The IFLA Global Vision Ideas Store is the biggest ideas store for actions to make the Global Vision a reality. It is a storehouse of inspirational ideas for the strategic and daily work of librarians, which became the vision of the IFLA new strategy 2019-2014 and drives the Global Vision’s ultimate goal, to create a strong and united library field powering literate, informed and participative societies, further forward. You just need access to the internet to explore or share your idea through ideas.ifla.org/ideas
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Yes! This is the result of the Global Vision process that started in late 2016. In 2017 IFLA officially launched a global discussion, through an exploration of the challenges and opportunities of libraries around the world and in 2018 collected ideas on how to put these opportunities into action. The Ideas Store is one of the results of that process.
We collected ideas via this web form, from 12 regional meetings and two kick-off meetings, from national workshops, discussions among our Professional Units (IFLA Sections and Special Interest Groups), and from self-facilitated workshops. Also, many participants in the IFLA World Library and Information Congress shared their ideas too.
Yes! You are very welcome to submit your ideas! The Ideas Store remains open, as it is an ongoing process, an ever-growing pool of inspirational ideas for all librarians around the world, a dynamic tool that still needs your input. Check out the next question to see how you can submit your own ideas to the Ideas Store.
Click on the “Submit my idea” button in the Ideas Store website and follow the instructions on the web form to do this. You can submit your idea in any of the seven IFLA official languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Arabic, or Chinese.
Yes! You can submit your idea in any of the seven IFLA official languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Arabic, Chinese. Click on the “Submit my idea” button in the Ideas Store website and follow the instructions on the web form.
Visit the https://ideas.ifla.org/ideas and read the ideas. Each idea can be viewed on a ‘card’ that contains a short title, followed by a description. You may see which countries and regions have submitted each idea. You may also use the menu on the left side of the Ideas Store to filter ideas and make your own personalised search. You may filter ideas by opportunity, idea group, country, or region, or decide if you would like to see ideas submitted by IFLA’s Professional Units or not. You can also organise the ideas alphabetically using the icons in the filter menu.
For more information, please have a look at the ‘How to’ guide, which has more instructions on how to use the Ideas Store.
In 2017, IFLA started to explore the challenges and opportunities for libraries around the world. In 2018 we launched the Global Vision Report. This set out 10 opportunities, which are the reflection of the opinions of the global library field as voiced through the global conversation on how we can create the future of libraries, together.
You can find here the 10 Opportunities and a brief description of each one. Here you can also explore the 10 Opportunities in each of the seven IFLA official languages.
Alternatively, you may also read about the opportunities here, where additional translations are available.
The main focus of each Opportunity is as below:
Opportunity 1 – Champion Intellectual Freedom
Opportunity 2 – Deliver in a Digital Age
Opportunity 3 – Meet Community Needs
Opportunity 4 – Embrace Technological Change
Opportunity 5 – Every Librarian an Advocate
Opportunity 6 – Show our Impact
Opportunity 7 – Collaborate and Partner
Opportunity 8 – Change Structures and Behaviours
Opportunity 9 – Guarantee Access to Heritage
Opportunity 10 – Develop New Professionals
It’s a classification used to give attributes to the ideas received. You can explore ideas under different idea topics, which are called idea groups.
The Ideas Groups are:
• Advocacy
• Celebrating Successes
• Collaboration
• Community Engagement
• Demonstrating Impact and Value
• Diversity
• Education for Users
• Engaging with decision makers
• Human Resources and Funding
• Infrastructure and Platforms
• Laws and Policies
• Leadership
• Library Services
• Measurement and Evaluation
• Professional Capacity Building
• Professional Networks
• Promotion and Campaigns
• Toolkits and Materials
In the main menu with the filters, you can choose a country and then press the bottom Apply filter.
You can filter ideas by the 10 Opportunities or Idea Groups using the filter menu.
The topics are the 10 Opportunities of the Global Vision Report (available through the link) and the Ideas Groups listed below:
• Advocacy
• Celebrating Successes
• Collaboration
• Community Engagement
• Demonstrating Impact and Value
• Diversity
• Education for Users
• Engaging with decision makers
• Human Resources and Funding
• Infrastructure and Platforms
• Laws and Policies
• Leadership
• Library Services
• Measurement and Evaluation
• Professional Capacity Building
• Professional Networks
• Promotion and Campaigns
• Toolkits and Materials
These are IFLA Sections and Special Interest Groups. Currently, there are 44 Sections and 15 Special Interest Groups as well as additional bodies and committees. The IFLA Professional Units submitted ideas and these can be found in the Ideas Store. You can identify these ideas using the option “Yes” in the Limit ideas to IFLA Professional Units filter.
Yes! You can organise the ideas alphabetically using the icons in the filter menu. Click on this button if you want to organize the ideas from A to Z:
Click on this button if you want to organize the ideas from Z to A:
That means that similar ideas came from various countries and regions. These are mentioned below the idea description. We merged ideas when this was appropriate in order to showcase common needs and challenges. It is fantastic to see how, despite distance and different cultures, we share solutions or we can find ways to collaborate and solve the same challenges in the same way in many different places of the world.
You can use the filter menu to generate the results based on what you would like to find. For example, you could search across all opportunities or just for one opportunity; across all idea groups or just for one idea group in the region or the country you are interested in. You also have the possibility to see the ideas shared between countries and regions, or just those from an individual country/region, or the ideas submitted by different IFLA Professional Units. If the filters and the possible combinations and comparisons are not enough for what you want to find, you may download the CSV file. Using this spreadsheet, please feel free to try different filters and combinations.
• Your idea is not automatically published on the Ideas Store website. It first goes through a review by our in-house team of experts that thoroughly analyses all ideas submitted.
• We receive your idea, classify, then verify if we have already received a similar idea from someone else.
• It is important that the idea is clear, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Sometimes an idea is not so clear or needs more work. We don’t delete ideas, but we then wait for other ideas that can complement it or make it better.
• When the idea is in good shape, we polish it, review it and give it a title. In some cases, it produces a new idea compiling the similar ideas. We have over 8500 ideas to compare!
• We publish the idea on the Ideas Store. The review committee has meetings regularly and the ideas are published as soon as they are polished by the review committee.
• We want to inspire librarians around the world to turn the ideas into reality in your work, your country, your region.
As of 14 August 2019, we have received over 8.500 ideas. The Ideas published during the launch of the Ideas Store at IFLA WLIC 2019 in Athens, Greece are only the first round. At this stage, after categorising, comparing and merging a first group of ideas, we still have many ideas ready to be compared and merged in a new iteration. After IFLA WLIC 2019, we will continue working on reviewing and thoroughly analysing the rest ideas. We are a small but enthusiastic team :), but unfortunately we cannot process everything at the same time.
The Wall of Fame is our way of giving recognition to the library and information professionals, library associations and institutions and library supporters around the world who have made this possible. On the Wall of Fame you can find the names of the people and the organisations that either submitted their ideas online to the Ideas Store or took part at the Global Vision kick-off and regional workshops. All those participants made this compilation a representative picture of our needs and our vision of the united library field. Obviously, many people have participated in other ways, but this is just a simple way to recognise and celebrate the ideas, effort, time, energy of the library and information professionals, library associations and institutions and library supporters around the world who have made the Global Vision a truly global conversation.
We want to inspire librarians around the world to turn their Ideas into a reality. The Ideas Store aims to act as a tool to support the daily work of library and information professionals around the world, as well as their longer-term planning. Check out the Ideas that are relevant to your work, see if you can implement them in your every day work, explore common ideas your country might have with other countries or the ideas that have submitted by your country or your region and see where you stand in the world.
The Ideas submitted by the global library community not only helped support the development of IFLA’s Strategy 2019-2024, but also contribute to defining the Actions that will deliver it. Moreover, they provide support for your own actions in your work, your country, your region.
If you like an idea or if you turned an idea into a reality, claim it on social networks using the hashtag #iflaglobalvision.
Yes! Under each Idea you will see the icons of some social media networks. If you click on those, you will be able to share this Idea on your own social media networks. A card will be automatically generated that shows the title of the Idea and the IFLA Global Vision Ideas Store.
If you like an Idea or you have already made an Idea into a reality, claim it on social networks using the hashtag #iflaglobalvision. We encourage you to share this on your social media networks to let colleagues know about the initiative. Spread the word! Don’t forget to use the hashtag #iflaglobalvision
As of 14 August 2019, we have received over 8,600 ideas. We are in the process of reviewing and polishing all Ideas. At present, we have published around merged 1,200 Ideas.