The Information Point (July 2007)

The Government Libraries Section of IFLA has published the latest issue of their newsletter The Information Point.

The issue includes an article about the section's pre-conference held in Wales in April and also news about work on the Guidelines for Government Libraries.

Guidelines for Government Libraries

At the Government Libraries Section Midterm conference in Wales we presented the draft Guidelines for the first time for review and discussion. The verdict -“good start and now here are some suggestions for changes.”

One change suggested is a new name! Recommendations and Best Practices for Libraries of Government Departments: Guidelines for Library Development. The general thought was that this best describes what we have written and the role we hope it will play in the development of government libraries.

A second suggestion was to add examples of actual library practice (the Best Practices in the title) that can illustrate the various chapters in the document. We are looking for short case studies libraries across the globe, to celebrate the success government librarians like you or your colleagues have had in the following areas:

• Identifying and meeting the needs of government users
• Negotiating the politics of a situation/staying neutral in a politically charged situation
• Using new technologies to respond to the needs of users
• Collection development
• Advocating for the role of government libraries
• Disaster planning/disaster recovery
• Marketing the library to government users
• Managing government libraries.

The case studies will be used as a platform for knowledge sharing, allowing librarians to model and adapt their service delivery to follow examples of best practice, and to give real colour and texture to this important, international, government library resource.

We'd appreciate a brief paragraph highlighting, with a few sentences each on the following:

• Which of the areas above the case study is in (example = Marketing the library to government users)
• What the situation was (example = New office opening, with no on site library, but wanted to highlight role of the central library)
• Your action
• The result/impact
• Brief contact details
• Some information about your circumstances: The name of your country, Region (if applicable), Government department name & number of staff employed (approx).
  

Case studies should be sent to Rebecca Davies: Rebecca.Davies12@Wales.gsi.gov.uk

If you have any colleagues in other government departments who might have a case study that we could include please forward this article to them.

The “Guidelines” will be presented at the Durban conference in South Africa and then revised one more time and published by IFLA. Please join our program in Durban and help us in this final stage.

Nancy Bolt
Chair, Government Libraries Section