The IFLA Metropolitan Libraries Section’s focus for 2024-2025 is on urban transformation, sustainability, and civic engagement. The future of metropolitan libraries is entwined with the future of the large cities they serve. Cities are places where diversity and the density of people and ideas fosters innovation and well-being. At the same time, stark contrasts between wealth and poverty, along with pluralism, may generate friction. How can libraries contribute toward the achievement of equity and inclusion, sustainable urban growth, learning, and innovation?

These are questions being considered by participants in the MetLib Learning Circle, now in its second year. MetLib Learning Circle is a 12-month talent development program initiated by the Metropolitan Libraries Section for library leaders from libraries serving urban areas with populations of more than 400,000. Participants have the opportunity to build international networks, access cutting-edge library innovations worldwide, understand urban planning dynamics, and receive mentorship from experienced and innovative library leaders. The 2024 -2025 cohort consists of 18 participants from 8 different countries on 3 continents. (The first year had 17 participants from 12 countries and 5 continents.) The Learning Circle is facilitated by Tommi Laitio, a strategist on cities, partnerships, and public spaces, who hails from Helsinki and was appointed as the inaugural Bloomberg Public Innovation Fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Public Innovation from 2022 – 2024.

MetLib Learning Circle participants meet virtually every month, hearing from advisors such as Stephen Wyber, External Affairs Director at IFLA, on the New Urban Agenda, as well as from other library notables who serve as an Advisory and Development Group for the Learning Circle. Each month, several participants also prepare presentations on local library projects to share with their colleagues. At least 11 participants in this year’s MetLib Learning Circle will attend an international library conference in Barcelona October 6 – 8, hosted by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and multiple units of IFLA, where they will present their local projects, showing how they support their cities’ advancement, sustainability, and equity and how their institutions act as convenors for ideas, organizations and people.

Author: Carolyn Anthony – Chair, IFLA Metropolitan Libraries Section