Newsletter, February 2024: the culture and education issue

The message below accompanies the February 2024 edition of the IFLA Newsletter.

IFLA Newsletter, Vol. 4, No. 2

Welcome to the February 2024 edition of the IFLA newsletter!

Let’s start this month with a quote:

“Ensuring access to culture and the arts is inseparable from the existence of spaces dedicated to it that are open and allow for the participation of all, including… libraries.”

This is among the statements made in UNESCO’s new Framework on Culture and Arts Education, which have been endorsed this month by ministers from around the world.

Fittingly, the theme for this month’s newsletter is culture and education.

UNESCO’s new framework links individual and societal well-being to the existence of spaces within our communities that are accessible to all, which champion inclusivity and equity in education and access to information.

Libraries of course have been and will continue to be instrumental for achieving this vision. What does the new Framework mean for our sector?

Culture and the arts help people understand the world and one another. They help counter disinformation, hate speech, and xenophobia, they help us imagine and realise creative and culturally-relevant solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.

This month’s newsletter will explore how libraries are working towards this vision. We invite you to revisit the Culture Greening Communities brief in light of this new framework.

We also have updates from our Professional Units, who share how their areas of the profession help further a lifelong and society-wide approach to culture and arts education.

Have a look at how IFLA’s advocacy work is connecting libraries to the international policy space, including calling for culture to feature in the Pact for the Future and urging for multi-stakeholder participation in internet governance.

Finally, as always, take a look at upcoming events and open opportunities, and welcome our newest members.

Happy reading!