IFLAPARL at the 84th IFLA World Library and Information Congress (WLIC), Kuala Lumpur, 2018
The 84th IFLA World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) took place between the 24th and 30th of August. The annual congress, setting the international agenda and offering professional development to all delegates, attracted more than 3,500 participants worldwide this year. Its many sessions ranged over issues such as emerging technology for libraries, copyright and other legal matters, knowledge management in organisational change, professional development, and adapting libraries to new roles.
For a second consecutive year, IFLA continues its innovative work on creating a global vision for a united library field! The IFLA Global Vision report summary was launched on 19 March at the IFLA President’s meeting in Barcelona. It reflects views on how a connected library field can meet future challenges from over 31,000 participants from 190 UN Member States, across seven continents. The aim is now to build a vast ‘ideas store of actions’ to realise the opportunities of the Global Vision. You can contribute and keep up-to-date with the IFLA Global Vision discussion by following the news feed.
The IFLA Section on Library and Research Services for Parliaments (IFLAPARL) convened an open session entitled ‘Transforming Library & Research Services for Parliamentary Impact’. It was an interactive and well-attended session with six short presentations and group discussions on how parliamentary research services and libraries transform their services to adapt to changing customer expectations and how they innovate to find new and more efficient ways of meeting changing customer needs. The presentations were highly engaging and the discussions lively and informative:
- Sonia Bebbington, Director General, Information and Document Resource Service, Library of Parliament, Ottawa, Canada / Transformation of PARLINFO, the Canadian Library of Parliament’s custom dataset on Parliamentary history
- Janice Silveira, Library Director, Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, Brasilia, Brazil / Report on the practical use of Design thinking: a tool of corporative innovation
- Kimio Kobayashi, Specialist for the Politics and Parliamentary Affairs Research Service of the Research and Legislative Reference Bureau, National Diet Library, Tokyo, Japan / Training program for researchers – an approach for human resource development at the National Diet Library, Japan
- Eugene Jose T. Espinoza, Library consultant, Manila, The Philippines / Re-purposing the Philippine House of Representatives Library Compendia of Laws into a searchable database: widening access and enhancing services
- Steve Wise, Director of Information Management, House of Commons Library, London, United Kingdom / Social Media: Transformative tool or #whybother? [with associated paper]
- Etienne Bassot, Director of the Members’ Research Service, DG EPRS, European Parliament / Adjusting our products and services to Members’ needs – innovative tools to reach in and reach out
Lillian Gassie gave a very interesting presentation on the use of the Guidelines for Parliamentary Research Services in a session on impact of recently approved IFLA standards;
· Use and impact of the Guidelines for Parliamentary Research Services / Lillian Gassie. Assistant Director. Knowledge Services Group. Congressional Research Service. USA – paper
In addition, the IFLAPARL Standing Committee reviewed its past and future activities during the two business meetings and cooperated with other IFLA sections to arrange a popular knowledge café on the changing role and development of information professionals, and a session with Government libraries on evidence-based policy making and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
