IFLA committee meets in Canberra

Meredith Hinchliffe

In early February 2005, the management of library associations standing committee of IFLA met in Canberra at ALIA House.

Matilda House, an elder from the Ngunnawal people, welcomed Edita Bacic (Croatian Library Association), Arlene Cohen (Pacific Islands Association of Libraries and Archives, Guam), secretary, Keith Fiels (American Library Association), Britt Marie Häggström (DIK Association), Jennefer Nicholson (ALIA), Jan-Ewout van der Putten (Netherlands Public Library Association), Sabine Stummeyer (Berufsverband Information Bibliothek e.V.) and Winnie Vitzansky (The Danish Library Association) and Janice La Chance (Specialist Library Association) was present as an observer.

Several ALIA members were observers during the proceedings, including Alex Byrne (IFLA vice-president, president-elect), Marie Sexton (ALIA APSIG secretary/newsletter editor) and Deveni Temu (ALIA APSIG convener, and International Relations Policy and Advisory Group).

A main item of discussion was the IFLA three pillars document. The MLAS section supports this document because it recognises the importance of the 'societal' functions of IFLA, such as advocacy and information policy work. The MLAS supports establishing a method for association and individual members to provide additional support for specific projects and purposes, in addition to basic support provided through the IFLA budget.

Considerable time was spent discussing the global library association development (GLAD) program and the next steps. They acknowledged the importance of a viable GLAD program designed to provide leadership development to library associations, which would then flow into promoting the growth of IFLA association membership.

Several ways of progressing this were discussed such as a formal program of twinning and mentoring and establishing a comprehensive database of library associations for benchmarking and planning purposes to include statistical, as well as organisational information. Members agreed to work on a communications plan to get information out to library associations throughout the world and to work on a method for evaluation of the GLAD program.

MLAS considered the empowering library associations workshop held in Kathmandu in October 2004 was a good model to use in implementing regional workshops. The IFLA 2005 Conference in Oslo presents an opportunity to discuss the GLAD program with people on scholarships and gather information on library association needs. There was some discussion about regional workshops focused on library association development, using the MLAS guidelines brochures as a syllabus for the training.

It is hoped that the MLAS program and other activities will grow out of the GLAD project and regional relationships that develop in this next year, in preparation for the 2006 Conference in Seoul.

Sabine Stummeyer reported that the IFLA new librarians discussion group had a successful program at the IFLA 2005 Conference in Buenos Aires and is now planning a workshop, 'New professionals, new experiences and new ways of thinking' for the IFLA 2005 Conference in Oslo. MLAS agreed to financially support the workshop planning and implementation and to co-opt key people to the MLAS to facilitate the workshop.

Observer Alison O'Connor, ALIA New Graduates Group convener, described their group in Australia. Within two weeks of establishing the e-mail newsletter and discussion list, 200 participants had signed up with discussions ranging over many topics of interest to these new professionals.

In his report, Alex Byrne discussed the three pillars document and the IFLA relief and development partnership proposal. Alex's main points were that the IFLA's priorities are changing and much effort will be going into strategic planning, with a full day given over to strategic planning in the next IFLA governing board meeting.

Deveni Temu and Marie Sexton gave a short presentation about APSIG and distributed an information sheet and copies of the APSIG newsletter.

The MLAS Annual Report for 2004 [pdf 120kb] is on the IFLA MLAS website.

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