IFLA, Sustainability and Impact Assessment

As an international organisation dedicated to improving access to information through libraries, IFLA has a number of core activities in place to achieve this goal. The Action for Development through Libraries Programme (ALP), and the Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) Committee are two such activities that have in recent years benefitted from substantial funding from the Swedish International Development and Co-operation Agency (Sida). Through Sida's funding IFLA has been able to undertake training and education activities for librarians in all areas of librarianship – from cataloguing to Internet access in libraries.

Sida's funding for IFLA ends in December 2009. What do libraries and library organisations do when the money for activities runs out? How do they best persuade funders, potential funders and other stakeholders that the activities they carry out offer value for money, and have an impact beyond the numbers of people trained? How can libraries show exactly how important they are to their users and wider society? This paper talks briefly about IFLA's experiences with funders' evaluation requirements and the difficulties of finding an evaluation methodology that is appropriate for the type of international activities IFLA engages in. It discusses the need for success stories and best practice in IFLA's advocacy work, and suggests that impact assessment offers a way to show the real value of library work to key partners and stakeholders.