Projects
Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
This IFLA section is a nominating body for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA). The award is given annually to a person or organisation for their outstanding contribution to children’s and young adult literature. Created in 2002 by the Swedish government, ALMA is the world’s largest award of its kind.
Best Practices
Best Practices may be events, reading promotions, campaigns, outreaches, partnerships, innovative use of library space or some other aspect of library services. The examples hopefully serve as a source of inspiration, benchmarking and a way to reach other library professionals for advice and discussion.
Communications
Our Communication Team is responsible for making the section’s work visible to the library world. Twice a year we release a newsletter, with both articles from around the world and updates about our work. We also have a Facebook page that we use for more spontaneous and informal communication. In order not to miss anything, subscribe to our mailing list and follow us on Facebook!
Guidelines
Our Guidelines for Library Services to Children aged 0-18 can be used to support the development and improvement of library services for children in all regions of the world. The Guidelines promote and encourage the development of effective library services for children of all abilities by giving guidance to the international library community about children’s needs and rights on information, literacy and reading. The first edition was published in 2003, with a complete revision in 2018. The current edition has been translated into several different languages. The first step towards a third edition was taken at WLIC in Dublin 2022, during a collaborative Guidelines workshop with knowledgeable participants from all over the world.
Guidelines Infographic
The Shortened Guidelines Working Group presents the Guidelines in infographics – a visual summary of the complete revised Guidelines for Library Services to Children, which provides easy access and immediate take-aways for children’s librarians anytime anywhere.
Safer Internet Day
The Safer Internet Day working group started with an initiative at the World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) Athens in August 2019. With support from Valensiya Dresvyannikova (IFLA Policy and Research Officer) the Libraries for Children and Young Adults Section formed a working group with 12 Section members from 11 countries in 2020. This group includes a mix of practicing librarians, library consultants, and researchers in the field—all who work with children and young adults in different ways.
Sister Libraries
It is a programme for children’s libraries to build a partnership, exchange views and experiences, collaborate and develop joint programs for children’s and YA’s reading and literacy. The libraries need not be IFLA members. More important is, that the twinning is embedded in the institutions – it is not just something the librarian does on a personal basis.
The World through picture books
Showing librarians’ favourite books from their country. It can be used:
- As a way of celebrating and promoting the language, cultures and quality of children’s book publishing from each country;
- By countries wishing to purchase books from other countries and looking for popular and “multi-cultural” titles;
- By Sister Libraries as a way of exploring the children’s literature of their Sister Library country.
Other ongoing work
In addition to the above-mentioned projects, we continuously work on planning activities for the annual World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) as well as the section’s own mid-year meeting, which also takes place once a year.