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The purpose of this paper is to provide a flavour of the content of the first IFLA Presidential Meeting 2007‐2009 held in Berlin, Germany in January 2007.

An outline description of the issues, content and participants of this conference is presented in the paper.

The paper finds that the meeting ended with the declaration on free access to information, reaffirmed by participants from 26 countries.

The paper provides a brief conference report of value to library and information professionals on exploring ways to make libraries more visible in society.

The purpose of this paper is to document a joint research project aimed at investigating the existing library practices regarding protection of personal data, in view of computerization of libraries and its consequences, and awareness of the privacy (anonymity) of the library users that was carried out simultaneously in The Netherlands and Croatia in the autumn of 2007.

The research was a continuation of an ongoing cooperation between The Netherlands Public Library Association and the Department of Information Sciences, University of Zagreb. A questionnaire was developed based on previously conducted interviews with librarians and survey of recent literature on anonymity. It was carried out online via a special link on the web site of The Netherlands Public Library Association and sent by e‐mail to selected libraries in Croatia.

Replies obtained from 65 Dutch and 33 Croatian libraries of all types have been compared and commented in the paper. The research shows that despite existing differences in library facilities librarians in both countries have not yet become fully aware of all aspects of privacy issues that new services provided by the new technology have brought about, nor received adequate training or taken appropriate measures.

Further research on library practices regarding data protection and measures and steps to be taken by libraries in order to improve the present inadequacies can be envisaged in future.

The paper provides information on data security issues in Dutch and Croatian libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of the highlights of the IFLA Congress 2011 held in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The paper provides an account of the IFLA Congress in the context of the four strategic directions of the IFLA Strategic Plan.

This paper provides information about IFLA's five key initiatives for 2011‐2012.

Information about a major international conference for the information and library profession is provided in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a flavour of the content of the second IFLA Presidential Meeting held in Berlin, Germany in January 2008.

An outline description of the issues, contents and participants of this conference is presented in the paper.

The meeting followed three themes – commercialisation or public financing, how libraries are managed to provide literature for science and society, and digitalisation relating to the cultural and societal context.

The paper provides a brief conference report of value to library and information professionals regarding “Libraries on the agenda”.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of highlights of the IFLA Congress 2010 held in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The paper provides an account of the IFLA Congress in the context of the IFLA strategic plan and midterm strategy.

Various links to IFLA information are provided.

Information about a major internal conference for the information and library profession is given in this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a flavour of the content of the third IFLA Presidential Meeting held in Berlin, Germany in 2009.

An outline description of the issues, contents and participants of this conference is presented in the paper.

The meeting follows the issues of Libraries for Access to Knowledge: Information Services and Information Literacy Today, The Digital Library as Social Challenge, Building Infrastructures in a Global Knowledge Society, and Digital Knowledge and Cultural Heritage.

The paper provides a conference report of value to all library and information professionals regarding access to knowledge.

This chapter highlights how effective school and public libraries not only provide resources and information about human rights but also actually ensure people’s human rights are being met through their resources and programming.

In this chapter, both human rights documents and library policies are studied to see how effective libraries help children and adults reach their full potential as human beings. Findings by other researchers in this area are also discussed. Concrete examples of human rights projects through school and public libraries in Winnipeg, Canada are identified. The benefits of collaboration are also explored.

Knowledgeable and passionate librarians in schools and public libraries are essential in providing quality education and information rights to children and adults. Through effective collaboration with teachers, other libraries and relevant organizations, children and adults have more opportunities to reach their full potential. Canada’s newest school library document called Leading Learning is explored.

This chapter provides a current snapshot of how school and public libraries are collaborating together and with various organizations in Winnipeg, Canada, to promote and ensure human rights for children and adults. Libraries are consciously blending the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Conventions on the Rights of the Child along with national and international library policy documents to ensure effective access to quality education and information rights for everyone. Dynamic and evolving libraries are also supporting human rights by incorporating innovative concepts, programs and resources such as Universal Design for Learning, Learning Commons, Makerspaces and prison libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to contextualize young people’s lived experiences of privacy and invasion online. Social negotiations in the construction of privacy boundaries are theorized to be dependent on individual preferences, abilities and context-dependent social meanings.

Empirical findings of three related Ottawa-based studies dealing with young people’s online privacy are used to examine the benefits of online publicity, what online privacy means to young people and the social importance of privacy. Earlier philosophical discussions of privacy and identity, as well as current scholarship, are drawn on to suggest that privacy is an inherently social practice that enables social actors to navigate the boundary between self/other and between being closed/open to social interaction.

Four understandings of privacy’s value are developed in concordance with recent privacy literature and our own empirical data: privacy as contextual, relational, performative and dialectical.

A more holistic approach is necessary to understand young people’s privacy negotiations. Adopting such an approach can help re-establish an ability to address the ways in which privacy boundaries are negotiated and to challenge surveillance schemes and their social consequences.

Findings imply that privacy policy should focus on creating conditions that support negotiations that are transparent and equitable. Additionally, policy-makers must begin to critically evaluate the ways in which surveillance interferes with the developmental need of young people to build relationships of trust with each other and also with adults.

Value considerations and ethics are increasingly relevant in the library and information science (LIS) field, both in education, research and in the profession. Change management in LIS therefore needs input from studies of professional values among librarians and information professionals. The article presents some preliminary findings from the first survey of professional values in Norwegian librarianship. International surveys have shown that patron service, intellectual freedom, preservation of the record, equality of access, and information literacy are primary ethical and professional values for librarians and information professionals in many countries. The Norwegian survey in general supports these findings but also identifies and explains some nuances in value preferences among public librarians compared with college and university librarians.