UNESCO’s Role in Library and Information Services Development

When people think of UNESCO, they often picture world heritage sites like the Taj Mahal or the pyramids of Egypt. But the organisation does far more than protect monuments. It also works quietly behind the scenes to shape how libraries function, how knowledge is preserved, and how ordinary people access information. For students of library and information science, understanding UNESCO is essential, because many of the standards, manifestos, and preservation programmes that guide modern libraries trace back to this single global body. This post explains how UNESCO has influenced library and information services, from its founding mission to its most recent digital initiatives.

UNESCO’s mission for knowledge sharing 🔗

UNESCO stands for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It was founded in 1945, shortly after the Second World War, with a simple but powerful idea: lasting peace must be built on intellectual and moral solidarity, not just political agreements. To achieve this, the organisation promotes international cooperation in education, science, culture, and communication.

One of UNESCO’s core constitutional duties is to maintain, increase, and diffuse knowledge by helping conserve and protect the world’s inheritance of books, works of art, and monuments of history and science. This is where libraries enter the picture. Libraries are the institutions that collect, organise, and share recorded knowledge, so they are natural partners in UNESCO’s broader goal of building what it calls “knowledge societies.”

A knowledge society is one where people can freely access, create, and share information to improve their lives. UNESCO believes that information should be treated as a public good, available to everyone regardless of income, location, or background. This belief underpins almost every library-related programme the organisation runs.

UNESCO’s library policies and programmes 🔗

UNESCO does not run libraries directly. Instead, it sets standards and frameworks that national governments and library associations can adopt. Its most influential contributions are the manifestos that define what libraries should be and do. These documents are developed in partnership with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), the leading global body representing libraries.

The Public Library Manifesto 🔗

The IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto is one of the most important documents in the library world. It was first created in 1949 and revised over the decades as the role of libraries in society changed, with major updates in 1972 and 1994. The manifesto proclaims UNESCO’s belief in the public library as a living force for education, culture, and information, and as an agent for peace and welfare.

The most recent version was launched in July 2022. This updated manifesto reflects changes in technology and society and encourages national and local governments to actively support the development of public libraries. Importantly, the manifesto positions libraries as agents of sustainable development and as essential partners in the formal education system. It was shaped through a global survey that gathered over 600 responses from library professionals around the world, ensuring it reflects real working conditions.

The 2022 manifesto also emphasises newer priorities. It stresses that libraries help all members of society access, produce, create, and share knowledge, including through the promotion of open access to scientific research and innovation. For Indian students, this is relevant because the manifesto has been translated into several Indian languages, including Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi, and Assamese, making it accessible to library workers across the country.

The School Library Manifesto 🔗

Alongside the public library document, UNESCO and IFLA also developed the School Library Manifesto. This focuses on the role of libraries within schools, treating them as central to teaching and learning rather than as optional extras. The updated School Library Manifesto highlights libraries and library professionals as essential partners for accessing information and for transforming education for sustainable development. The goal is to promote literacy, reading habits, and information skills from an early age.

Both manifestos connect directly to literacy. Public libraries are tasked with supporting literacy programmes for all age groups, ensuring access to community information, and facilitating the development of information and computer literacy skills. These objectives shape how libraries plan their services and justify their funding to governments.

Digital heritage and archival preservation 🔗

As more of the world’s knowledge moves into digital form, the risk of losing it grows. Digital files can become unreadable when software changes, storage devices fail, or formats become obsolete. UNESCO has responded to this challenge through several major preservation programmes.

The Memory of the World Programme 🔗

The Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is UNESCO’s flagship effort to preserve documentary heritage. It was launched in 1992 to guard against collective amnesia, calling for the preservation of valuable archive holdings and library collections all over the world and ensuring their wide dissemination. Documentary heritage includes manuscripts, rare books, oral traditions, audio-visual materials, and archives.

The programme maintains an international register of documents judged to have outstanding universal value. The first inscriptions were made in 1997, and the register has grown steadily since. By 2025, it included 570 inscribed collections from around the world. The register raises awareness of important documents and promotes their preservation, digitisation, and dissemination.

India has a strong presence in this register. As of 2025, the country has fourteen inscriptions, following the 2025 addition of manuscripts of the Bhagavad Gita and Bharata Muni’s Natyashastra. These documents are preserved by Indian institutions such as the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune and the National Archives of India in New Delhi. For library and archive students, this shows how international recognition can boost the funding, visibility, and care given to local collections.

The Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage 🔗

In 2003, UNESCO adopted the Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage. This document recognised that information is increasingly produced and stored in digital form, creating a new kind of legacy that needs active protection. The charter built on the foundations of the Memory of the World Programme and the Information for All Programme, both of which deal with safeguarding recorded knowledge.

To strengthen this work, UNESCO later developed the PERSIST project in partnership with IFLA and the International Council on Archives. PERSIST focuses on digital preservation to ensure long-term access to the world’s digital heritage by promoting effective policies and best practices. It produces practical guidelines that help libraries, archives, and museums decide which digital materials to preserve and how to do it sustainably. This matters because no institution can save everything, so clear selection criteria are essential.

Open access and digital libraries 🔗

UNESCO is a strong advocate of open access, which means making scholarly research freely available online without paywalls. The organisation promotes open access to scientific information as a way to reduce inequality between rich and poor countries. When research is locked behind expensive subscriptions, libraries in developing nations struggle to provide it to their users. Open access removes this barrier, and UNESCO encourages governments and institutions to adopt open-access policies.

Community engagement and information accessibility 🔗

Preserving knowledge is only half the task. The other half is making sure people can actually reach and use it. UNESCO addresses this through programmes that bring information directly to communities, especially those that are underserved.

The Information for All Programme 🔗

The Information for All Programme (IFAP) is central to this effort. It was created in 2001 as an intergovernmental programme that supports member states in promoting universal access to information and knowledge for sustainable development. The overall goal of IFAP is to help countries develop and implement national information policies in a world increasingly shaped by information and communication technologies.

IFAP organises its work around six priority areas: information literacy, information accessibility, information preservation, information ethics, information for development, and multilingualism. Each of these areas connects to the daily work of libraries. For example, information literacy training helps users evaluate sources and avoid misinformation, while multilingualism ensures that people can access knowledge in their own languages, a vital concern in a multilingual country.

IFAP also collaborated closely with IFLA on the 2022 Public Library Manifesto, showing how its priorities feed directly into library policy. The programme has actively supported the digitisation of documentary heritage, including projects to scan fragile manuscripts and enter their data for long-term preservation.

Community Multimedia Centres 🔗

One of UNESCO’s most practical community initiatives has been the Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) model. A CMC combines a community radio station with a telecentre that offers computers, internet access, email, and related services. The idea is to bridge the digital divide by giving rural and remote communities a shared space to both produce and consume information.

This dual model is clever. The radio component reaches people who cannot read or who lack their own devices, broadcasting in local languages about local concerns. The telecentre component lets community members learn digital skills, access government services, and connect with the wider world. Libraries and CMCs share a common purpose here, since both act as public access points to information for people who might otherwise be excluded.

e-Governance and information dissemination 🔗

UNESCO also supports e-governance, which uses digital tools to deliver government information and services to citizens. When public information about health, agriculture, welfare schemes, and legal rights is available online and through community access points, people can make better decisions about their lives. Libraries increasingly serve as e-governance access points, helping citizens fill out forms, find official information, and use online services. IFAP’s recent strategy continues this focus, reaffirming its mission to harness information as a public good and to support data governance and digital inclusion in developing countries.

Why UNESCO matters for library professionals 🔗

For anyone entering the library and information field, UNESCO’s work provides both a framework and a sense of purpose. Its manifestos give libraries a clear mission and a tool to advocate for funding. Its preservation programmes set standards for protecting both physical and digital collections. Its community and accessibility initiatives remind us that the ultimate goal is not to hoard knowledge but to share it widely and fairly.

The connecting thread across all these efforts is the belief that access to information is a basic right. Whether through a manifesto translated into Tamil, a manuscript inscribed on the Memory of the World register, or a community centre offering internet access, UNESCO consistently works to put knowledge within everyone’s reach. Understanding these programmes helps library professionals see their daily work as part of a much larger global movement.

What do you think? If you were advising a small public library in your area, which UNESCO programme or principle would you draw on first to improve its services? And as more knowledge becomes digital, do you think preservation or accessibility deserves the greater share of a library’s limited resources?

References

1. https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/charter-preservation-digital-heritage
2. https://www.ifla.org/public-library-manifesto/
3. https://www.ifla.org/news/the-public-library-manifesto-25-years-of-advocacy-and-many-more-to-come/
4. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/ifla-unesco-public-library-manifesto-presented-transforming-education-summit
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO_Public_Library_Manifesto
6. https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world/about
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_of_the_World_Programme
8. https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/natyashastra-bhagavad-gita-inscribed-in-unesco-memory-of-the-world-register
9. https://unescopersist.org/persist-organisation/
10. https://en.unesco.org/programme/ifap
11. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/advancing-access-information-and-digital-preservation-ifaps-impact-digitizing-documentary-heritage
12. https://www.unesco.org/en/tags/information-all-programme-ifap