Session in the 79th Annual IFLA conference in Singapore, 17-23 August 2013

Future Libraries – Future Librarians – Future Skills :

Directions for the education and training of children and youth librarians – the challenge of identifying competences and encouraging professional development in the digital age.

Library services for children and young people are at their most effective and inspiring with enthusiastic, highly skilled staff. The range of skills required to be effective in the role can be overwhelming, and the target user group is incredibly diverse, as young people move through many developmental stages from 0 to 18 years, with huge diversity in their changing interests and needs. It is a dynamic and innovative area of the profession and this presents challenges for professional education, training and development. What competences are needed today? How are education and training helping librarians to acquire them?

The expected audience:

Children’s and young adults’ librarians, teacher librarians, librarians working in the fields of Education and Training, Literacy and reading, Public Libraries, Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning, Library Services to Multicultural Populations, School libraries and resource centers; librarians working in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Call for presentations on the following key themes:

The competences that are needed today: what are the roles that children and youth librarians need to be able to play as part of their jobs, what kind of work does that include?

National policies for public and children’s libraries: how they link to library education and training

The role of the professional educators – how are the professional educators ensuring their skills and knowledge are keeping up to date with the current landscape of work in libraries, how are the ‘library schools’ redesigning the curriculum to respond to the needs of the digital natives? Are students being sufficiently equipped and prepared for the world of work? Can education and training help to ‘future proof’ the profession?

Training on the following aspects (not excluding others) : work with every age group as well as with parents and carers, knowledge of material for young people, work for information literacy, work as agents for development, production of content, work with different partners, fund raising, build and give access to digital collections, program managing, preservation of young people’s culture

Successful training schemes – examples of innovative practice including continuing professional development and workplace learning.

Workplace learning through international work and through IT (Sister Libraries and other twinning, digital resources, social networking…)

• Proposals must be sent before February 4th 2013 via email to : Kirsten Boelt, Email kbt-kultur@aalborg.dk They must include (in English, French or Spanish) :

– Title of paper

– Abstract of paper (up to 500 words- ½ page)

– The speaker’s name, address, telephone and fax numbers, professional affiliation, email address and biographical note (40 words) They will be reviewed by the Review Committee. Successful proposals will be identified and announced by February 18th 2013.

• Full text papers (5-20 pages) must be provided by 15 April, 2013 (Word format; preceded by an abstract ; images may be included).

They can be written in any of IFLA languages. If the chosen language is not English, an English version or summary must be added.

• Oral presentations

Presenters can talk in any of seven IFLA languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Russian, Spanish). There will be simultaneous interpretation.

Authors of successful proposals will be advised of the length of time available for their oral presentation.

• Publication

Selected papers may form part of an edited IFLA publication

Important Dates

Deadline for submissions February 4th 2013

Notification of acceptance/rejection February 18th 2013

Deadline for submission of final papers’ texts April 19th 2013

IFLA Section Libraries for Children and Young Adults

Chair: Viviana Quiñones, viviana.quinones@bnf.fr

Secretary: Kirsten Boelt, kbt-kultur@aalborg.dk