The Academic and Research Libraries Section supports cooperation between libraries and their promotion as core institutions for research and education.

The ARL Section focuses on:

  • Cooperation and the further development of academic and research libraries,
  • Exchange of information about new library tasks and about best practices successfully implementing new service facilities,
  • Promotion and support of the role of libraries as core institutions for research and education worldwide.

ARL members are involved with academic and research libraries in Higher Education and Cultural Heritage within IFLA and on a national level.

ARL monitors current and emerging issues and their relevance to academic and research libraries. The section disseminates information and recommendations, including results of relevant research and experiences of practitioners. The major issue for ARL is the ongoing digital transformation of libraries and its impact on the libraries’ mission, organisation and service portfolios.

Important topics concerning the core library services to support evolving learning, teaching and research include:

  • Open access transformation
  • Open access publishing
  • Open data management
  • Open educational resources
  • Open source environments
  • Open science policies
  • E-research support
  • Copyright legislation
  • New shapes of library management
  • Information literacy
  • Advanced skills and further training of library staff

In cooperation with other IFLA sections we are working on these initiatives through a broad variety of activities on several levels. We strongly encourage the involvement of library professionals from developing countries in all the section’s activities and programs.

This unit is part of the Professional Division D.