Library Stat of the Week #36: Where there are more school libraries, children enjoy reading more

The Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers 2020 report, published earlier this week, highlights the risk that literacy could suffer as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It presents different projections, suggesting that the share of children finishing primary school with the ability to read and understand a basic text could fall back to 2015, or even 2010 […]

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Now and Next: What a Post-COVID World May Bring for Libraries 

Around the world, library and information workers are doing their best, both personally and professionally, to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Even as some libraries are – cautiously – beginning to loosen restrictions, others are seeing them come into place. Naturally, the focus is on the short term – how to keep staff, patrons safe, how to keep […]

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Library Stat of the Week #10: On average, each public or community library serves an area of 254km2 – that’s 254 000 Olympic swimming pools! But in the European Union, it’s only 59km2, and in Asia, 85km2

One of the key strengths of libraries – in particular public and community libraries – is the fact that they are local. Being close to the communities they serve gives them a unique potential to understand what people need, and to provide collections and services accordingly. Of course, ‘closeness’ is about more than just geography, […]

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Copyright for Libraries in 2018 – Part 1

Copyright laws around the world are constantly changing in an attempt to adapt – or react – to the digital world. These changes can have a major impact on how libraries function and on the public service they provide. While some reforms offer new possibilities and legal certainty, others look backwards and seek to use the law to restrict the ability of libraries to guarantee meaningful information access to their users.

IFLA therefore follows the evolution of copyright reforms around the world, as well as bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that impact copyright regimes.

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