06 January 2022

IFLA is happy to share the 2021 Update of its Trend Report, based on the ideas submitted by emerging library leaders ahead of our World Library and Information Congress. We invite you to look through, and think how these trends will interact and impact upon our institutions, our profession and our communities.

The future has, arguably, rarely been more uncertain.

To ensure the sustainability of our communities, institutions and profession, we owe it to ourselves to think through the trends and forces that may shape the world around us in the years to come, be they political, economic, technological, cultural or environmental.

IFLA’s Trend Report series – launched in 2013, and with updates in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 – is there to support this reflection as a key part of individual and organisational development.

We are therefore very happy today to launch the the 2021 Update of IFLA’s Trend Report, with a foreword by IFLA President Barbara Lison, and an introduction by Secretary General Gerald Leitner.

The Update focuses on the ideas shared by emerging library leaders from around the world that provided the foundations for the President-elect’s session at the World Library and Information Congress.

The Update shares 20 different suggested trends – some complementary, some contradictory – that the people who will be leading our field in ten years felt would mark their professional lives. For each one, a short section highlights key questions and aspects, as well as potential responses for the library field. The trends are:

• Tough times ahead
• Virtual is here to stay
• The comeback of physical spaces
• The rise of soft skills
• Diversity gets taken seriously
• An environmental reckoning
• A mobile popupation
• The impatient user
• An analogue backlash
• Scale matters
• Data domination
• Search transformed
• Race to the extremes
• Lifelong learners
• A single, global collection
• The privatisation of knowledge
• Qualifications matter
• Information literacy recognised
• ‘Open’raises questions about libraries’unique selling point
• Inequalities deepen

It also shares ideas about how to work with the trends, including carrying out your own version of the President-elect’s session within your association or other group, and variations on this model.

Read the Trend Report 2021 Update:

IFLA Trend Report 2021 Update