Home Advantage for Australian and New Zealand Colleagues
For the past few months I have been working with a small group of Australian colleagues, and the IFLA HQ staff based at HQ in The Hague as part of a team developing the Summit program and everything that goes with it. The IFLA Library Futures Summit (or IIFS) is the name chosen for the 2024 IFLA President’s Meeting, and given that the current IFLA President, my friend Vicki McDonald, is an Australian based in Brisbane its only natural (and traditional) for the Summit to be held in her home city. The logo (above) is representative of the winding Maiwar/Brisbane River.
This is the first President’s Meeting since 2019, a gap necessitated by COVID, and we are all pretty excited about it. I was fortunate enough to attend the 2017 (Athens) and 2018 (Barcelona) President’s Meetings but having it in your own country makes it so much more accessible (obligatory Team Australia shots from Athens and Barcelona above).
The ‘home advantage’ is a huge opportunity for Australian and New Zealand collegaues to be able to attend an IFLA event on home soil. This will be the first time that a major IFLA event has been held in Australia since the WLIC (World Library and Information Congress) in 1988! The 2010 WLIC was scheduled to be held in Brisbane but due to a number of factors, most notably the Global Financial Crisis, it was agreed not to proceed with the plan and instead WLIC was held in Gottenberg. Its a process etched in my memory as I wasALIA President at the time and had to front meetings where people were deeply disappointed. You could say I was not Miss Popularity!
I digress. The Summit Program has been curated and will be an exciting mix of keynotes, ignite talks and intercative sessions. Reading through the speaker
biographies a few weeks ago I was overwhelmed by the depth of talent. A number of IFLA Professional Units have also seized the moment and are delivering associated events. For example Libraries for Children & Young Adults (C&YA), School Libraries (SCHOOL), Literacy & Reading (LITREAD), and Environment, Sustainability and Libraries (ENSULIB) Sections have developed a great three day program/tours Research and Effective Practices Seminar: Sustainable Reading at Every Age and Stage. I’m more than a bit biased as I have worked closely with these Units but it will be fabulous.
The Early bird rate finishes on 1 June so be quick! And for 5 reasons to attend watch this video.
Jan Richards Consulting 