Monthly Archives: March 2021

The 10-Minute International Librarian #43: Think about your brand

Libraries traditionally benefit from a largely positive public opinion.

However, general warmth about libraries as an idea is not the same thing as a clear impression of why our institutions matter so much.

Ensuring that people know clearly what they gain from having libraries – and what they would miss if they didn’t – can help not only in your own local situation, but also more broadly.

This is what marketers seek to do when they try to build up a brand around their company or product, ensuring that it stands out and gets noticed.

They work hard to understand what people think about them, and to shape these reactions through advertising and other forms of communication.

So for our 43rd 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, think about your brand.

What impression do your users have of your library? What words would they use to describe it?

And what impression do you want your users and community to have of you?

You can use your ideas subsequently to think about how you can communicate your work.

Let us know your most effective ways of ensuring positive perceptions of libraries in the comments box below, and check out the work of IFLA’s Management and Marketing Section for more ideas.

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 4.4 Increase our visibility through excellent and innovative communications.

As we publish more ideas, you will be able to view these using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box below.

Highlighting the Role of Libraries in Protection and Promotion of Diverse Cultural Expressions

2021 is the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development, and IFLA has been helping libraries identify where they fit in – and how they can advocate for their role.

The UNESCO 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is an international framework in which Member States commit to promoting conditions that will allow creativity and the creative economy to thrive. You can learn more about this Convention with IFLA’s Get Into the 2005 Convention Guide.

We have examined some of the broader ways in which libraries open the door to cultural participation in a recent article. Key values upheld by libraries which allow cultural participation and protection include providing access to information, education, and lifelong learning opportunities, promoting digital, media and information literacy skills, and carrying out cultural heritage preservation.

Through our advocacy, which highlights how libraries connect their communities to all forms of cultural creation and participation, we can help build awareness of the important role of libraries in society. To do this effectively, there are four useful steps you can take:

  1. Set an advocacy goal
  2. Identify your audience
  3. Clarify your advocacy message and ask
  4. Provide examples that support your advocacy message

This article will walk you through these steps and suggest actions that you can take to advocate for the role of libraries role in cultural participation. You will be strongest working with your association if this exists, but of course contributions from individual libraries will add to this.

Step 1: Defining your Goal: Including Libraries in National Reporting

From the beginning, it is important to have an objective for your advocacy in mind. In this case, you will want to ensure that libraries and examples of relevant library programmes are included in your country’s next Period Report to the 2005 Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

This document is a result of the fact that State Parties to the 2005 Convention are required to submit a report every four years. These reports detail the policies and measures they have put in place, as well as any challenges they have encountered.

These reports are an important way for civil society and other stakeholders to engage with government officials and demonstrate progress being made towards implementing the Convention. Find out more.

Periodic Reports in 2021 and 2022

The following countries will be preparing Period Reports in the next two years. Note that the 2021 deadline for State Parties to submit their report to UNESCO is 30 June.

2021: Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Comoros, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Iraq, Morocco, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Qatar, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Serbia, Turkey, Venezuela

2022: Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Czechia (Czech Republic), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Lesotho, Malawi, Republic of Korea, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine

Step 2: Identify your Target Audience: National Points of Contact

A next step in effective advocacy is to identity your audience – in particular who will take the critical decisions, and who might influence them.

In order to achieve the goal of including libraries in your country’s next periodic report, your main audience would be your country’s National Point of Contact for the 2005 Convention.

National Points of Contact

State Parties to the 2005 Convention have each designated a point of contact responsible for information-sharing with relevant Ministries and public agencies. These contact points gather information from both governmental and non-governmental sources and assist in the drafting of the quadrennial periodic reports.

Find your National Contact Point here.

You may also want to understand who can help you in convincing the national point of contact. These may be decision- and policymakers at the local or national level, institutions, civil society organisations, inter-governmental organisations, or other stakeholders. For example, are there specific libraries which could help, cultural associations which make strong use of libraries, or key journalists or thinkers?

 

Step 3: Clarify your Message and Ask: the Recognition of Libraries

With a clear goal and understanding of your target, you can then work out how to clearly state why your audience should consider libraries as important to their work (that is your message). This will be at the heart of your advocacy, in meetings, preparing blogs or articles, on social media and beyond.

You should also define clearly what you would like them to do, in order to make things simple for the decision-maker(s) (that is your ask).

You will want to define and draft these in a way (and a language) that is appropriate for your setting, but you can use the below as a starting point.

Message:

Libraries and their staff have a key role in preserving and providing the widest possible access to culture. They can foster an environment where diverse cultural expressions are encouraged, valued, shared, and protected – an environment in which a strong creative economy can thrive. Core values that the Convention upholds are also values that libraries champion and enable. These include freedom of information and expression, participatory democratic societies, linguistic diversity, the fundamental role of education, and recognition of the importance of the digital environment in education, creating and providing access to culture.

Ask:

That in preparation of the upcoming Periodic Report, the National Point of Contact considers including examples from your country’s libraries which demonstrate how libraries have had a role in implementing the 2005 Convention and addressing challenges.

 

Step 4: Provide Examples of Libraries Contributing to the Convention’s Goals

Backing up your message with a selection of examples from your experience and that of other libraries adds power to your advocacy.

In this case, it would be a good idea to align your library’s examples with the goals of the 2005 Convention. Finding examples that align with the four goals set out in the Convention can help make a strong case to your National Contact Point for their inclusion in the Report.  The reporting period is four years, so examples can come from within that time frame.

Goal 1: Support sustainable systems of governance for culture

This might include examples of programmes, initiatives, or services that:

  • Promote information and awareness-raising activities for the culture and creative sector
  • Build capacity and/or provide training for artists and cultural professionals
  • Give support to medium, small, or micro-enterprise creative industries, such as promoting local authors and publishers, making space for art marketplaces or hosting writers or artists in residence
  • Contribute to participatory decision-making regarding cultural policy, such as making spaces for dialogue with government authorities (i.e. meetings, working groups).
  • Support digital literacy and promotion of creativity and cultural content in the digital environmental (skills and competences, creative spaces, innovation, research and development, etc.)

Goal 2: Achieve a balanced flow of cultural goods and services and increase the mobility of artists and cultural professionals

This might include examples of programmes, initiatives, or services that:

  • Connect potential beneficiaries of mobility funds to related information resources or training services
  • Participate in writing and other arts residencies or cultural events like festivals that host travelling artists or cultural professionals – notably from developing countries
  • Celebrate potentially little-known works by a diverse range of writers and other creators

 

Goal 3: Integrate culture in sustainable development frameworks

This might include examples of programmes, initiatives, or services that:

  • Promote the inclusion of culture in sustainable development plans and strategies
  • Support or facilitate cultural programmes at the regional, urban and/or rural levels, especially community-based initiatives
  • Help to ensure the right to participation in cultural life and access to culture, especially addressing the needs of disadvantaged or vulnerable groups.

 

Goal 4: Promote human rights and fundamental freedoms

This might include examples of programmes, initiatives, or services that:

  • Raise awareness of the right to participate freely in cultural life
  • Support women’s full participation in cultural life
  • Collect and manage data related to gender equality in the cultural and creative sectors
  • Advocate for writers and other artists and take a stand against limits to artistic freedom of expression

Next Steps

When you are prepared with your advocacy message, ask, and examples – it is time to reach out to the contact person you have identified. You could use the below message as a template:

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am contacting you from [LIBRARY ASSOCIATION/LIBRARY], located in [CITY]. I have noted that our country is a State Party to the 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, and that you are due to submit a periodic report in [YEAR].

In order to best demonstrate the work within [COUNTRY] to protect and promote diverse cultural expressions, it would be beneficial to include the work that libraries have done in this area over the past four years.

Libraries and their staff have a key role in preserving and providing the widest possible access to culture. They can foster an environment where diverse cultural expressions are encouraged, valued, shared, and protected – an environment in which a strong creative economy can thrive. Core values that the Convention upholds are also values that libraries champion and enable. These include freedom of information and expression, participatory democratic societies, linguistic diversity, the fundamental role of education, and recognition of the importance of the digital environment in education, creating and providing access to culture.

Some examples from our country that impact on the goals of the 2005 Convention include:

[Goal number: List examples, be brief but specific. Provide links to more information if possible]

On behalf of [LIBRARY ASSOCIATION/LIBRARY], I hope that you will consider including these examples, as they contribute to the implementation of the 2005 Convention and showcase the dedication of the nation’s libraries to this work. I remain available to answer questions or provide additional information.

We can help!

Do not hesitate to reach out to IFLA for support in your advocacy. If you have examples in mind but would like further input or require addition support in crafting your advocacy approach – be in touch. We are happy to help.

Start by emailing: Claire.mcguire@ifla.org

The 10-Minute International Librarian #42: Assess your community’s needs

Libraries and library workers have a fundamental mission to meet the needs of the communities they serve.

This is not only about developing a collection that is relevant, but also designing services and even spaces in a way that maximises the good that libraries can do.

This is made clear in the IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto, and beyond.

But to respond to needs, you need first to understand them.

Especially at times of budgetary constraints, ensuring that you’re focusing your resources where they will count is particularly important.

Being able to show that there are challenges that need to be addressed can also support you in your advocacy for adequate support.

So for our 42nd 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, assess your community’s needs.

Clearly, this can be a process that takes a lot longer than 10 minutes!

But you can already think about your own experience and local knowledge, what your users tell you, or available statistics.

Are there challenges around internet access, digital literacy, broader literacy or a lack of space for civic activities?

Are these areas where you are in a position to provide a response? If not, could you do so with additional support?

There are some ideas of how to start in IFLA’s Storytelling Manual.

Let us know what needs you have identified in your communities in the comments box below.

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 3.3 Empower the field at the national and regional levels.

As we publish more ideas, you will be able to view these using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box below.

International Women’s Day 2021 – Together for a Fairer World

As the world celebrates this year’s International Women’s Day, the focus is on building a fairer and more gender-equal world. What is the role of libraries in addressing the disproportionate – and often amplified – challenges women and girls are facing during the pandemic, and helping them succeed and thrive in the future?

Already in April 2020, UN Women voiced a stark warning: the pandemic is significantly deepening and amplifying gender inequalities around the world, in the spheres of  economics, safety and wellbeing, education, and countless other areas. These impacts are persisting, once again highlighting a need for a gender-aware response to the pandemic and recovery efforts. What are some of the challenges where libraries can – and do – offer their support?

Can libraries help share the care burdens?

One of the key points often emphasised when discussing gender inequalities aggravated by the pandemic are the disproportionate burdens of unpaid care work. This includes everything from domestic cleaning chores to taking care of children or supporting older family members – and while the workload has increased for everyone, women still tend to carry out more of these tasks.

Clearly, this requires a comprehensive response – from widely recognising the inequalities to introducing policies which help equitably distribute, compensate, support and accommodate this work. However, in the meantime, many libraries are working to take on or assist with some care tasks in their communities.

One possible example is online storytimes, which libraries run to offer some comfort and familiarity to children, help them process or deal with worries, to support parents who seek engaging, positive and educational activities to do with their kids, or just to help them feel as part of the community. Many libraries in different parts of the world have adopted this practice – for example, in the United States, a public library survey in Ohio saw 84.9% of respondents confirm that they offer virtual storytimes.

In New Zealand, public libraries ran nearly 750 storytimes during the lockdown in spring 2020. In Georgia, the director of the National Parliamentary Library took part in a campaign that encourages men to share care and household tasks equally – with well-known men recording themselves reading out stories to their children.

Similarly, there are libraries trying to help and support other members of their communities – for example, in Canada and the UK – by calling to check in and support older members of their communities and/or other potentially vulnerable residents – tasks also disproportionately taken on by female family members.

Education and learning – the urgent need for more equitable outcomes

Another key impact of the pandemic was, of course, in the field of education. While school closures had an enormous effect on all children’s right to education, students from more disadvantaged or vulnerable groups have been hit especially hard. There are serious concerns that girls in particular are at a higher risk of dropping out and never returning to school after reopening; and more young women between 18 and 29 reported feeling like they learn less and that the disruption may delay their education.

Once again, while this clearly requires extensive and comprehensive measures from a broad range of stakeholders, there are steps that libraries can take to support girls’ learning. In Kerala, India, the state government started setting up access points to remote learning in libraries and other common spaces like childcare centres. Alongside access, there are different ways in which libraries are trying to support learners with their homework remotely – from assembling useful resources to assistance with research questions or assistance programs.

Gender equality in recovery – supporting women’s participation in society and economy

The short and long-term economic impacts of the pandemic may also not be borne equally by men and women. Among the millions of jobs lost in 2020, in relative terms, more women than men experienced such a loss – and the gender poverty gaps are projected to grow wider over the next 10 years.

Are there steps libraries can take to support women employment – and overall participation in economies – in the coming years? Drawing on library expertise and experiences during and before the pandemic, a key step could be broadening access to resources and skills-building opportunities.

The Occupy Library Innovators Hub, for example, discusses a partnership between the Dimitrie Cantemir public library and an NGO “ProFemeia” in Moldova – which focused on supporting and empowering women who stay at home, particularly as more women have been released from work (e.g. as a result of emergency pandemic measures, to stay with children, and so on). This project focused on skills-building for personal and professional development and income generation, as well as psychological wellbeing – for example, addressing prejudice against stay-at-home-women.

Similarly, a recent project carried out by the Lambaye Learning Center in Senegal focused on teaching women marketable skills of working with fabric – particularly pattern design, colour mixing and dyeing – with the aim to leverage these skills as entrepreneurs.

Digital inclusion to support participation

In addition, as the job market becomes increasingly digital, digital literacy and access to ICTs and the internet are crucial. Properly connected libraries can help mitigate the gender digital gap – for example, in Lithuania, library-based digital skills courses saw women attendees outnumber men four to one!

Of course, libraries are also well-placed to deliver targeted digital inclusion interventions focusing on women. For example, Librarians Without Borders’ De Digitale Reizigers programme in Belgium helps women over 65 learn key ICT skills to confidently participate in the digital society.

Helping build the narrative for a more equal future

Clearly, there is a need for further action and measures to support gender equality in many fields – and yet, the present political context is challenging, which could make it harder to implement such interventions. A forward-looking UN Women brief mentions one of the contributing factors – a recent backlash against feminism and gender equality – which has already been noted in the 2019 Human Development Report.

This suggests one other area where libraries as information intermediaries can support women’s empowerment. By presenting and celebrating women’s narratives, highlighting their achievements, needs and experiences, they can help build a helpful and respectful conversation – and many libraries, of course, already do.

There are, of course, many diverse examples of how libraries approach this. A feminist library has been set up in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to bring together and celebrate the works of women from around the continent and the diaspora. The National Library in Malta contributed materials to the exhibition “Tracing the Path of Women in Maltese Politics”. The University of Ottawa Library launched an initiative “COVID-19: telling her-stories”, where women can share entries reflecting their experiences during this pandemic.

As many libraries organise their own initiatives to mark the 2021 International Women’s Day, supporting and celebrating women’s narratives and opportunities can be an important part of their work to help advocate for gender equality.

The costs of non-access (part 2): why it matters when uses of works are prevented or complicated

In a post last week, we looked at the importance of being able to explain why non-investment in libraries matters.

As highlighted, in difficult budgetary times, governments are faced with the challenge of how to make cuts while causing least pain.

Being able to explain the harm that reducing or freezing library spending can create is therefore an important part of advocacy.

But as set out in another blog, decisions about funding are often just one side of the same coin as decisions about what libraries can do with their funding, notably as regards copyright.

A generous budget with highly restrictive rules on how resources are used can lead to a library having the same impact as one with a much smaller budget, but one where there are much broader possibilities to use works.

So just as we need to be able to talk about the cost of not investing financially in libraries, we should also learn to set out the harm done when library users are not able to use works.

There is a particular need for such arguments when it comes to copyright, given that the argument will often be made that the sorts of exceptions and limitations that allow library users and libraries to carry out such activities come at the cost of sales, or at least licensing revenues.

Such arguments are even used in the case of books that are no longer on sale at all, on the premiss that they may at some time in the future come back into commerce.

Of course, the evidence of such library activities actually causing harm is limited. The European Commission’s impact assessment on the draft Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market made clear that allowing libraries to preserve works, or library users to carry out text and data mining would not cause any significant damage.

This does not mean that there is no cost to rightholders from such acts. It isn’t possible to prevent a reader from borrowing a book or copying a couple of pages just because she or he could also buy it – this would be to turn against the universalist mission of libraries.

Similarly, there will often be a collective management organisation ready to invent a licensing offer for a new type of use, and so claim that copyright exceptions cost revenue.

To convince decision-makers to legislate in favour of copyright exceptions and limitations, we therefore need to be show that the cost of denying or complicating access is higher. So what arguments can be used?

Lending: when libraries are not able to lend books, this effectively condemns those who are not able to buy them to exclusion from access to culture. It can also choke off a means for new authors to be discovered by readers. Preventing digital lending will tend to exclude readers who are not able to get to a library, for reasons of disability, health, distance, or – obviously enough – COVID-19 restrictions.

Research (TDM): allowing uses of works for text and data mining improves the quality of the results of mining activities, thereby advancing science. Preventing such uses will have the inverse effect. In particular in the case of machine learning, there is growing awareness that limiting the range of works that can be used for learning can lead to biases and problems.

Education: teachers and learners benefit from being able to use the best suited materials for the context and situation, in order to achieve the best results. When teachers are obliged to take time to find works they can use – or rely on a limited offer – then they are less able to do their jobs. Similarly, a lack of adequate exceptions can restrict the production of open educational resources.

Preservation: this is a core function of libraries, ensuring that the works of yesterday and today are available into the future, recognised in international law. Where it is made more difficult, fewer works can be preserved. Ironically, the imposition of restrictions on preservation copying, motivated by a desire to sustain revenues, can risk reducing the chances of the work itself surviving into the future.

Document Supply: while a traditional activity of libraries using physical works, not all copyright laws allow for digital document supply. This has an obvious impact on those whose research is facilitated by being able to access often unique books held far away. Without this, the scope of research is unnecessarily limited to the works that are available on site, defeating the object of research in the first place.

Access for People with Print Disabilities: the challenge tackled by the Marrakesh Treaty was the book famine – the tiny share of books worldwide which are available in accessible formats. A failure to allow exceptions left the choice (and responsibility) for making such copies available in the hands of rightholders, often themselves unable to make the switch. The failures caused by a lack of reform led to violation of the right of people with print disabilities to education, and to participation in scientific and cultural life.

 

As in our first blog on the costs of non-access, such arguments should be used relatively sparingly. It is important to be positive as well, focusing on how reforms could lead to better services to – and support for – communities. Yet being able to underline costs can be helpful in making it clear that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

As part of your advocacy, you are therefore encouraged to gather stories of problems – of the costs of non-access.

The 10-Minute Digital Librarian #1: Update your presence on Wikipedia

Our first batch of tips on being an effective digital librarian will focus on how you can make use of digital technologies to raise awareness of your work and services.

At a time that there is active competition for people’s time and attention, and that people expect to be able to find information easily, it is valuable to use available tools to avoid getting lost in the crowd.

A good way of doing this is by making sure that you are present on the sites that your users are using. Wikipedia is a great example, as the 5th most visited site on the internet. Furthermore, other search engines often draw on Wikipedia entries in order to provide responses.

Your library may already have a page on Wikipedia. In this case, you can make sure that information is up to date. For example, do you have collections of particular interest, or is there something unique about the building?

You may need to create a new page – there are helpful instructions available on how to start. In doing so, you will need to remember to follow the rules for Wikipedia editors, and of course that you find external sources as far as possible for what you want to say.

To get inspiration, you can look at specific examples, such as Manchester Central Library in the UK, Berlin State Library in Germany, the Central Library of Buenos Aires province, or the list of libraries in India.

You can also participate in activities like #1Lib1Ref, using your expertise to improve the quality of other articles, benefitting all of Wikipedia’s users. There’s also a great community around Wikimedia (which covers the wider range of Wiki projects), in which many librarians are already active.

Good luck!

If you are interested in library marketing more broadly, you should take a look at the work of IFLA’s Management and Marketing Section, which provides a platform to share expertise and experience.

Discover our series of 10-Minute Digital Librarian posts as it grows.

Fostering creation of Open Educational Resources

From 1 to 5 March 2021, libraries take part in Open Education Week alongside educational stakeholders.

In November 2019, UNESCO adopted a recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). This recommendation, a result of a consensus among 193 Member States, recognises the importance of supporting the development, sharing and use of openly licenced educational materials to improve access to education for all.

Libraries, as a driving force in educational issues through their missions of access to information and education, have a role to play in fostering the development of OER and thus in advancing this work.

The UNESCO recommendation is divided into five areas of action:

Building the capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER;
Developing supportive policy for OER;
Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER;
Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; and
Promoting and reinforcing international cooperation in OER.

These 5 areas of action make it possible to identify areas for action by all educational actors, including libraries. They include two levels of action, at the structural level and at the practical level. Libraries can engage in both.

At the structural, or policy level, libraries can work to influence the development of favourable open educational resource policies (many of which will be supportive of wider library missions). Crucially, the Recommendation represents an acknowledgement from countries that education is key and should be open to everyone without regard to their wealth, where they are born, the colour of their skins, their gender, their religion, age or abilities. Knowledge must be open and freely accessible. This is a powerful message.

At the practical level, libraries can also contribute to building a stronger Open Educational Resource chain. This chain involves the creation, access, re-use, adaptation and distribution of OERs, but also the development of institutional policies needed to structure these resources, including national and international platforms.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Identify the different actors that can play a role in the development of open educational resources, including the library team, the educational team, teachers, researchers.
  • Mobilise these actors through different actions: presentation of the objectives of the development of open educational resources, why it is important to tackle these issues of openness and the benefits this can bring to the library, the university and users in general.
  • Create opportunities to raise awareness of these issues or develop resources: webinars, meetings, design workshops,
  • Create opportunities to start creating OERs together: design templates, provide workshops to take the time to focus on the creation of OER but also how to re-use and distribute them.
  • Identify resources or professionals working on the same topic and contact them to exchange practices. Become part of a network or set up a discussion group to exchange good practices or existing structural elements that will enable you to move forward.
  • Identify internal or external platforms that could bring together your institution’s resources in order to facilitate their discovery by users.
  • Draw on the potential of open educational resources to fulfil the primary mission of libraries and knowledge dissemination centres: to build a sustainable means of providing quality open educational resources.
  • Bear in mind the reputational dividends: the constitution of quality open educational resources (materials or courses) by recognised organisations can give considerable visibility to the institution, especially if we consider the impact on the visibility of open access items.
  • Invite external professionals to raise awareness on this issue within your institution: working with an external contact person allows you to combine neutrality but also a national or international perspective.

Discover the document of SPARC Europe on Open Education in European Libraries of High Education.