Chair - Jorun Systad, Norway

Dear Colleagues,

it was nice to see so many of you at World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Colleagues from all over the world came together to learn, be inspired, get connected to develop great library services for children and young adults. If you were not able to participate in Kuala Lumpur or if you want to look over a paper again you can read the papers online at the IFLA Library http://library.ifla.org/view/conferences/2018/

In Norway, it is autum, and we enjoy the nature changing colors! In our small public library on the west coast we are now looking back on the big national Summer-read-campaign 2018. Last year 106.266 children read a total of 1.106.908 books in this competition in Norway! 54.394 of these the kids classified as romantic, 616.232  as exciting, 111. 335 e as scaring and 103.753  they found simply boring.  Reading in the summer can make children better readers. The Summer-read-campaign has received great feedback from teachers: students not only maintain their reading skills but also strengthened them throughout the long summer vacation. This is one example how libraries support the curriculum – this newsletter’s theme. 

And here are new and ongoing projects from our section:

Our most important project is the revision of the Guidelines for Library Services for Children aged 0-18. In cooperation with Dr. Carolynn Rankin we now present  the revised Guidelines for Library Services for Children. In future these Guidelines will be reviewed on an annual basis. We ask all of you to participate in making this a great tool for librarians and politicians to achieve better libraries for children and young adults. We hope that these new Guidelines will be useful, dynamic and give guidance to the international library community about children's needs and rights on information, literacy and reading. 

Join Sister Libraries, a project that has been running for over 5 years and connects libraries from different parts of the world.

The World through Picture Books lists the ten most popular picture books from 52 countries in over 37 languages, selected by librarians. It is possible to borrow the collection and to show an exhibition with the physical books at your library – a magical view into the children's literature of the world.

The Best practices Project on events for children and young adults is one of our newer projects. We encourage librarians and other people working with children and young adults to share their knowledge and to benefit from the experience of others.  The section’s Youtube channel provides short films from around the world on reading promotion projects and other events and programs https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNbNYMA4VlILn3XhaPuOkwlIpTY-0zHvq&disable_polymer=true

We are an active section with lots of activities and projects. Please follow us on Facebook and keep checking our website for news. I hope to see as many of you as possible in Athens in August 2019! Since it is expensive to attend an IFLA conference let me remind you that there are some grants offered. It is also great to experience the conference as a volunteer. 

Wishing you a great year, with peace, love, friendship and great libraries for children and young adults all over the world!

Jorun Systad, Chair of the Standing Committee on Libraries for Children & Young Adults (SC C&YA)