The IFLA/Unesco public library guidelines

摘要

At the last three IFLA conferences I have given a paper on the revision of IFLA's Guidelines for Public Libraries. On each occasion I have given a progress report and asked for comments on the draft we had prepared. These were lively meetingsand an important part of the consultation process. The comments we received were very useful to us in finalizing the revised document. Today my task is a rather different one for I am happy to announce that the Guidelines are complete and have been published by K.G. Saur as an official IFLA publication.(FN1) Importantly the Guidelines have for the first time been endorsed by UNESCO, who have also generously provided funds for them to be translated into the UNESCO languages. This publication is part of a continuum in IFLA's policy making on public libraries. This started with the first version of the IFLA Public Library Manifesto in 1949, continued with the second Manifesto in 1972, the Standards for Public Libraries published in 1973, the Guidelines for Public Libraries published in 1986 and most recently the third version of the Manifesto published in 1994. The Manifesto is an important statement of principle but the Committee of the Public Libraries Section realized there was a demand for a more detailed document and that the dramatic changes in the information world had rendered the 1986 Guidelines obsolete. In drafting a document, which we hoped would have world-wide relevance, at a time of unprecedented change in ways of storing, accessing and using information we faced a number of challenges.