School Librarians at IFLA

More than 4,000 librarians from 150 countries gathered in Québec, Canada, last month for the World Library and Information Congress of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). And although school librarians were not in the majority, they did have a presence.

Prior to the main conference events, there was a UNESCO-sponsored satellite workshop on information literacy at Laval University.

Representatives from each continent talked about the value of information literacy in their respective countries and the entire group discussed how to design information literacy training sessions.

Lesley Farmer, an International Association of School Librarianship representative, emphasized organizational networking.

During an IFLA session called “All aboard at the school library: giving children the tools they need to navigate the future!,” Elmir Yakubov of the Municipal Library in Khasavyurt, Russia, talked about the importance of overcoming ethnic intolerance through reading discourse. Hirono Aoyama-Yazawa of the Senri International School Foundation in Osaka, Japan, showed how she integrates information literacy into the curriculum through student presentations of local plant life and world inventors. Gry Enger of Vahl Primary School in Oslo, Norway, shared results of a national survey on the added value of Norwegian school libraries. Nearly all schools in her country have a library, although upper secondary school libraries have the best staff, resources, and availability.

What's in store for next year? The IFLA's School Libraries and Resource Centers Section is exploring the status of school libraries around the world to determine relevant competencies that teachers and administrators need in order to make sure that 21st century library tools are used in schools. There also was a consensus that school librarians need to make a bigger splash in IFLA.