Motivated by all you’ve heard and seen at WLIC about how libraries can engage in broader policy agendas? Here are ten ideas for concrete things that you can do to follow up. By doing so, you help advocate for libraries, build your own profile and connections, and hopefully also gain ideas and insights for yourself!

  1. Submit a nomination to the UNESCO Memory of the World International Register: the call for nominations for the cycle 2023-2025 is open until 30 November 2023, and libraries are encouraged to get involved! Come along to our UNESCO session to learn about the programme and find out more about the International Register and the current call for nominations here.
  2. Share insight on how your library or association promotes climate action: help us measure how libraries respond to the climate emergency! Learn more about climate empowerment in our Climate Session and contribute by responding to either our library survey (if you work in an institution) or our association survey (if you represent a library association).
  3. Sign the Library SDG Pledge and get involved in the SDG Week of Action: Heads of State and Government will next month be marking the half-way point in the UN 2030 Agenda, with a focused Summit and ‘SDG Moment’. You can show how committed libraries are by signing our Library SDG Pledge, and finding out about how you can get involved in SDG Action Week.
  4. Plan to hold a workshop on culture and sustainable development: things are moving forwards on ensuring recognition of the role of culture in enabling and accelerating development. Help to keep up the momentum by planning your own workshop, both to present the work of the Culture2030Goal campaign and collect feedback on the zero draft on a culture goal. Our workshop guide is here, and more information is available here.
  5. Enlist IFLA’s Manifestos to power your library advocacy: Put the 2022 IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto into action to advocate for public libraries – find translations and tools here. If you are coming to WLIC 2023, come along to the advocacy session on the Public Library Manifesto. Also check out the session launching the updated IFLA School Library Manifesto to explore pathways to apply it to advocacy for the school library field.
  6. Participate in our survey on intellectual freedom around the world: Engaged by the discussions about how we fan promote freedom of access to information and freedom of expression in the world today? Respond to our survey on Intellectual Freedom in libraries by 31 August! The survey looks at what intellectual freedom means, what topics are controversial, laws that can restrict access, and how IFLA can help.
  7. Start an SDG Book Club: looking for something practical to do to show the impact that libraries can have in creating the conditions for sustainable development? Come along to the Learning Zone session on Tuesday 22 August at 12pm in Dock 16 if you can. Even if you can’t make it, there are lots of resources available on the UN website.
  8. Engage in Internet Governance discussions: If you have experience and interest in the impact of the Internet and technology on libraries, your input is valuable to us!. For this, we invite you to provide input for IFLA’s Internet Manifesto and think of how to engage others in the library community and beyond, and to share your thematic inputs via this board.
  9. Meet the world: subscribe to our regional mailing lists to engage with our advocacy at the regional level: Asia-Oceania, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, North America, Sub-Saharan Africa. If you attend WLIC, come along to exciting regional sessions, and open business meetings of our Regional Council and Regional Division Committees – bit.ly/MeetTheWorldWLIC2023.
  10. Read the 2023 edition of the Regional Advocacy Priorities Study Results to get an idea about where libraries focus their advocacy efforts globally and in each region. Draw on the results in thinking through your own advocacy planning and reflecting on what priorities would apply in your context. Strengthen the voice of libraries, globally, regionally and nationally, by setting goals and taking actions to respond to the field’s advocacy needs.