IFLA Secretary General Gerald Leitner

IFLA Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 2

Promoting creativity, in our communities and in our profession

It is hard to underestimate the importance of creativity.

It is the essential ingredient for so much of our lives, from the scientific innovations that allow us to address key challenges, to the arts that bring us wellbeing. Creativity is also essential to our own efforts, as the global library field, to keep on coming up with new and better ways to realise our missions.

Crucially, it is also something that we can develop, in our communities and in our work.

It is clear that libraries are far from being places simply to access, passively, the creations of others. Rather, they are platforms for and enablers of new ideas, based on the knowledge and inspiration of those who have come before.

By providing access to materials, and the environment and encouragement needed to draw on them, libraries are demonstrating how vital they are for a flourishing cultural life, opening up new possibilities and perspectives for users.

Similarly, within the field, IFLA continues to work to provide a space for the exchange and collaboration essential for new ideas to emerge and spread.

This newsletter shares perspectives from outside of our field around the role that libraries can play, looks at the work libraries themselves are already doing to advocate for the importance of creativity for all and libraries’ role in it, and welcomes examples of how this is happening on the ground.

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Gerald Leitner
IFLA Secretary General