Conducted under the rubric ‘Transform Libraries, Transform Societies’ this year’s WLIC was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 24-30 August. It was a broad-ranging congress, with 3516 delegates, over 250 sessions and 500 speakers. Michiel and José were invited to the opening session which included a recorded speech from the new Malaysian Prime Minister, Mr Mahathir bin Mohamad, and live speeches from two government ministers as well as face-to-face meetings between the IPA and IFLA Presidents and Secretary Generals. IPA had fruitful meetings with current IFLA President Glòria Pérez-Salméron, from Spain, and with the President-elect Christine Mackenzie, from Australia.
At IFLA’s ‘Strategic Partners’ meeting held during the Congress, the IPA agreed to meet in the next six months with IFLA, IFRRO and other key organisations to discuss possible international projects. The next opportunity to further this dialogue will be in Toronto, Canada, on 19 September when the second biannual IPA-IFLA-STM meeting for 2018 takes place. We will report on that meeting in the next Newsletter.