Schedule

Opening session: welcome, highlights, rules, thanks & more.

What is a library’s core strength? Only providing information? Whoever thinks this is, perhaps unwittingly, out of date. The challenge for libraries lies elsewhere: in making knowledge available! Patrons are not passive recipients, but curious participants. The new goal is for people to try things out, to make something by themselves, and to enjoy this new knowledge - acquired alone or in groups, online or in person, in analog or digital format. Curiosity and joy of discovery are of paramount importance! The essence lies in future-oriented service offerings, that primarily encourage doing and rely solely on the active participation of citizens.

Librarianship is a truly global profession, with millions of members all over the world. This brings with it great opportunities to learn, make links, and work together in support of great library services for all. IFLA’s own mission is to help realise this potential by inspiring, engaging, enabling and connecting the field. Through resources, activities, and spaces for discussion, IFLA offers you ways to get involved in international librarianship! In this session, hear about just ten ways to do this, from learning more about our global field to sharing your own stories, from ten-minute activities to hone your advocacy skills, to becoming a member, from engaging with the IFLA Strategy to improving library Wikipedia! Join us to find out more!

Public spaces play important roles in supporting citizens’ engagement and participation in community's decisions. The existence and control over public spaces are themes of prolonged debate, in young and traditional democracies. Here are four brilliant 15 minutes presentations on the topic, with our brilliant speakers from Turkey, Germany, Finland, and Ukraine. Let's see what libraries have to say!

Hands-on workshop about the practice and implementation of learning circles in libraries, by Nico Koenig and Grif Peterson from Peer 2 Peer University (USA), and Nicole James from Stadtbibliothek Köln (DE).

Join our colleagues from Denmark, Romania, Mexico, Germany, and USA for a speed-travel through their minds! Ignite Talks are short 5 minutes talks with 20 slides that advance automatically. The presentations are meant to make the audience interested in a subject or an idea that is worth sharing.

Public libraries are traditionally in the forefront of community support, through culture, education and social involvement. Here are four inspiring 15 minutes presentations on the topic, with our fabulous speakers from Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, and USA, covering as many facets as possible, about libraries’ work for communities in time of crisis.

Tired of sitting in front of a screen? Then join us for an interactive, and a little magical, session about innovation in public libraries. We will not only talk about innovation, but illustrate how you can use it in a 90 -minute online workshop with a mobile app that will give us real-time input from participants with quizzes, live polls, and word clouds. We will take a glimpse into EIFL’s (Electronic Information for Libraries) study on innovation, and give you a chance to share your thoughts about how innovation happens in your libraries, and describe obstacles to creativity and how you address them. Most importantly, through selected real-life examples and inspiring guest contributors from Africa and Europe, we will showcase how peer-to-peer learning across geographical boundaries brings new ideas to public library practices. Looking for new insights and a bit of fun? This session is for you.

As the threat from COVID-19 increased, library services across the world rapidly realigned, this period saw a dramatic transition to online-only provision of library services, operations, access to collections, and audience engagement at an unprecedented speed. This DIGITAL PIVOT provided a shift for us from collections to connections to supporting our communities, their learning, the caring and new programming. It is a unique moment in time for us to explore opportunities and experiences during this period of extraordinary and rapid service realignment. Now is the time to capitalise on how libraries have supported their communities, to build on the success and promotion that the digital pivot provides. The opportunities this has presented for the library’s audience to shift, grow and change, bringing more people into contact with the library, in different ways, and for different purposes.

Get your wine, beer or gin glass, and join us in the Networking area for some fabulous/fun/random/one-to-one short discussions!

Introduction to day 2, highlights of the day.

"The library is the most democratic space of culture, that is free, open to all ages, sexes or skin colors. An inclusive space displaying both contemporary art and stamps, honoring local heroes, while also hosting workshops of institutional critique. In 1993 I finished an installation on which I worked for 3 years. Anthropoteque. The library with people. A wall with 5000 drawings. My masterpiece. Unfortunately at that time there was no art institution in Romania that could assure a safe and professional transportation for the art work to travel outside the country. At that time I was not famous enough for the Western partners to cover this. I was blocked with my “masterpiece” at home. This talk will reveal the road that I took as an artist from dictatorship to democracy, from censorship to freedom of expression. The way in which my artistic practice adapted and answered to the shortages, hardships, and changes of all sorts in the word and in culture. In 2010 I built a house-studio-stack with shelves on every wall. Starting from 2010 I dream among books. "

Let's grab a virtual coffee together in the Networking area. Bring your joy and passion for the library!

Public libraries are traditionally in the forefront of community support, through culture, education and social involvement. Here are two 15 minutes presentations from Goethe Institute - Bucharest and Tampere Public Library, followed by three ignite-talks from Lithuania, Moldova, and Ireland, to give you a taste of libraries’ work for communities in time of crisis.

Eight fantastic ignite-talks will take you through communities from Germany, Romania, Ecuador, and Moldova. Let's see what libraries have to say when it comes to public spaces and their roles in supporting citizens’ engagement, community participation, and decision making.

Mike Waldron is an independent consultant, working in the area of inter-cultural literacy, dialogue, cultural relations and diversity. With a wide range of experience, his work encapsulates over twenty years of engagement with minority communities, disadvantaged and disaffected youth, public policy, training and programme design.

Can local responses to COVID-19 be applied at a national and international level? Together with his guests, Dr. Stuart Hamilton -NAPLE President for the period 2020-2023- will answer this question and will discuss community's responses to crisis, related to current events. His experience encompasses policy development, implementation and advocacy in international multi-stakeholder environments, primarily in the areas of access to digital information and freedom of expression.

New technology does not fundamentally change the rights and obligations of a citizen in a democratic country. However, the new ICT allows for multiple ways of engagement and participation in the life of the community. Let's see how libraries contribute to this, in three 15 minutes presentations from Romania, Croatia, and Ukraine, followed by two ignite-talks from Moldova, and Romania.

During this workshop, Ellen M. Knutson and Svetlana A. Gorokhova will introduce librarians and will help them develop the necessary skills to convene and facilitate community conversations on important issues for their communities. Using deliberative dialogue, a neutrally moderated forum for people come together with the goal of finding a shared direction, based on what the group holds valuable. This workshop will help people explore the tensions created by these issues, identify what they value, work through tough choices, and seek areas of common ground for action.

Our partners are waiting for you in the Expo area. Take the time to say hello!

Introduction to day 3, highlights of the day.

Eppo and Erik will talk about innovation in the Cultural Sector. New technologies are coming into our daily lives and are constantly changing the way we spend our time and the way we keep, share and make our stories. Now more than ever, it seems important to work together in order to notice the many opportunities that are out there, analyse their impact, and it is also important to be conscious about ethical and legal conditions, at the same time of stretching our horizons.

Democracy is a longitudinal process built up with citizens’ participation. The active actors in democracy are, besides the engaged citizens, the state and local actors: institutions, organizations, civic groups. Who is providing support for the development of democratic literacy? How do libraries support stronger democratic communities? Let's explore these hard questions together with our speakers from Canada, Croatia and Moldova.

The promise of digital tools contributing to bridging the societal division is yet to be fulfilled. But it is clear that, in this process, the danger of a new separation is real. The latest tech trends can contribute to a society where the haves and the have nots possess the same power in changing people’s lives for the better and influencing their democratic representation. Let's explore how libraries fit in this brave new world: three 15 minutes presentations from Denmark, Russia, and Romania, followed by two ignite-talks from Romania, and Moldova!

Want to meet like-minded library enthusiasts and expand your horizon by sharing thoughts, ideas or challenges with them? Let's meet in this informal virtual space and learn more about who's who!

The starting point of the discussion is the label that society sets on disabled people, limiting the individual in a socially and also psychologically manner. We’ll take a step by step look at the role of the educational system, libraries, and state authorities, through policies they are suppose to make, in order to support the normal integration of these people into society. Join this panel discussion hosted by the National Library of Romania!

A panel discussion on the legacy of the Global Libraries program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as seen through the eyes of former grantees and current library transformers, facilitated by Deborah Jacobs and Jessica Dorr.

Our partners are waiting for you in the Expo area. Take the time to say hello!

The free culture movement and traditional memory institutions - enemies, or love story waiting to happen? The Wikimedia movement, in particular, has been partnering with memory institutions ("GLAMs") for about a decade, with impressive outcomes for all sides, and above all for the general public. This talk will present some inspiring successes and partnership models, explore some of the less-obvious challenges and contexts for free culture partnerships in emerging communities (e.g. systemic bias), and conclude with reflections on how the rest of us can help create such partnerships in our local context

We need your thoughts and ideas, your feedback and answers, as we don't stop here: Occupy Library 2022 is coming!

Met up in the Networking area - library lovers are waiting to be your acquaintance!

Introduction to day 4, highlights of the day.

Christine Mackenzie has been working tirelessly for a stronger and more united library field powering literate, informed and participative societies. Christine Mackenzie and Erik Boekesteijn will explore together current issues in libraries all over the world, and then open the floor to discussions and questions from participants.

At a time when we’ve all been concerned about PPE for our colleagues, teams and community in times of Covid19 all around the globe, how do we prepare for the emergence out of this time - to a ‘new normal’ with even less resources, tough fiscal times, high unemployment and greater community needs from our libraries than ever? Partnerships will be critical to this endeavour. Using the example of the Excellence in Technology “Strategy and Planning Award” winning Creative Technology Hub Project based at Seaworks Maritime Museum, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Library Leader Paula Kelly Paull will share her “hello” lessons from this project - transferable, applicable and practical tips and lessons from a partnership pro on the protocols, pitfalls and possibilities of PPPEs.

Join our young colleagues in an open-themed interactive session organized by New Professionals Special Interest Group (IFLA). You'll meet Marija Šimunović (Croatia), Co-convenor of NPSIG, Andrés Reinoso (Argentina) - NPSIG's Information Coordinator since 2017, Magdalena Gomułka (Poland) NPSIG convenor since last year, and Paria Tajallipour (USA) , NPSIG member.

Join our colleagues from Denmark, Romania, Mexico, Germany, and USA for a speed-travel through their minds! Ignite Talks are short 5 minutes talks with 20 slides that advance automatically. The presentations are meant to make the audience interested in a subject or an idea that is worth sharing.

The global information environment is being transformed by new policies, new technologies and a renewed focus on the communities served. This is certainly a good time to re-think and re-imagine the relationship between libraries, librarians, local, and global organizations. Contributing to democracy, building community anchored in human rights, working to end poverty, protecting the planet and improving the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere: we must be together in this! Are you in?

Let us thank you for your patience and participation, and tell you what's next! Don't forget to exchange thoughts and contacts, too. See you soon, friends!