Monday, March 06, 2023

Maintaining a Safer Online World for Children and Young Adults in Libraries

screenshot of report cover

A new report from IFLA was just published: Creating and Maintaining a Safer Online World for Children and Young Adults in Libraries: A Report on the 2021 Safer Internet Day Baseline Survey for the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)
"This report provides the results of a baseline survey of safe internet practices in libraries for children and young adults around the world. This survey was created by members of IFLA’s Libraries for Children and Young Adults (C&YA) Section, with the goal of finding out: What would help librarians create and maintain a safer online world for children and young people?" The carried out a survey of librarians, with 482 responses. Most respondents were putting " significant effort into educating children and young adults on how to use the internet safely" and examples of how they are doing that are given, as well as the issues that librarians face.
"A key message for decision makers, resource allocators and policy makers is that as librarians provide a point of intervention with children and young adults there is a need for continuing professional development and training opportunities, some of which could be sourced via IFLA and the wider library community, perhaps in partnership with the SID [Safer Internet Day] organisation. Another theme was about resources, which also extended to organisational issues in the work environment including calls for better software and good network connections. There was a perceived need for international guidelines and policy support from national library associations" Go to https://repository.ifla.org/bitstream/123456789/2537/1/ifla-professional-report-138-en.pdf

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