IFLA Issues New Professional Education Guidelines

IFLA's Professional Board has approved the Guidelines for Professional Library/Information Educational Programmes - 2000, prepared by the IFLA Section on Education and Training.

The new guidelines primarily cover the graduate and professional level. They address the following aspects:

• Curriculum
• Faculty and Staff
• Students
• Administration and Financial Support
• Instructional Resources and Facilities

Lis Byberg, Chair of IFLA's Division on Education and Research commented: "I am delighted and proud to present these new Guidelines; after almost a quarter of a century it was high time and our profession deserves this up-to-date version in support of educational programmes on a state-of-the-art basis."

The guidelines are in effect a revision of the "Standards for Library Schools" published by IFLA in 1976 for the Section on Education and Training. This new version has been drafted by a working group of the Section whose members include: Evelyn Daniel, Susan Lazinger and Ole Harbo.

Futher information:

The text is available from http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s23/seat.htm#3, and upon request from IFLA Headquarters:

For more information please contact:

Ms Susan Lazinger,

or:

Ms. Evelyn Daniel,

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, is the non-governmental international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. Our website is

2. Library/information educational programmes have a long and distinguished history. In the past, they have focused on developing physical collections of books and other materials in library buildings staffed by people who have learned to select, acquire, organise, retrieve and circulate these materials. Today library information programmes extend beyond the physical collections and buildings to the virtual world of the Internet. Today the emphasis is on the individual practitioner and the concentration is on information provision in a variety of contexts.