How International Agencies Like IFLA and UNESCO Shape Continuing Education for Library Professionals

For a librarian or information professional, earning a degree is only the starting point. The skills that feel current today-managing a digital repository, supporting open access, handling new cataloguing standards-can become outdated within a few years. This is why continuing education matters so much in the library and information science (LIS) field. But here is something many students overlook: a great deal of the structure, standards, and funding behind professional development comes not from local institutions alone, but from international agencies working across borders. Two of the most influential are IFLA and UNESCO. Understanding how they operate gives you a clearer picture of how the global LIS profession keeps itself relevant.

Why continuing education needs a global backbone 🔗

Continuing Education Programmes (CEP), often called Continuing Professional Development (CPD), refer to the structured learning that professionals undertake after their formal qualification, lasting all the way to the end of their careers. The reasons are practical. Information and communication technology keeps changing, users expect more, and employers demand new competencies. IFLA describes this period as covering all aspects of professional development from post-qualification to retirement, and argues that libraries must become “learning organisations” to keep pace.

The challenge is that individual libraries, especially in developing regions, rarely have the resources to design high-quality training on their own. A small district library in a rural area cannot easily build a course on digital preservation or fund expert trainers. This is exactly the gap that international agencies fill. They pool expertise, set common standards, and channel resources to places that need them. Without this global backbone, professional development would be wildly uneven across countries.

IFLA’s role in continuing education 🔗

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading global voice for libraries. It represents the interests of library and information services and their users worldwide, and a large part of its work focuses directly on developing the people who run those services. IFLA approaches professional development through dedicated sections, published guidelines, and structured capacity-building programmes.

The CPDWL section 🔗

The most important unit for this topic is IFLA’s Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning (CPDWL) Section. As mentioned, this section covers learning across an entire career. Its membership brings together institutions, organisations, and individuals into a community of practice that supports both practical training and research.

The CPDWL Section runs webinars, sessions at the annual World Library and Information Congress (WLIC), and a coaching initiative that pairs experienced professionals with those seeking guidance. At WLIC 2025 in Astana, the section delivered more than ten distinct activities, including congress meetings and presentations on topics such as digital literacy and crowdsourcing. The section also maintains an active blog where professionals from different countries write about their development experiences, which keeps the conversation alive between annual congresses.

The IFLA CPD guidelines 🔗

One of IFLA’s most lasting contributions is a written standard. The CPDWL Section produced the IFLA Guidelines for Continuing Professional Development: Principles and Best Practices. The original ten principles were approved in 2006, based on an extensive review of literature and consultation with experienced continuing education providers. The guidelines were later reviewed against an updated literature search in 2014.

These guidelines serve a wider audience than just individual librarians. They are written for practitioners and for the people responsible for delivering educational experiences and encouraging workplace learning. This means library managers, association leaders, and training providers can all use the same reference point. More recently, IFLA has been revising these guidelines to respond to changes accelerated by artificial intelligence, recognising that accessible CPD has become crucial as the digital landscape shifts. Having an internationally agreed document is valuable because it gives library associations in any country a tested framework rather than forcing them to start from scratch.

Capacity-building programmes 🔗

Beyond guidelines, IFLA runs programmes that build skills at the organisational level. The Building Strong Library Associations (BSLA) programme, launched in 2010, offers a strategic and coordinated approach to strengthening library associations and making them sustainable. Strong associations matter for continuing education because they are usually the bodies that organise local training, advocacy, and professional networks.

The BSLA programme uses a structured training package built around modules. The first module sets out the role of associations in society and draws on internationally approved documents from the United Nations, UNESCO, and IFLA. Later modules cover how to build and operate a successful association. The programme has run country projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America-including work in Nepal and Vietnam-and was supported for many years by the Gates Foundation. IFLA has since evaluated the programme to learn what worked and to shape a revised version.

Another notable initiative is the International Leaders Programme, a two-year programme designed to grow a cohort of leaders who can represent the wider library sector on the international stage. This kind of leadership development is a form of advanced continuing education, preparing experienced professionals to take on global roles rather than only refreshing their technical skills.

The Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC fellowship 🔗

IFLA also partners with other organisations to extend its reach. The Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship, run jointly with OCLC, provides early-career development and continuing education for LIS professionals from countries with developing economies. Programmes like this are important because they deliberately target regions where local opportunities are limited, helping to reduce the global skills gap.

UNESCO’s role in continuing education 🔗

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approaches LIS development from a broader angle. Where IFLA is the profession’s own membership body, UNESCO is an intergovernmental agency with a mandate covering education, science, culture, and communication. Its involvement in library development flows from its larger mission of spreading knowledge among its member states. This gives UNESCO both the authority and the funding to support training initiatives that an individual association could not manage alone.

Developing curricula and open access training 🔗

A clear example of UNESCO’s contribution is its work on open access education. As part of its strategy on open access to scientific information, UNESCO developed a set of manuals to support the capacity building of library and information professionals and researchers. The curriculum aimed at LIS professionals, titled “Open Access for Library Schools,” consists of four course modules.

What makes this work credible is the process behind it. The modules were developed in consultation with more than 50 experts, drawing deliberately on diverse opinions from the developing world. A multi-stakeholder expert meeting was held in New Delhi, where 23 experts helped finalise the curriculum, and the work was supported by the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia. This is a good illustration of how international collaboration produces training material that is both expert-driven and relevant to developing regions, including South Asia.

Field-level capacity building 🔗

UNESCO also supports hands-on training projects in specific countries. In Kenya, a UNESCO-backed initiative trained public librarians to improve their ICT and e-literacy skills, working alongside the Kenya National Library Service and the EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme. The training helped librarians use technology to deliver new services in areas such as agriculture, health, and education.

In Iraq, UNESCO planned a substantial capacity-building effort for the University of Mosul Library, designing a training programme for more than 87 staff members across areas including cataloguing, digitisation, repository management, reference services, and the use of the Koha library system. These examples show that UNESCO’s support is not limited to producing documents; it extends to rebuilding professional capacity in places affected by conflict or limited resources.

Shared manifestos and standards 🔗

UNESCO and IFLA frequently work together, and their joint statements set the tone for the entire profession. The IFLA-UNESCO Public Library Manifesto and the Multicultural Library Manifesto are widely cited documents that define the values and responsibilities of libraries. While these manifestos are not training courses, they shape what continuing education programmes aim to achieve. When a manifesto states that public libraries should serve all community members regardless of background, it creates an expectation that staff be trained to meet that standard. In this way, the two agencies influence professional development indirectly, by defining the goals that training is meant to support.

What this means for LIS professionals 🔗

For students and working professionals, these international efforts are not distant abstractions. The guidelines, curricula, and programmes produced by IFLA and UNESCO often filter down into national associations, university courses, and workplace training. An open access module developed through a New Delhi expert meeting might end up in a course you take. A CPD guideline drafted by IFLA might shape how your employer structures its staff development plan. Recognising these connections helps you find quality learning resources and understand why certain standards exist.

The broader lesson is that the LIS profession is genuinely global. Challenges such as digital transformation, open access, and now artificial intelligence are shared across countries, and the response is increasingly coordinated. IFLA brings the profession’s own voice and structure, while UNESCO brings governmental reach and funding. Together they form a system that helps keep library professionals skilled and relevant, no matter where they work.

What do you think? If you were designing a continuing education programme for librarians in your region, which IFLA or UNESCO resource would you draw on first, and why? And do you think global standards genuinely fit local needs, or should professional development always be built from the ground up?

References

1. https://www.ifla.org/units/cpdwl/
2. https://blogs.ifla.org/cpdwl/2025/09/
3. https://www.ifla.org/files/assets/cpdwl/guidelines/ifla-guidelines-for-continuing-professional-development.pdf
4. https://www.ifla.org/news/empowering-library-workers-in-the-digital-age-revised-ifla-cpd-guidelines/
5. https://www.ifla.org/node/7621
6. https://libguides.usc.edu/libsci/profdevelopment
7. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/unesco-launches-open-access-curricula-researchers-and-librarians
8. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/enhancing-ict-and-e-literacy-skills-kenyan-librarians
9. https://www.ifla.org/public-library-manifesto/