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Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes 15.3.4 Functions and Activities

The issues common to library and information services around the world are the concern of the
IFLA Core Activities. Directed by the Professional Committee, the objectives and projects of the
Core Activities relate to the Federation’s Programme and the priorities of the Divisions and
Sections. Some of the major core programmes are given below:

(i) Action for Development through Libraries Programme (ALP): The ALP Programme was
launched in 1984 at the IFLA Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, and was the subject of intensive
discussion between 1987 and 1989. It was further developed and defined during 1990 and
1991 as a special project and is fully operational ever since. The name of the Programme
was originally “Advancement of Librarianship Programme”, but in 2004 it was changed
to “Action for Development through Libraries Programme”. However, the acronym still
remains as “ALP”. The mission of ALP is to further the library profession, library institutions
and library and information services in the developing countries of Africa, Asia and
Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean.
(ii) Preservation and Conservation (PAC): IFLA Core Activity on Preservation and
Conservation (PAC) was officially created during the IFLA annual conference in Nairobi
in 1984 to focus efforts on issues of preservation and to initiate worldwide cooperation for
the preservation of library materials. The PAC programme was effectively launched in
Vienna during the 1986 Conference on the Preservation of Library Materials co-organized
by the Conference of the Directors of National Libraries, IFLA and UNESCO.

(iii) IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Digital Strategies (ICADS): ICADS is a joint alliance of IFLA and
the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL). The alliance was established in
August 2008 as a successor to ICABS (IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards)
which was established as a national libraries initiative in 2003.
(iv) IFLA UNIMARC: Succeeding to the IFLA UBCIM Core Activity, the IFLA UNIMARC Core
Activity (UCA) was established in 2003 with the responsibility for the maintenance and
development of the Universal MARC format (UNIMARC).

IFLA’s previous programme includes Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC) launched in
1973, International MARC Programme (IMP) established officially in 1983, Universal
Availability of Publication (UAP) taken up in 1973, etc.

(v) Publication: Each issue of IFLA Journal (Quarterly) covers news of current IFLA activities
and articles, selected to reflect the variety of the international information profession,
ranging from freedom of information, preservation, services to the visually impaired and
intellectual property.

Notes Council Report (biennial) records IFLA’s achievements in five key areas: access to
information, the electronic environment, preservation and conservation, services and
standards and professional development. The IFLA publications series include such titles
as intelligent library buildings, and adapting marketing to libraries in a changing
worldwide environment. The IFLA Professional Reports series feature reports of
professional meetings and guidelines to best practice. Recent reports include Proceedings
of the IFLA/UNESCO pre-conference seminar on public libraries and Guidelines for easy-
to-read materials.
Besides the above, many IFLA groups (Divisions, Core Activities, Sections and Special
Interest Groups) have their own newsletters. Some are produced regularly, others only

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