, or special format collections for these zones.
• Security issues for different types of collections, such as by format, rarity, market value, ideological or political content, for example.

Topics of special interest related to digital collections storage are:

• Best practice for security, access, reliability, and cost.
• Requirements for multiple copies and locations including, light, dim, or dark systems.
• Best practices for using commercial vendors, cloud storage, or institutional repositories.

Submission Deadline:

Articles for the special issue should be submitted to IFLA Journal for peer review before 30 September 2020.

How to Submit a Manuscript

IFLA Journal is hosted on ScholarOne™ Manuscripts, a web based online submission and peer review system SAGE Track. Please read the Manuscript Submission guidelines, and then simply visit the IFLA 

Journal Manuscript submission webpage to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is possible that you will have had an account created.

All papers must be submitted via the online system. If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, contact one of the guest editors or the journal’s Editor, Steven Witt.

For instructions on formatting your manuscript please consult the submission guidelines.

 

About IFLA Journal

IFLA Journal is an international journal publishing peer reviewed articles on library and information services and the social, political and economic issues that impact access to information through libraries. The Journal publishes research, case studies and essays that reflect the broad spectrum of the profession internationally. All articles are subject to peer review. Articles are published in English. Abstracts are translated by IFLA (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) into the other working languages of IFLA—Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Russian or Spanish—for publication.

IFLA Journal is published by Sage Publications and is the official journal of IFLA, and has an international readership consisting of academic institutions, professional organisations, and IFLA Members who all receive a free subscription to the journal.

Each issue of  IFLA Journal is made available Open Access upon publication on IFLA’s website. Authors are also encouraged to make the accepted version of their manuscripts available in their personal or institutional repositories.

IFLA Journal is indexed by the following databases: 

• Abi/inform
• Academic Search Premier
• Business Source Corporate
• Compendex
• Current Awareness Abstracts
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature
• IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Information Science and Technology Abstracts
• Inspec
• Library Information Science Abstracts
• Library Literature & Information Science
• SciVal
• Scopus
• Sociological Abstracts
• Web of Science

WLIC 2020 in Dublin is cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The open session that we plannned together with the Knowledge Management Section: Subject Access and Artificial Intelligence: Enhancing competencies and safeguarding ethics, is also cancelled.

Thanks to all contributors; we hope to be able to meet next year!

The very popular IFLA ARL Hot Topics session held at the IFLA WLIC each year, will this year be held as a webinar in August. Hot Topics 2020 will have three speakers address the theme of Libraries as Catalysts: Inspire, Engage, Enable, Connect.

The topics will align with the need of libraries for constant evolution to accommodate the needs, expectations and learning styles of their users. These evolutions present an opportunity for libraries, both to evolve for today and plan for future change. How do we, academic librarians and our libraries, position ourselves to lead change on our campuses and the broader communities we serve?

The session will be hour-long with each presenter speaking for three minutes to introduce their topic followed by  group discussion. Please watch this space - we will make further details available very soon!

IFLA is working on a Media Literacy project within the framework of the EU 'Preparatory Action on Media Literacy for All'. The goal is to help deliver on libraries’ potential to be agents of change and champions of media literacy, who continue to help build informed and engaged communities.

The case for media and information literacy today

Media and information literacy – the ability to find, critically assess, apply and interact with information on various media channels – is a crucial skillset in today’s information-dense and hyperconnected world. This competency is key to ensuring meaningful access to information from different media sources – access that empowers people, helps them make informed choices and make the best use of information.

Concerns over misinformation and disinformation have commanded a lot of attention over the last years, showing just how important it is for people to be able to judge the reliability, relevance and quality of information they come across through traditional and new media sources every day.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic presents many immense challenges for societies worldwide. It also highlights the role media - especially new and digital channels – play in the way society understands and reacts to these developments. Social media, for example, can be a force that either hurts or helps: enabling crucial conversations but also facing the challenges of countering online misinformation about the virus. Media literacy is crucial to build up informed and engaged communities.

Libraries can help

What does this mean for libraries? As information professionals, librarians have long championed information literacy. This focuses on people’s competencies vis-à-vis information at large, whereas media literacy emphasizes the particular role of media, different media content and channels, and its broader societal impact.  Libraries’ experience in developing such competencies – as well as their ability to reach and offer inclusive learning opportunities to their communities – makes them well-positioned to help more people develop media literacy skills.

Recommendations laid out in a 2016 study requested by the European Parliament, for example, include supporting libraries to help realise their potential to improve media and information literacy in their communities. To help deliver on this potential, IFLA is working on an EU-based project curated and coordinated by Tactical Tech, an NGO dedicated to understanding and improving the way digital technologies shape society.

What we will do

The project will offer engaging Media Literacy learning opportunities for the European public through immersive and thought-provoking exhibitions. IFLA is helping arrange for these learning opportunities to be delivered through several public libraries throughout the EU.

The project is taking a look at some of the most pressing media literacy questions the public faces today: online misinformation, digital media ownership, data privacy, tailored content and advertisement delivery, and more! To find out more about the content, take a look at the project webpage: https://theglassroom.org/misinformation.

In cooperation with several libraries in Europe – and once circumstances permit – we will:

• Help deliver media literacy learning opportunities for their communities;
• Engage with the representatives of these libraries to help them become media literacy champions;
• Following the implementation of the project, support and encourage media literacy learning opportunities in libraries in Europe and the world.

We are excited to announce our participation in this project, following several months of preparations together with Tactical Tech and Save the Children Italy. We look forward to seeing how this learning model can be implemented – and how it could be adopted by many more libraries interested in championing media literacy.

The Chair of LIBER’s FIM4L Working Group, Jos Westerbeke, was recently invited to present the group’s work on federated authentication with Single Sign-On (SSO) to the United Nations Library and Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (UN-LINKS). UN libraries were interested in the work of LIBER’s FIM4L group because, together, they are actively searching for the…

The post FIM4L Working Group Presents to UN Library and Information Network for Knowledge Sharing appeared first on LIBER.

In this EIFL webinar, guest speaker Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections at Iowa State University, will share his experience of how the university is supporting openness through principles, strategy and agreements with publishers. The webinar will cover:

In this EIFL webinar, guest speaker Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections at Iowa State University, will share his experience of how the university is supporting openness through principles, strategy and agreements with publishers. The webinar will cover:

In this EIFL webinar, guest speaker Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections at Iowa State University, will share his experience of how the university is supporting openness through principles, strategy and agreements with publishers. The webinar will cover:

In this EIFL webinar, guest speaker Curtis Brundy, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Communications and Collections at Iowa State University, will share his experience of how the university is supporting openness through principles, strategy and agreements with publishers. The webinar will cover:

IFLA has signed onto the Statement by the International Coalition of Library Consortia on the global COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on library services and resources.  To further support members, IFLA's Advisory Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters has produced principles for use in negotiation with rightholders.

Faced with the need to close their doors for the safety of users and staff alike, libraries around the world have relied heavily on the possibility to offer access to digital materials and services.

The energy and resourcefulness of the field has done a lot, but the best outcomes for users rely on being able to allow remote use of library collections.

While in some countries, copyright rules do allow libraries to find alternative ways to give access, this is not the case everywhere. Libraries therefore very much count on rightholders to take steps to ensure that access is not interrupted for users, that take account of the challenges many libraries are facing in carrying out normal administrative operations, and that allow for a sustainable relationship into the future.

In the light of this, IFLA is happy to sign up to the Statement produced in the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC), establishing a number of principles to which publishers are invited to adhere.

Many have done so already, in part or in full, as detailed on the ICOLC website. With it clear that the effects of the pandemic are likely to continue for many months into the future, there is a strong need for cooperation.

Furthermore, IFLA’s Advisory Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters has developed a set of principles for use by library associations in discussions with rightholders at the national level.

These reach beyond academic and research libraries, and can be applicable for all library types.

Recognising that some publishers and writers are also facing uncertainty in the crisis, it sets out a number of areas where actions can be taken which will allow libraries to maintain a comparable level of service to users as before the pandemic, using previously and legitimately acquired content. The principles draw heavily on existing good practice examples in order to underline what is possible.

We hope that they will be useful for IFLA’s members in their work.

You can view the IFLA CLM principles on our publications page. The ICOLC statement is available on the Coalition's website.

En el que participan

Virginia Inés Simón (Argentina) 

Elena Etchemendy (Uruguay) 

David Ramirez (Colombia) 

Constanza Verón (Coordinadora del Programa de Comunidad Wikipedia de Argentina ) 

Camille Françoise (Apoyos de Comunidad-IFLA ) 

Con las intervenciones de

Isela Mo Amavet, Oficina Regional de IFLA para América Latina y el Caribe

Angélica Fuentes, Presidenta de la Sección de América Latina y el Caribe-IFLA LAC

 

Fecha: viernes 29 de mayo de 2020.

Hora: 13:00 horas (Montevideo, Uruguay).

Otros horarios: consulta este enlace.

Duración: Una hora.

A desarrollarse en el Canal de YouTube de IFLA LAC

En redes sociales: usa # 1bib1ref y # 1lib1ref

Más información, clic aquí 

 

We are pleased to announce the publication of our 2019 Annual Report. The report celebrates our programmes, telling the stories of some of the people who have benefited from our work. In 2019 we also marked EIFL’s 20th anniversary, and EIFL-PLIP’s 10th anniversary. 

Thank you to the many people, past and present, who have helped to build and shape the organization over the years.

We are pleased to announce the publication of our 2019 Annual Report. The report celebrates our programmes, telling the stories of some of the people who have benefited from our work. In 2019 we also marked EIFL’s 20th anniversary, and EIFL-PLIP’s 10th anniversary. 

Thank you to the many people, past and present, who have helped to build and shape the organization over the years.

We are pleased to announce the publication of our 2019 Annual Report. The report celebrates our programmes, telling the stories of some of the people who have benefited from our work. In 2019 we also marked EIFL’s 20th anniversary, and EIFL-PLIP’s 10th anniversary. 

Thank you to the many people, past and present, who have helped to build and shape the organization over the years.

IFLA is celebrating Africa Day 2020, highlighting the contribution that Africa's libraries make to the continent's development, as well as highlighting the ideas, resources and insights available on the IFLA website thanks to the work of our African members. 

57 years ago, the Organisation for African Unity – the forerunner of today’s African Union – was created, marking a new drive to promote peace, integration and a truly African approach to the continent’s future.

This desire to work together to find ways forwards that truly reflect the strengths and needs of Africa is as strong as ever today, not least in the library field, whose role in promoting literacy, participation and development will be essential.

Increasingly, too, major continental initiatives provide opportunities for libraries, from the 2063 Agenda to the Continental Free Trade Agreement which will address copyright in its next round – a key issue for libraries, given that much legislation on the continent is outdated and does not allow for cross-border cooperation.

As part of IFLA’s Strategy 2019-24, there is therefore a new emphasis on supporting work at the regional level, and ensuring that it is possible to develop programmes of work and dialogue shaped around African priorities. We are looking forward to making a reality of this goal in the coming months and years.

In the meanwhile, here are six ideas for how to find out more about IFLA’s work in Africa:

1. Celebrate IFLA’s members in Africa: by being a part of IFLA, they are able to bring the benefits of membership to the African library field. IFLA has over 100 members in African countries with a combined population of over 1 billion people!

2. Read the speech given by IFLA Secretary-General Gerald Leitner at the most recent Round Table of Ministers Responsible for Public Libraries, organised by African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA), and held in Accra, Ghana, last year. The speech highlights the role that libraries can play in the efforts of African governments to achieve both the African Union 2063 Agenda, and the United Nations 2030 Agenda.

3. Find data about Africa’s libraries on IFLA’s Library Map of the World! For example, did you know that there are almost 111 000 libraries in Africa – that’s one for every 7 265 people for the countries for which we have data! Nigeria has the most academic libraries (815), and South Africa the most public libraries (1876). Kenya has the most overall, at nearly 50 000, including school libraries.

4. Read our SDG Stories from Africa – we have great examples of the difference libraries are making in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia, . You can also find out more about the library fields in Ghana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe on our country pages.

5. Read about all the ideas submitted to IFLA’s Ideas Store from Africa! There are great suggestions on how to advocate more effectively, how to support the development of collections, how to work best together. Take a look – and submit your own! In addition, in our Global Vision report, you can see how African respondents viewed the strengths and opportunities of libraries in the biggest survey ever organised by IFLA.

6. Check out the papers from the sessions run by IFLA’s Africa Section over the past few years at the World Library and Information Congress in the IFLA Library. You can find out more on the Africa Section webpages, including how to sign up to the mailing list.

7. Get involved in the second 2020 edition of #1Lib1Ref, the campaign organised every year by the Wikimedia Foundation to work with librarians, drawing on their skills to make Wikipedia a more reliable, representative source of free information - check our social media for more.

Find out about the work of IFLA's Africa Section.

The Open Repositories 2020 (OR2020) conference has been postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In its place, the OR2020 Steering Committee has organized a series of virtual meetings and workshops from 1 - 4 June 2020. EIFL will host the virtual meetings.