During this year’s conference, the IFLA Hubs kicked off for the first time. It’s a newly introduced hybrid concept that brought people from different regions to the “hubs”, where they held a number of sessions.
On the last day of the congress, the hubs evaluated their work together in Ahoy.
On behalf of the Asia-Oceania (AO) Hub Sangeeta Kaul from India shared the headlines of their four sessions.
“What resonated strongly from our sessions was that we must work together to library (like the verb explained at the opening session). Each one of us thought ‘what’s that’ about this year’s theme. Now we all understand it and adopt it. The second session (of four) was an open session and had over 500 participants not only from Asia and Oceania. That was an unexpected success.“
The North American Hub is represented by Evie Cordell and Clara Chu who’s online. This Hub had tree sessions and has one more to come later. They focused on very different topics to make sure all facets of the work are covered. Most of the participants come from different worlds but all experience the same things in their work.
Lindile Nhlapo from South Africa, representing the Sub-Saharan Hub, also refers to our opening ceremony.
“We started with library as a noun and now it’s a verb. Library as a verb reminds me of dancing and you can’t dance alone. Let’s tango and bring all good work together. New opportunities come from sharing what we are doing.“
Talking about opportunities, the North American Hub share that they think this was only a start to get to know each other. After WLIC they will continue working together without the formal involvement of IFLA. They will find way to continue online.
“We would love to have a post conference meeting to talk about this further on” explains Evie Cordell.
Sangeeta Kaul suggest making a five-year agenda and think of programs all year round, and not only once a year at the conference.
Hubs are quite new, so they will evolve. Let’s see what they will bring us next year!
Meanwhile, make sure to watch what the Hubs Ambassadors had to say during the WLIC 2023:
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