IFLA report #wlic2012 IL Section Committee: UNESCO, IL professional

I'm attending the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland, which lasts still next Thursday. There were also a successful pre-conference satellite meetings in Tampere: although I didn't attend these, I can give some links etc. so I will have a separate post for those. I am a member of the IFLA Information Literacy section committee, and we have a section meeting before the main conference starts.These are some key points from the meeting.

UNESCO. A key thing has been the work with UNESCO/IFAP (Information For All Programme). Last year IFLA did the initial draft of UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Recommendations. This has cleared the first hurdle of approval, and will be presented at next year's UNESCO General Conference for discussion and hopefully endorsement. If this happens it will be a big step forward for information literacy at the national and international level.
There was also a brief report on the contribution to the ongoing development of the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy Indicators, and the production of the Moscow Declaration on Media and Information Literacy. They have also contributed to the dicussion and development of UNESCO's Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Teachers.

Profile of the IL professional. Last year I proposed  a project to develop sector-specific profiles of the Information Literacy Professional (sectors to be finalised, but likely to be: Academic sector; Schools sector; Public Library sector; Workplace library sector), and also to create through this process a resource of material organised by country and/or language. This was accepted, but for various reasons I did not get this moved forward. However, we are now starting again from scratch, so you will be hearing more about that on the blog and elsewhere!

Wiki of the international state of the art reports. There are plans to develop these reports (see http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/information-literacy-state-of-the-art-reports) into a wiki, so they can be kept more current and be more accessible.

Future events. These include a pre-IFLA conference meeting in August 2013 at the National Library of Singapore, on Redefining and refining information literacy and reference services in the digital age.

Photos by Sheila Webber: a snap taken during the meeting break; the outside of the conference hall.