Standards work in progress

IFLA generally uses the term “standards” to refer to the following types of documents:

• Guidelines (documents specifying requirements, making provisions, and giving recommendations and basic instructions based on examples, about an action or behaviour)
• Best practices (documents suggesting the best course of action, providing information on methods or programs that have proven successful and can be adapted by others)
• Conceptual models
• Rules for resource description
• Digital encoding schemes

They are developed following the IFLA Standards Procedures Manual.

Once completed and endorsed by the IFLA Professional Council on behalf of the Governing Board, new Standards are published in the IFLA repository, announced via the news feed and included in the list of current IFLA Standards.

IFLA Standards in progress

The following IFLA Standards are in the standards review and approval process.

Standards under review

• International Guidelines for Library Services to Displaced Persons (Status: reviewed by CoS in January 2023; returned to Section to revise and resubmit; resubmitted December 2023). For further information, contact Library Services to People with Special Needs Section
• LRMoo (formerly FRBRoo) object-oriented definition and mapping from IFLA LRM, (worldwide review completed April 2023, submitted for review October 2023). For further information contact: Bibliographic Conceptual Models Review Group
• UNIMARC/A and UNIMARC/B, online editions (submitted for review October 2023). For further information contact: Permanent UNIMARC Committee

Approved for publication

• None at this time

Standards reviewed and returned to the Units

• IFLA Guidelines for Accessible Libraries and Services for Everyone, revision of the Access to libraries for persons with disabilities checklist, 2005 (Status: first reviewed by CoS in June 2022; second review July 2023; returned to Section to revise and resubmit). Further information, contact Library Services to People with Special Needs Section
• Reference and Information Services Guidelines (Status: revised draft reviewed by CoS in January 2022; returned to Section to revise and resubmit)
  Further information, contact Reference and Information Service Section
• Guidelines for Audiovisual and Multimedia Collection Management in Libraries (Status: CoS review comments returned to Section in June 2017; revisions projected 2023)
  Further information, contact Audiovisual and Multimedia Section

Standards development in progress

• International Standard Bibliographic Description for Manifestation (ISBDM), (issued for expert and community reviews in 2024, expected submission fall 2024). For further information contact: ISBD Review Group
• Guidelines for Library Services for People who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, or Deafblind, revision (in development, expected submission date 2023). For further information, contact: Library Services to People with Special Needs Section
• Guidelines for Library Services for Persons with Print Disabilities (in development, expected submission date late 2023). For further information, contact: Libraries Serving Persons with Print Disabilities Section

Recently completed and published standards

• Guidelines for Maintaining and Documenting IFLA Vocabularies (approved by CoS August 2023) ** NEW, Published 9 October 2023
• IFLA Guidelines for Library Services to Prisoners, 4th edition (endorsed by the Professional Council February 2023)
• Guidelines for Parliamentary Libraries, 3rd edition (endorsed by the Professional Council in July 2022)
• IFLA Guidelines for Professional Library and Information Science (LIS) Education Programmes (endorsed by the Professional Council in April 2022)
• Common Practices for National Bibliographies in the Digital Age (endorsed by the Professional Council in April 2022)
• ISBD International Standard Bibliographic Description : 2021 Update to the 2011 Consolidated Edition (endorsed by the Professional Council in February 2022)
• Competency Guidelines for Rare Books and Special Collections Professionals (endorsed by the Professional Committee in October 2020)
• Guidelines for Setting Up a Digital Unification Project (endorsed by the Professional Committee in August 2019)
• IFLA Guidelines on Public Internet Access in Libraries (May 2019, endorsed by the Professional Committee in June 2019)
• Gifts for the Collections: Guidelines for Libraries, expanded 2019 edition (endorsed by the Professional Committee in March 2019)
• IFLA Guidelines for Library Services to Children aged 0-18, 2nd edition, version 1.1.1, June 2018 (endorsed by the Professional Committee in August 2018)
• IFLA Guidelines for Library Services to People Experiencing Homelessness (endorsed by the Professional Committee in August 2017)
• Guidelines for translations of the IFLA ISBD namespace in RDF, version 1.0, April 2017 (endorsed by the Professional Committee in August 2017)
• IFLA Library Reference Model: A Conceptual Model for Bibliographic Information (endorsed by the Professional Committee in August 2017, amended and corrected December 2017)
• Definition of PRESSoo: A Conceptual Model for Bibliographic Information pertaining to Serials and Other Continuing Resources, version 1.3, August 2016 (endorsed by the Professional Committee in March 2017)
• Definition of FRBRoo: A Conceptual Model for Bibliographic Information in Object-Oriented Formalism, version 2.4, November 2015 (endorsed by the Professional Committee in December 2016)
• Statement of International Cataloguing Principles (ICP) (approved November 2016, endorsed by the Professional Committee in December 2016)
• IFLA Guidelines for Continuing Professional Development: Principles and Best Practices, 2nd edition (approved June 2016, endorsed by the Professional Committee in August 2016)
• Guidelines for Parliamentary Research Services (approved August 2015)
• IFLA School Library Guidelines, 2nd revised edition (endorsed by the Professional Committee in June 2015)

See also the full list of current IFLA Standards.