Monthly Archives: April 2021

The 10-Minute International Librarian #49: Think about setting up an SDG Book Club

Books – and so the libraries that provide equitable access to them – can be a great way of discovering and engaging with new ideas.

This is particular the case for children, given the ability of books to open new horizons and raise new questions about key issues.

And are no sets of issues more critical for the future than the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The SDG Book Club brings together the UN, publishers, libraries and booksellers in order to promote a list of books in all six UN languages, for each of the 17 SDGs.

They provide a starting point for teachers, librarians and parents in helping young people to think about the world.

But you don’t just have to rely on the official selection!

For our 49th 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, think about setting up an SDG Book Club.

What books can you think of that help get people thinking about the issues in the SDGs, in your language, and ideally which are relevant to your users?

What steps will you need to take to get there? Who can you work with – publishers? Organisations promoting books for young people? UN offices?

There are resources on the SDG Book Club page on the United Nations website, as well as information about how to get your club listed on the UN website.

Share your ideas in the comments below!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 1.1 Show the power of libraries in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals .

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.

Girls in ICT Day: Towards a more fair and equal digital future

This year, 22 April marks the 10th anniversary of the International Girls in ICT Day. First Introduced by the International Telecommunication Union, on every fourth Thursday in April it draws attention to the need to bring more girls and young women into tech, ICT and STEM sectors.

Over the past years, libraries in different parts of the world have taken part in the Girls in ICT Day celebrations – for example, in Kenya and Suriname. These activities build on a natural alignment between the goals of the Day, and libraries’ experiences with supporting digital literacy and equitable access to knowledge.

So, what do gender digital divides look like in 2021, and what can libraries do to help?

“Connected Girls, Creating Brighter Futures”

Estimates suggest that less than 35% of positions in the tech industry and related professions are taken by women; including only 24% of leadership positions. More broadly, there are gender inequalities in internet access and device ownership, and social and cultural norms which may still restrict meaningful access and use of ICT for women.

A recent World Wide Web Foundation report offers a more in-depth exploration of these gender digital divides. Drawing on the experiences of women in four countries in the LAC region, Africa and Asia, it highlights that:

–  Data affordability is an important barrier: particularly in rural areas, women were more likely than men to say that costs limited their internet use;

–   Similarly, women in rural areas more frequently cited a lack of digital skills as a reason for not going online;

–   Women were less likely to create content online;

–   And finally, they also expressed more concern about their privacy, and had less trust in how tech companies use their data.

These inequalities can manifest themselves early in life. Focusing on the experiences of girls and young women, another important piece of the puzzle lies in the recently released General Comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. One of the key overarching principles it sets out to help realise children’s rights in digital environments is non-discrimination. This includes overcoming digital exclusion, particularly the gender-related digital divide.

Girls can, for example, face more restrictions in accessing online environments, be less likely to own a phone; or face disadvantages in developing digital skills. An accompanying explanatory note points out that, while universal personal and individual access to ICT and the internet is the preferred long-term outcome, in situations where children are unlikely to have it, states should work to expand public access offerings.

Naturally, offering this kind of shared and equitable access had long been one of the key priorities for the global library field. Overcoming gender inequalities in access to digital technologies and the internet is certainly an important step to realising the goals emphasised by the Girls in ICT Day (as reflected in the first part of its motto this year – “connected girls”). The next step, however, is going beyond connectivity and empowering more women to pursue education, learning, and careers in STEM.

How can libraries help realise this?

Overcoming gender inequalities in this field certainly requires a comprehensive response from many stakeholders. This includes, for example, making the internet a safer space for girls, creating more opportunities and incentives for young women’s participation in the private tech sector, encouraging them to follow STEM higher education tracks, and more.

As community and lifelong learning centers, libraries have been gaining experience in this field. Both before and during the pandemic, we see examples of libraries encouraging and supporting girls and women to pursue their interest in tech in many different ways. For example:

– In Singapore, the Jurong Regional Library hosted an exhibition exploring the nexus of art and technology by an all-women arts collective – with the National Library Board’s MakeIT space helping artists pick up new digital skills;

– In India, the Technology Empowering Girls program was launched to offer young women learning opportunities to develop both digital and soft skills, to help boost their career opportunities;

–  In Canada, the Vancouver Island Regional Library ran a coding competition for young women and girls;

–  And in several countries, libraries worked together with civil society and tech sector partners to deliver events (e.g. CoderDojo4Divas in Belgium) and clubs and courses (e.g. GirlsWhoCode in the US, UK, India and Canada), which cater specifically to girls or young women.

Inclusive and reflexive practices

Because of the multiple and structural gender digital divides, it is also important to learn from the initiatives aiming to encourage girls and women pursue their interest in IT. What works, and why? What can help overcome the different barriers girls and women may be facing?

For example, a recent article in Hello World talks about a coding club for adults in a public library in Almere, the Netherlands. The club succeeded in engaging women, who made up more than half of the participants. Mindful of the existing gender stereotypes around coding, the founder asked what they found attractive about this offer. The women pointed out that the club being run by a woman was a draw, since it offered positive social proof. Another draw was the fairly low-pressure nature of the club – prioritising fun and engagement, rather than the pressure to get things just right, helped overcome some participants’ hesitation.

Another example is the work of Libraries Without Borders on their project IdeasBox4Women. When BSF noticed lower attendance among women to their Ideas Box project, which offers access to technology and learning opportunities, they ran a diagnosis and designed an intervention specifically for women and girls.

This includes concrete measures, like setting aside women-only timeslots and organising gender-mixed activities; as well as making sure that women and girls have access to female facilitators. Another key element are activities which raise awareness about local gender inequalities and dynamics. They help draw attention to existing challenges, while fully giving local communities the space to address and act on this awareness in ways which best suit their customs and culture.

These examples show how reflexivity and mindfulness towards women’s needs can help create more inclusive spaces.

As we continue to learn from such initiatives and interventions, libraries and their partners can help create a more fair and equal digital future!

Caught in the Backwash? Six things worth retaining from the time of the pandemic

When IFLA’s Trend Report was released in 2013, the strapline was ‘Riding the Waves or Caught in the Tide’.

The Report focused on long-term trends affecting the way we live, work, interact and learn.

Today, libraries are of course faced with the very immediate question of how to provide services during a pandemic, and manage a recovery that is likely to be uneven and slow.

In particular, there will be key questions about when special measures taken in the context of the pandemic should be withdrawn.

This applies, of course, to restrictions on travel, on the opening of libraries, schools and businesses, and to the huge focus of resources into boosting medical capacity.

Finding the right time to return to ‘normal’ (insofar as this is possible) is a hard question, and decisions will need to take account of many factors, not least risks to health.

However, there are arguably some measures and practices which shouldn’t be withdrawn at all. In effect, as the wave recedes, how can we avoid these good things being caught in the backwash?

This blog offers a few suggestions of things we might want to keep from the time of COVID-19, building on our own experience and ideas shared by others.

Better deals for digital content: 2019 was marked, in particular, by tensions around the decision by some publishers to enforce embargoes on eBooks before making them available to libraries.

With the beginning of the crisis, not only was this position lifted, but there were welcome steps by a number of publishers to offer discounts on electronic content, helping to meet major increases in demand. As Publishers Weekly noted, increases in library use have gone hand-in-hand with increases in sales, and sales and profits have increased for many individual companies.

Of course, we are far from a perfect situation. Some special deals have lapsed, and eBooks remain expensive for libraries in comparison with the prices paid by consumers. In the academic field, there have been particular concerns about high and rising prices.

As positive sales figures for publishers are reported and analysed, we can at least hope that there will be a greater readiness to accept that library lending of digital content is not a harm, but rather a support to digital reading in general.

Awareness of the Need for Open Access and Copyright Reforms: a further impact of the crisis, at least in some countries, has been awareness of the need to ensure that copyright laws keep up with technology, in particular by ensuring that libraries can pursue their missions just as well through digital means as through analogue ones.

Linked to this is the drive to increase the share of research published open access, by-passing the need to rely on copyright exceptions in order to access and use work. Millions of educators, learners and researchers will now have their own experience of  whether materials are available to them online or not.

Bringing together this experience in order to sustain the momentum could see important progress, replicating the progress we are seeing in the proposals for reform made in Australia and Japan. At the international level, reiterating and underlining that existing global rules allow such steps will also be helpful.

Improved Services to People with Mobility Issues: during the pandemic, whole populations have discovered what it is like having to live life without having access to the physical premises of libraries. However, this was already the case for many – those living in remote areas, with limited mobility, in care homes or in prisons.

In response to lockdowns, there has been a wave of innovation in the provision of content and services, both to wider user groups and targeted on individuals most in need.

When safe re-opening is possible, there will clearly be a limit on resources – providing services offline and online can require much more effort and investment than providing just one of the two. However, we can hope that lessons from the crisis are learned and those without the possibility to access a library physically will benefit from lasting improvements in provision.

More regular, shorter meetings: pre-COVID, the possibility of physical meetings – conferences, seminars and other events – tended to a large extent to structure the rhythm of cooperation and communication between professionals. Where there were electronic meetings, these tended to be smaller, serving mainly to keep things moving.

However, without the possibility to meet in person during the pandemic, we have seen mush more exploration of the scope of digital platforms to bring people together. For example, in Ireland, regular town hall meetings have brought together all librarians in the country on a regular basis – something that would previously only have been thought of as something for conferences.

Similarly, many of IFLA’s own sections have moved from coming together twice a year for longer periods to more frequent, shorter sessions. These have allowed greater responsiveness to events, and new possibilities for participation. This feels, certainly, like a good practice to maintain.

Bringing in new voices: linked to the above point, with physical meetings not possible, we have hopefully seen a lasting weakening of the idea that it is necessary to travel in order to be able to participate. While it is clear that poor connectivity remains a major challenge, it is certainly easier to address than that of finding the money, time and visas to attend meetings in other countries or continents.

Again drawing on IFLA experiences, there have been exciting new possibilities to attend meetings organised by colleagues around the world, learning from a wider and richer range of experiences. This has opened a door to a greater diversity in the voices heard within the library field.

While of course meeting again in person will be important, both personally and as a means of reenergising the wider community, there will be value in maintaining these wider possibilities for engagement which have brought so much to the debate within the field.

Seeing libraries as an investment: finally, it has been welcome, in the context of the pandemic, to see some governments at least see supporting libraries as a way of stimulating economies. Such investments, crucially, are designed not only to create jobs now, but also to create the foundations for stronger growth in future, and so repay themselves over time.

Examples have included support for stronger connectivity, enlarged collections, and building works, all of which make it easier for libraries to fulfil their mission of providing equitable access to information.

While stimulus packages will have an end date, the evidence of the recognition that investing in libraries is a way of building a stronger economy is one that will be worth working to maintain. Gathering data about the positive impact of this work, as far as possible, will help with library advocacy for years to come.

The 10-Minute International Librarian #48: Think of a trend that will shape the field

Libraries are closely tied to the communities they serve.

Changes in the way people live, earn, socialise and behave will often have an impact on what they need from libraries, and how they use them.

In the meanwhile technological shifts can affect how libraries, in turn respond.

In this way libraries are affected by the major economic, societal, cultural and technological evolutions.

Being aware of them, and thinking about their impact – both positive and negative – can help you plan, as well as providing a great basis for discussion with colleagues around the world.

For example, IFLA’s Trend Report identified a number of examples back in 2013, with a 2016 update offering further ideas.

So for our 48th 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, think of a trend that will shape the field!

Think about how it could impact your users, and so your own ability to serve them.

Are there opportunities to do something more or something different to provide more help?

Are there threats which will need to be addressed in order to ensure services into the future?

You can use this as a basis for discussions at meetings or events, or in your work with colleagues around the world.

Share your ideas on key trends affecting libraries in the comments below.

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 2.1 Produce, communicate and distribute key resources and materials that inspire the profession.

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.

World Heritage Day: Libraries, Access, and Engagement

The International Council on Museum and Sites (ICOMOS) is a global non-government organisation working for the conservation and protection of cultural places. As libraries are important features of cultural places and contributions to knowledge on cultural heritage, ICOMOS and IFLA are partners on many joint initiatives – see our work on the report, Culture in the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda, for an example.

We are therefore excited to take this opportunity to reflect on the contributions of libraries to heritage discourse on ICOMOS’s annual World Heritage Day (18 April).

The theme of World Heritage Day 2021 is Complex Pasts: Diverse Futures.

Within this theme, “ICOMOS wishes to engage in promoting new discourses, different and nuanced approaches to existing historical narratives, to support inclusive and diverse points of view”.

Libraries are keepers of stories. We are also living spaces where everyone and anyone can meet, diverse points of view can be shared, and these stories can be told.

Libraries therefore have an important role in enabling complex pasts to be better understood, and diverse futures to be shaped.

UNESCO World Heritage

Visiting a World Heritage Site can be an awe-inspiring experience. Sites chosen for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List are deemed to be of outstanding universal value – meaning they offer a truly irreplaceable contribution to the shared heritage of humankind.

Visit the website of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre to learn more about the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the List.

As impressive as a monument or site on the World Heritage list can be, there is often much more significance to be found beyond its façade.

Documentary Heritage and Historical Narratives

For World Heritage Day 2020, we explored how documentary heritage, namely materials on the Memory of the World register, can provide a deeper understanding of a related world heritage site.

An example that is equally relevant for this year’s theme is the World Heritage Site Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison (Barbados), looked at in parallel with the Memory of the World document An African Song or Chant from Barbados.

When one examines this site together with the testament of a life of enslavement, offered through the African work song, it is possible to get a far more complete picture of the human cost of colonialism.

See our blog article: Shared Stories: How documentary heritage enriches monuments and sites for more.

However, on this year’s theme, it is worth also examining how libraries as community spaces can help enable these discoveries and inspire conversations around them.

Inclusive Spaces for Diverse Futures

Cultural heritage is for everyone, but in order to support diverse points of view in cultural heritage discourse, cultural heritage spaces must be understood as being accessible to all.

In setting this year’s theme, ICOMOS acknowledges the role that the cultural heritage sector has in the critical examination of the past. The omission and erasure of points of view through the privileging of some narratives over others is a legacy that memory institutions must strive to reconcile.

For example, in recognition of this responsibility, International Museum Day 2020 was centred on Museums for Diversity and Inclusion. Within this theme, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) acknowledged that “there remains much to do to overcome conscious and subconscious power dynamics that can create disparities within museums, and between museums and their visitors.”

As champions of access for all, libraries too have a role to play in making cultural heritage not only accessible, but something in which anyone and everyone is invited to actively participate.

One way this can start is by engaging new audiences and emphasising inclusive and participatory ways to experience World Heritage sites.

Libraries as Accessible Spaces

As memory institutions, libraries are keepers of heritage through the materials they collect and make available. However, libraries are also living spaces – open to the public with a mission that centres on providing learning opportunities to all.

When present at a World Heritage Site, libraries help integrate the site with the greater social fabric of the community and reach new audiences through the services and programmes they offer.

For example, the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek is part of the “Classical Weimar” UNESCO World Heritage Site (Germany) and receives some 100,000 visitors each year. As a portion of the site’s value lies in its legacy of literary and scholarly achievement, it is appropriate that the library offers a publicly assessable, free-of-charge space for learning, research, and study.  Specifically, the library provides access to over one million pieces of media, including over 170,000 items on open-access shelving at the Study Centre which users are free to peruse or borrow.

Further cooperation with the World Heritage Site’s education and inclusion and diversity programmes invites learners of all ages and backgrounds to use the library while also enjoying the historically significant space.

Dynamic, living libraries can combine historically significant buildings and collections with services that meet the needs of modern users. In doing so, they invite people into spaces with which they may not have otherwise engaged.

Libraries are spaces for people to come together to discuss and learn, and this is a value that can contribute to the democratisation of heritage sites. How libraries can support inclusive and diverse points of view within heritage spaces is a question that certainly must be explored further.

There is more to do!

IFLA has explored how libraries of all kinds are promoters of cultural diversity through their role as multicultural hubs.

The IFLA/UNESCO Multicultural Library Manifesto upholds libraries as gateways to a cultural diverse society. This Manifesto states that “libraries of all types should reflect, support and promote cultural and linguistic diversity at the international, national, and local levels, and thus work for cross-cultural dialogue and active citizenship.”

To this end, cultural heritage sites – World Heritage or otherwise – are encouraged to view libraries in their communities or within their boundaries as learning, cultural, and information centres, and as vectors to further the educational ambitions of the site, communicate its value, and engage new audiences.

However, in doing this, institutions must reflect the diverse perspectives of the communities they serve. This includes making an active effort to centre, value, record, share, and make space for diverse voices and narratives.

Libraries within heritage sites of all kinds are encouraged to be proactive in developing the relationship they have with their wider communities and enable inclusive conversations on the site’s significance.

Has your library made space for diverse voices to contribute to cultural heritage discourse? We would love to hear about it in the comments.

The 10-Minute Digital Librarian #4: Develop a Plan for Social Media

In the first round of 10-Minute Digital Librarian posts, we’ve been focusing on how you can use digital tools in order to raise awareness about your library and its services.

We’ve looked at how to improve your discoverability through Wikipedia and mapping tools, as well as working on how easily you can be found via search engines. In the latter, we mentioned the value of thinking, also, about search engines within social media platforms.

Of course, social media presence is about more than just being found. When used well, it can be a great way of engaging users, and bringing them either into your building, or at least onto your site.

Our 4th 10-Minute Digital Librarian exercise therefore focuses on taking the time to develop a plan for social media.

Planning is important, given that your time is valuable, and of course it is possible to spend far too much time on social media!

Key questions you may want to think about include:

  • Think about who you want to reach? Are you focused on communicating with your existing users – who are they? Or do you want to reach out to additional groups? If you are starting, it makes sense to begin with existing users.
  • Linked to this, think about what you want to achieve through your social media presence.
  • Which channel or channels make most sense for you? This is likely to be steered by the type of audience you want to reach? If it’s professionals, LinkedIn may be best. Facebook users tend to be older, while younger ones use Instagram. Think also about networks such as Telegram, Signal or WhatsApp where these are used to share news and information.
  • Play around with the analytical tools available on the platform. These can offer you interesting lessons about which posts achieve most impact. Factors such as the theme of the post, the style, use of images, and even time of day can play a role.
  • Plan for regular content, but keep it sustainable for yourself in terms of time and effort. With experience, you will learn more about what works or not. Try to maintain a consistent brand as far as possible, and use images to make things attractive.
  • Be ready to interact with those who follow you – it can be a great way of building up links. You can also proactively follow others, including with others who can spread the word about your work.
  • Don’t forget to lead people to your site! While social media sites themselves seek to capture attention, your goal should be to get people engaging with library resources and services!

There are fortunately many good resources, not least papers presented at sessions organised by our Management and Marketing Section at previous World Library and Information Congresses.

There are also lots of resources online that you can take a look at of course – we’ve drawn on a selection of these in putting together this post, for example Super Library Marketing, bookriot.com, the Open Education Database,  or this example from a non-library source. Look around and see if there are a set of tips that work for you.

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.

The 10-Minute International Librarian #47: (Re)read the Sustainable Development Goals

It’s clear – sometimes high-level policy documents can seem a long way away from day-to-day work.

They deal in big ideas and big concepts, and can feel too much to do much about on your own.

At the same time, they can also offer an opportunity to think into the long term, as well as understand the ideas – and words – that preoccupy those in power.

As such, they can be a motivator for action, as well as a tool for advocacy.

There are few better examples than the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – 17 high level objectives, running over 15 years.

While the overall 2030 Agenda, set out in a UN Resolution from 2015, comes to over 30 pages, the goals themselves are easy to read and understand.

So for our 47th 10-Minute international Librarian exercise, (re)read the Sustainable Development Goals.

You may well already have gone through them once or twice, but it can be surprisingly useful to refresh your memory.

Sometimes you will spot possibilities or connections you did not see before. Sometimes it’s just useful to have the reminder of the global goals that all governments have committed to work to achieve.

By looking through all of them, you can also think about how wide the contribution of great libraries to societies, economies and culture can be.

Share your experiences of using the SDGs in your thinking and planning in the comments below.

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! 1.1 Show the power of libraries in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals.

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.