Abstract
The year 2020 marked a difficult period for libraries around the world as we collectively sought to respond to the extreme challenge of the COVID-19 global pandemic. With hopes that the coming year would bring change and enable some return to normalcy, many of us celebrated the coming of 2021 while reserving energy for what is likely to be another difficult year. For 2021, IFLA Journal will continue to publish original research from a diverse body of LIS professionals and scholars. The editorial committee welcomes your submissions and looks forward to further ideas for special issues that provide a valuable contribution to research while ensuring that the journal reflects the ambitious work of IFLA and its sections. Forthcoming in 2021 will be a special issue on innovative responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and one on indigenous librarianship. In addition, we are working towards issues focused on two of IFLA’s strategic programs: Preservation and Conservation, and Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression.
Led by journal editorial board member, Milena Dobrava, a distinguished group of guest editors from four regions of the world are working on an ambitious issue this will explore the adaptation and transformation of the library sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. As we have each experienced individually, the outbreak imposed sudden closures that forced the library sectors to find new ways to operate during times of confinement and social distancing. These responses ranged from adopting coping strategies to embracing innovation: existing digital services were expanded, and traditional in-person services had to be migrated online, galvanizing the institutional planning for digital transformation. Planning for reopening – which is ongoing for many organizations – has been particularly challenging as the pandemic and virus continues to evolve. This special issue aims to explore the nature of the ongoing change and transformation and to support library professionals in charting their institutions’ post-COVID19 strategic planning. Having received 50 manuscript submissions from nineteen countries, this issue will provide an important initial view of the pandemic and its impacts as an object of scholarship and discussion, continuing to advance our understanding of how libraries respond to crises (Witt & Smith, 2019).
Scheduled for issue 3 of 2021, the special issue on Indigenous Librarianship is being led by colleagues in the IFLA Indigenous Matters section. This issue is focused on theory and practice in indigenous librarianship. With the potential to transform lives and societies, the issue calls our attention to the importance of indigenous librarianship, indigenous ways of research and education, and indigenous languages. As noted in the call for papers, “our understandings of Indigenous librarianship come from across the globe and ranges widely in focus from practice-based work to highly theoretical research; from everyday community life to education and workplace settings; and for children through to the Elders”. Papers from this issue will build upon IFLA Journal’s long commitment to publishing important work on both indigenous knowledge and cultural preservation. This includes Nakata’s widely cited and read “Indigenous Knowledge and the Cultural Interface: underlying issues at the intersection of knowledge and information systems” (2002), Sraku-Lartey et. al.’s more recent analysis of the use of indigenous knowledge for the contemporary management of forest resources (2017), and Roy’s important review essay on indigenous cultural heritage preservation (2015). This special issue continues and expands upon this important dialogue.
The special issues focused on preservation and freedom of access allow IFLA journal to contribute important work to two areas at the core of the work of libraries. Working with IFLA’s Preservation and Conservation Section and the PAC Centers, this preservation issue is “focused on storage as a strategic long-term function of libraries, including practices for physical and digital collections based on risk, value, and cost in terms of institutional mission and resources”. In addition to focusing on an important topic, this issue will also the journal to experiment with the type of content it publishes, adding a supplemental call for shorter case study reports from the field to further represent the breadth of issues that concern IFLA’s diverse global audience.
Working with the IFLA Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) advisory committee, the journal is also soliciting ideas for an innovative approach to exploring the evolution of our profession’s conceptions of access as they have developed since the publication of the IFLA Statement on Libraries and Intellectual Freedom twenty years ago. This issue will publish new and original research, case studies, and essays that will a) examine the impact the Statement on libraries and intellectual freedom has had on the library profession over the past twenty years, and/or b) examine the impact of the past twenty years on the Statement. Like the special issue on preservation, the journal is taking a slightly different editorial approach, first soliciting abstracts to enable the issue editors to focus the issue closely on the topic and also allow potential authors to receive important initial feedback on their work as it moves toward full double-blind review. This will hopefully, allow the editorial process to provide better mentorship throughout the development of papers.
In addition to allowing the journal to better integrate its work into the professional committee and goals of IFLA as an organization, these special issues provide the journal with a valuable opportunity to reflect further on content, process, and its relationship with a diverse collective of authors and reviewers that work in tandem to produce important scholarship that is both reflective of the field but also advancing our practices and base of knowledge. Like the journal’s aims to reduce bias in the review process and provide important professional development opportunities to potential authors, the Editor and Editorial Board hope that adjustments to content and process enable us to improve the journal – not through an emphasis on chasing impact factors but rather by ensuring that opportunities to research and publish scholarship in the field of LIS are available to an increasingly larger group of colleagues (Witt, 2019).