Next week’s meeting of the IFLA Governing Board will discuss WLIC 2025, IFLA’s finances, our Strategy for 2024-2029, the Information Futures Summit and more. Read on to find out more, including about how to stay informed.

One of IFLA President Vicki McDonald’s commitments at the start of her mandate was to strengthen communication between IFLA’s Governing Board (GB) and our member and volunteer community.

In this context, we’re happy to share news about the upcoming GB meeting on 29 July, our updated GB pages, and the dates for the next set of general Townhall meetings for Members and Volunteers.

Governing Board meeting, 29 July

The GB will meet next Monday at 10am UTC, for a virtual meeting with a busy agenda. Key topics to address are:

  • A decision on the 2025 World Library and Information Congress: as previously announced, the only bid received  was from Astana, Kazakhstan. Since the April GB, it has been possible to work more with the bid team to develop the information the GB will need to take a final decision about holding the next WLIC there.
  • A review of IFLA’s finances for April-June 2024 (Q2): this will build on the work of the Finance and Risk Committee taking place on 24 July, and discuss updated figures and projections for the Federation for 2024, based on performance over the last quarter. In particular, this will look at the more positive forecast for the year, and what may affect this.
  • A discussion on the new IFLA Strategy 2024-2029: following six surveys of members and volunteers and five consultation sessions, the GB will look at the final draft of the Strategy with a view to approving it. Once this happens, a process of communicating this to IFLA volunteers will begin, given its potential influence on the mid-term revision of action plans. It will be formally launched at the Information Futures Summit in Brisbane in September / October 2024.
  • An update on the Information Futures Summit: the Board will hear an update on progress in organising the Summit, and discuss next steps. In the meanwhile, there has been hard work both at IFLA HQ and among the Australian programme committee to advance preparations.
  • The revised IFLA Internet Manifesto: ten years on from the previous edition, the GB will consider a new version of the Internet Manifesto, designed to act as a statement of libraries’ approach to questions of internet governance to external partners. This has benefitted from extensive inputs from different parts of IFLA
  • Adding DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to the repository: the GB will consider a proposal to add DOIs to the IFLA Repository to improve its operation.
  • GB Transparency: finally, the Board will discuss how it can do more to strengthen communication and transparency with members and volunteers.

IFLA President Vicki McDonald will share a message following the GB, highlighting the outcomes of these discussions and wider developments at IFLA.

Keeping up to speed

Also in line with the commitment to sharing more, we have worked on the Governing Board pages on the IFLA website, in particular to create a fuller page on upcoming meetings, and to share more about the President’s own agenda.

We’re looking forward to talking more about the work of other GB members as well, making the contributions of the wider IFLA leadership more visible.

We’re also happy to share dates for the next set of IFLA townhalls, which will take place online between 16 and 18 September – you can find out more in the news story. Please do register, and share any questions you have in advance so that there is time to answer them.

 

We’re looking forward to sharing more about this work in Vicki’s message next week.