Tag Archives: governance

Why library agencies like IMLS matter

The moves by the US federal government to shrink and potentially abolish the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has – rightfully – led to an uprising in support for the agency, highlighting all of the positive contributions it has made.

Of course, the US does not have a monopoly on such attacks, with other countries also seeing governments reducing support to the sector in general.

IMLS was perhaps an inevitable target in the context of the wider frantic drive to cut staff and capacity at the federal level. Clearly, as in many other countries, most funding for libraries is held and controlled at the regional, local or even institutional level.

While that is unaffected (for now), the damage being done to IMLS raises a wider question about the role of agencies like IMLS in the work of library fields as a whole. This is a question that IFLA was able to explore through a report commissioned last year from David Baker Consulting and published in January, even ahead of the announcements out of Washington DC.

This blog explores the findings of the study, and how these are applicable in the current situation.

Fields and structures

While the original goal of the study was to explore the conditions that need to be in place for a library field to deliver change at scale – an issue we will come back to – the work of the researchers also highlighted that the idea of a ‘library field’ itself should not be taken for granted.

IFLA has talked about this as an idea for some time. As an organisation which brings together libraries of all types, around the world, the ‘library field’ represents a useful shorthand for our primary audience.

Yet it is also undeniable that for many professionals, their immediate community is shaped by geography (colleagues within the same city or region) and focus (public, academic or other types of library). Having more in common in terms of experience and needs means that it may be easier to define and develop action.

Nonetheless, the existence of IFLA, as well as of generalist national and regional associations, indicates that there is already recognition of the value of the concept of a wider library field.

The idea is operationalised through the work, for example, of committees addressing issues that affect different types of library (such as copyright, intellectual freedom or inclusive access), or even facilitate cooperation (for example on citizen science or access to open government data).

In effect, the existence (and acceptance) of the idea of a library field opens the door to thinking about how we can organise action at scale in order to deliver on our goals most effectively.

Certainly, the goals we look to achieve – strengthening literacy, building individual agency, supporting research, and safeguarding heritage – are national and international level policy goals.

But in order to understand how we can do this, we then need to look at how much (and what kind of) structure is needed for this.

Push and pull: getting structure right

In looking at what sort of structures can help the field deliver on its potential, we also need to balance two contrasting forces (but ones which also underpin the strength of the field).

On the one hand, there is a push to decentralisation, rooted in the fact that a key strength of libraries is their connection to their communities. We pride ourselves on our ability to assess and understand the needs of our users, and build collections, services and programming accordingly.

In this, we contrast ourselves with other actors or services which take a one-size-fits-all approach, allowing little room for adaptation to local requirements.

On the other hand, we also strongly emphasise the fact that our institutions are connected, serving as portals to a much wider network, while of course engaging with actors at a regional or national level also requires a unified voice to be effective.

There can also be economies of scale from pooling resources and acting together, as well as the capacity to innovate and take risks, and then disseminate the lessons of this.  This leads to a drive for centralisation.

The challenge is to balance these – finding structures that allow us to form partnerships and mobilise resources, as well as make the most of economies of scale, without losing our ability to adapt to local and individual needs.

Library associations of course have a major potential role to play in finding this balance and delivering on potential. Yet they also vary hugely in terms of their roles, focus and capacity.

Library agencies – be their independent ones such as IMLS, units within ministries, or teams within national libraries – are another.

Lessons from the study

Having explored the idea of a library field, the study then sets out a number of needs or functions that need to be in place for fields to be able to deliver policy outcomes at scale.

The study’s conclusions are drawn from research into examples of library fields which have formed partnerships for change at regional or national level, for example working with foundations or different government ministries.

The lessons are, nonetheless, valuable more broadly when thinking about how we can turn the latent potential of library fields into real-world action and outcomes.

The study identifies five needs: 1) the ability to articulate the role of libraries, 2) having a trained workforce, 3) a department or agency responsible for libraries, 4) a voice for libraries in partnerships, and 5) partners.

Already, the importance of an agency is clear in this, with the study underlining their role in providing leadership when exploring and taking on new roles and responsibilities.  Yet beyond this leadership, agencies can also fill some of the other functions, from supporting training, explaining the role of libraries to other stakeholders, and building partnerships with others.

Building on the strategy, an incomplete list of the roles that agencies can play could include:

  • A leader for the field (working with associations and national libraries)
  • A driver of innovation, through enabling institutions to take risks, and then sharing results.
  • A vehicle for solidarity and inclusion, through focusing resources on those institutions and professionals that need them most.
  • A representative and ambassador for libraries, demonstrating what we are capable of, both to central government and other stakeholders.
  • A means of realising economies of scale, through common programming and services.

Clearly, the specific needs of an agency are likely to vary depending on the circumstances within each country. In some, associations may play many of these roles, at least in part, although they can also need to deal with challenges such as limited resources, periodic change of personnel, and not necessarily having an official public function.

Similarly, national libraries may play some of these roles, not least given that they do at least enjoy an official status. At the same time, they also have other functions focused on building collections and safeguarding heritage.

What is clear is that if there is no agency – or at least nothing playing the role of an agency – we risk losing (mirroring the functions set out above):

  • A sense of direction and leadership for the field
  • The ability to take risks and innovate, as well as to share lessons from this
  • The means of supporting struggling institutions and professionals beyond what is possible at the local level
  • A clear voice for the field and its interests in government and beyond
  • Money and effectiveness, through the loss of economies of scale, replaced by lots of small (and likely less advantageous) deals which also risk duplicating each other.

While the results of such losses may not be immediately visible, they risk fundamentally weakening the ability of libraries to deliver effectively on their missions.

Given that these missions are also the missions of any government interested in promoting education, research, cultural participation and the protection of heritage, this impact matters.

Conclusion

As has been underlined in much of the criticism of the effective closing of IMLS, this attack on a federal agency is likely to have very real effects in local communities. There is a complementarity between work at these two levels, not an opposition, despite the discourse of small-state radicals.

The situation of IMLS also helps focus attention on the importance of the role of library agencies in general, as leaders, risk-takers, enablers of solidarity, voices and money-savers.

Through its work going forwards, IFLA will be looking further at how to ensure that library fields everywhere can benefit from the support that library agencies, or institutions/ associations taking on these functions.

Libraries: The Forgotten Science-Policy Interface?

A regular refrain in discussions about progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is that we still face major gaps in the evidence to support decision-making.

Either the data and analysis aren’t there, or they are, but they’re not getting into the right hands.

A first result is that many of the indicators of progress towards the SDGs are effectively empty, either for all or for many countries – i.e. we don’t know where we stand now..

A second is that when leaders are making choices about how to invest resources, and how to intervene in economies and societies, they are not doing it on a sound basis – i.e. we don’t know how to move forwards successfully.

The 2030 Agenda is of course not the first time that this has come up as an issue. In past discussions, one approach has been to develop a ‘science-policy interface’ or SPI.

Given that libraries too – especially government and parliamentary libraries – themselves are closely involved in the work of supporting evidence-based policy-making, this blog explores existing SPIs, and sets out why libraries themselves should work with this term in their own advocacy.

Why SPIs?

At a conceptual level, the Science-Policy Interface refers to engagement between the research and policy communities. Through a stronger interface, it is argued, science should become more of an enabler in policy design, implementation, monitoring, follow-up and review, and give the opportunity to take a more strategic overview of linkages, barriers and opportunities to progress.

Building such an interface requires an effort from both communities. Researchers themselves need to take a stronger cue from the wider world in determining the questions they should look to answer, be they around climate change, equality or any other issues. Politicians should be readier to draw on expertise rather than to pursue popularism or ideology.

With these changes, we can hope both to accelerate the generation of new insights into our climate and society, and to overcome hesitations to take necessary actions.

Existing models have looked to do just this, primarily in the environmental field when it comes to the United Nations – see this great overview from IISD. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is perhaps the best-known example, but similar efforts played a role in the banning of CFCs, and also now in work around desertification.

In these practical cases, the ‘interface’ has been in the form of a committee of experts who meet and work together in order to identify challenges and work towards consensus on solutions. These groups can be relatively open, although then do need to address key questions around how they define roles and processes, and maintain credibility and sufficient coherence. Given that they are often dealing with evolving research, there is also plenty of room for disagreement.

Recent guidance from the United Nations Environment Programme has therefore, for example, stressed the need to ensure representativeness (including through forming links with partners globally), clear rules around mandates, and good governance.

Another example is the Global Sustainable Development Report (GDSR), which comes out every four years, and looks to provide a cross-disciplinary overview of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is perhaps less of a process than the SPIs mentioned above, but fulfils the same function of bringing insights from research to the heart of policy-making.

Libraries supporting SPIs

There are three potential ways in which libraries contribute to the goals of Science-Policy Interfaces.

The first is simply by ensuring that SPIs are able to benefit from access to the fullest possible evidence base. While the role of libraries is all too often overlooked, both the individual scientists involved in SPIs, and processes as a whole, can benefit from support in getting hold of research, organising information, and sharing it.

This is particularly relevant when it comes to the sort of inter-disciplinary work that SPIs – and the GDSR in particular – promote. Libraries are a key part of the infrastructure for gathering and making such evidence available, as for example highlighted in the Cochrane Call which IFLA signed last year.

While they may not always have the name ‘library’, knowledge hubs, data repositories and other initiatives can ensure that SPIs can focus on the discussions that need to take place. Such tools are indeed a key goal as set out in a 2019 UN Environment Assembly resolution.

Meanwhile, through their understanding of the research space, libraries can also help identify where there are potential gaps or weaknesses.

The second way is through wider advocacy for open access and open science. This can support both interdisciplinarity, and use of scientific outputs in government.

This is because when research outputs are hidden behind paywalls, there is a greater risk that faculties and the libraries that serve them will only focus on resources within the disciplines on which they focus, rather than materials form elsewhere. Paywalls can also mean that government departments with few resources prefer to rely on grey literature, unready to pay publishers for access to their databases.

As a result, by promoting open access and science – both through advocating and by providing key infrastructures such as repositories, libraries can help deliver on a key enabler of SPIs.

The third way is by themselves being a permanent Science-Policy Interface within government and wider law-making. Many government and parliamentary libraries have a role as a gateway, helping to ensure that key emerging insights and information are presented to policymakers in a way that works for them.

In this, the skills and values of libraries can play an important role, helping to assess the quality of different sources, but also then to present information in as neutral a way as possible, in order to enable the best possible decision-making.

 

The need to base decisions on evidence is increasingly pressing as the time left to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda becomes less and less. The emphasis on Science-Policy Interfaces is therefore likely to grow in importance at the UN level.

This should be an opportunity for libraries to demonstrate just one further way in which we can support the delivery of the 2030 Agenda, and to secure the role and resources we need to fulfil our potential.

What Makes Libraries Unique in Achieving… SDG 16

DA2I means engaged citizens, informed societies, and better governance The fifth Sustainable Development Goal under review at the 2019 High Level Political Forum is SDG 16 – peace, justice and strong institutions.

It is certainly one of the broader goals, covering promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, providing access to justice for all and building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

Crucially, it’s also the SDG that refers to the importance of access to information. IFLA has of course placed a major emphasis on this goal, promoting access as necessary for progress in so many other areas.

But how to promote the libraries to people – and in particular decision-makers – who care about peaceful, fair and well-governed societies? Here are three arguments for why libraries are unique in achieving SDG16:

  • Because democracy depends on informed societies: SDG 16 focuses strongly on the importance of giving citizens the possibility to participate in decision-making. To do this, and so build a successful and sustainable democracy, people need to have a strong knowledge of current issues and the choices that any society faces. Libraries are ideal places for people to engage in civic life, and to learn about and discuss key subjects.
  • Because open government is about more than just a website: there is growing acceptance of the value of transparency as a means of fighting corruption and ensuring accountability. Yet simply creating websites or apps, or passing laws will not make a difference if no-one is using them. There is a real need to give people the encouragement and the skills to make the most of these. Libraries have both an expertise in helping people make the most of information, and increasingly are supporting open government initiatives explicitly.
  • Because the best decisions are based on the best information: people who are taking decisions, both in government and parliaments rely on the best possible evidence and support in order to get things right. This matters, as the choices they make may well affect millions of citizens. Government and parliamentary libraries play an essential role in ensuring that those in power can access the latest research and ideas, and to do the best by their citizens.

For more information, please see the chapter on SDG16 in the 2019 Development and Access to Information (DA2I) Report by Dorothy Gordon, Chair of the Intergovernmental Committee of UNESCO’s Information for All Programme.