Canadian Federation of Library Associations’ (CFLA) New Structure and Recent Accomplishments

October 3, 2025

Dear members,

CFLA-FCAB has undergone several changes in the past few months and we have prepared these briefing notes to explain our progress.

One briefing note details the shift from standing committees, and the other briefing note outlines the activities that we are currently engaged in for the benefit of our members.

Please feel free to distribute them to your members.

Questions can be sent to me at chair@cfla-fcab.ca or to executivedirector@cfla-fcab.ca.

Andrea Cechetto, CFLA-FCAB Chair
Canadian Federation of Library Associations
Fédération canadienne des associations de bibliothèques

Why Task Forces? CFLA’s New Structure

Since its inception in 2016, CFLA’s committees have brought together volunteers from across the Canadian library sector who have contributed their time, effort and expertise to address key priorities for CFLA. Their efforts have been instrumental in supporting CFLA and its members. The CFLA Board is deeply grateful to the many committee volunteers over the years, and their home institutions for supporting their participation with the Federation. CFLA is moving in a new direction that is necessary for the sustainability of the organization, but not without appreciation for committee members past and present.

Feedback from CFLA stakeholders identified that the committee structure was ineffective due to lack of clarity, lack of input into appointments, unclear expectations, lack of tangible outcomes, and confusion over reporting and accountability. Additionally, stakeholders, including committee members, identified that committees did “a lot of talking, but not enough action”. CFLA also heard from several stakeholders that in some cases the committees overlapped work happening at the regional level, or in some cases worked at cross-purposes from members on certain files.

CFLA is thus moving away from standing committees towards a taskforce-based model for accomplishing strategic priorities. The process for taskforce development and approval will be posted on the CFLA website to ensure full transparency.

Moving to a task force model has several benefits, including addressing the feedback above. Several of the committees already have working groups, so the task force model is familiar; however, under this new model, they will be approved by the Board and directly reflect CFLA’s strategic priorities. In addition to task forces, CFLA-FCAB will identify representatives to serve on external boards and projects and provide subject expertise. Each of these representative positions will have terms of reference that define expectations and limits for reporting, commitments of CFLA-FCAB resources, and other areas of accountability. Examples of these are the Canadian DAISY Consortium and the National Financial Literacy Strategy.

Some members have expressed concern that CFLA-FCAB will not be able to respond quickly to arising issues. The task forces model should allow us to respond very quickly as experts can be identified quickly through CFLA-FCAB’s members, board and task force members and can be called upon quickly as issues arise. We have already operated this way in the past when issues arose that did not fit neatly into the committee structure. It is the responsibility of the Board of Directors to address urgent and unexpected issues.

CFLA-FCAB is responsible for the ongoing monitoring of the national/international library landscape and issues related to our policy files and areas of action – as issues emerge, action can be taken promptly to identify a task force and call in the right people. The process that allows any of our members (or others in the sector) to propose a task force means that we have many people monitoring their areas of expertise.

This is not a change in priority for CFLA-FCAB. After reviewing our recent progress, this is an effort to focus our energies on achieving our goals.

Task Forces	Standing Committees
Each one will have a measurable outcome with evaluation criteria determined by the Board, reporting requirements, timelines and budget requirements	Has depended on the committee to propose in their work plan
Focus on a specific issue allows CFLA-FCAB to solicit expertise on that specific issue.	Tended to have a more general perspective.
Due to their specific focus, they can seek funding such as grants or sponsorships.	Due to their general nature, it was difficult to identify funding sources.
Defined role clarity for the members, the administration and the board.	Decision making is unclear.
Small size and focus allow for quick responses.	Larger size and lack of clarity often delayed responses.
Engaging the specific expertise of individuals for a limited period allows CFLA-FCAB to respond in a more nuanced way.	Committee responses tended to be limited to the expertise of committee members.
Time bound commitments allow us to engage people who may not be able to commit to standing committees	Participation is limited to people who can make long term commitments.
Task force issues will be identified by the board based on CFLA’s strategic priorities AND can be proposed by members and their members - this process will be transparent and published on our website	The standing committee structure was historical, and it was unclear how to propose change.
The taskforce model broadens the potential for a more diverse range of participation by engaging members as needed to achieve specific outcomes	The standing committee structure limited the number and diversity of individuals who could be engaged.
It allows us to address issues that did not neatly fit into the standing committee structure.	Issues tended to land on the workplan of whichever standing committee addressed it, e.g. AI appeared on the workplan of the copyright committee but crosses into other areas of focus.
Advocacy will be focused on specific issues and specific targets and will include work with federal employees and participation in federal initiatives to raise the visibility of libraries. Advocacy issues will be built into the task force structure.	There was no clear link between standing committee work and advocacy work.

CFLA’s Recent Accomplishments: Impact for the Canadian Library Sector

Background

Over the past 18 months, CFLA has been engaged in a significant transformation program to address concerns from stakeholders and lay the foundation for its ongoing. This has required significant effort to address critical organizational issues. As a volunteer-run organization, this has been an investment of time which is now resulting in the administrative and organizational infrastructure needed to enable the Federation’s sustainability. These efforts are listed under Organizational Achievements to demonstrate the rigorous consultation process and extent of these efforts.

CFLA’s Value to Members

The following are highlights from current programs at CFLA.

International Representation

• Participation in IFLA at the national level and the opportunity to provide input into IFLA work.
• Participation In IFLA committees – members of the CFLA executive are representatives on both the North American Regional Division and the Management of Library Associations standing committee, and IFLA has representatives on several subject- specific committees and projects (Copyright, Indigenous Matters, etc.).
• Partnership in a Canadian bid for future IFLA conferences.
• Collaboration with IFLA committees and divisions on topics related to Intellectual Freedom, Hate Speech and Information Integrity.
• Participation in Knowledge Rights 21, a group of copyright User’s Rights organizations whose main activity revolves around advocating for public interest/user’s rights at the WIPO SCCR (Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights).
• Partnership with ABQLA, and colleagues in the United States and the United Kingdom to create and implement A Cataloguing Code of Ethics /Un Code d’éthique de catalogage.

National Representation

• Participation in the Canadian DAISY consortium, which represents Canada in the international DAISY consortium.
• Participation in Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)’s climate literacy program.
• Participation in the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (part of Public Affairs Canada) Financial Literacy Month.
• Participation in national literacy-based initiatives including the National Financial Literacy Strategy, Public-Private Digital Literacy Program Partnership to Advance Support for Older Adults’ Digital Literacy Learning Journey, National Digital Inclusion Initiative Steering Committee, and National Survey on Digital Literacy Training.
• Partnership with CARL to produce Accessible Content: A Guide to the Canadian Copyright Act on Searching for Accessible Formats and Producing and Distributing Alternate Formats.
• Representation on the Canadian Committee on Cataloguing (CCC).
• Representation on Canadian Committee on Metadata Exchange (CCM).
• Nomination of Canadian participants in the ALA accreditation process for LIS programs.
• Maintenance of Canadian standards for cataloguing and metadata, with support programs and training.

Member Engagement

• Policy development – in the past, members participated in the development and promotion of national statements, such as the Statement on Intellectual Freedom, Statement on Libraries and the Intellectual Freedom of Children & Youth and the endorsement of the Prison Libraries Network’s Position Statement on the Prisoners’ Right to Read.
• The opportunity to participate in upcoming task forces, including:
  • Hate Literature and its Relationship with the Statement on Intellectual Freedom
  • AI and copyright issues for libraries
  • Recruitment of Indigenous people into librarianship
  • Education event for LIS and LIT instructors
  • A national data strategy for Canadian libraries
  • Compiling historical data about intellectual freedom issues in Canada (under development)
  • The National Climate Education Strategy and climate literacy (under development)
  • Accessibility (under development)
• Participation in consultations with Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Extremist Violence (CPN-PREV).

Organizational Achievements

Once of CFLA’s strategic priorities is to improve the sustainability of the Federation. As part of the organizational transformation project undertaken by the board in 2024-25, it became clear that CFLA could not adequately address member feedback about its impact (and therefore grow the membership base) without first addressing serious organizational limitations. The following is an accounting of the major initiatives in this area.

• Extensive member/stakeholder engagement program to identify areas of improvement.
  • Five large-format engagement sessions (approximately 100 stakeholders attended representing member organizations, partners, etc.).
  • Stakeholder engagement with external partners and organizations to identify opportunities to improve CFLA’s visibility and relevance in the sector.
  • Member engagement meetings with CFLA’s largest financial supporters.
  • Engagement at OLA Superconference and through informal networks.
  • Development of a Governance Review Task Force to develop recommendations based on this feedback – included representatives from CULC, BCLA, CARL, OLA, and CFLA committees and the Board.
  • These recommendations (including improvements for board and committee members, communications, reporting, member engagement and opportunities for increased collaborations with members) were unanimously approved by the Board in November 2024.
• An external organizational review was conducted to identify CFLA’s resource requirements to achieve its strategic and organization priorities (December-March 2025).
  • Recommended resource requirements for the Federation.
  • Recommended change to the committee structure to move towards a more responsive task force-based approach.
  • Future model for board governance (move to elected Board of Directors and Executive) to improve engagement and accountability.
  • Further engagement on the committees was conducted as part of this organizational review and included representatives from CFLA’s major contributors, external partners, the Board and members of the committees throughout this period.
  • The recommendations from this review were unanimously approved by the Board at the April 2025 meeting.
• Staffing improvements, including the introduction of interim Executive Director (part-time) and Executive Assistant (eight hours per week) to implement organizational improvements and work on the member engagement, partnership development and financial sustainability strategies.
• The completion of a Communications Strategy to identify how to have engagement of members and the community at large.
  • New communication channels have been identified and deployed.
  • The CFLA website has been redesigned to improve communication and access.
  • A new content strategy for the website has been developed and will be implemented beginning fall 2025.
  • CFLA’s advocacy program and resources are currently under consideration (October 2025).
• A complete overhaul of the Federation’s Financial Management processes and infrastructure was also completed.
  • Changes to CFLA’s banking and accounting infrastructure.
  • A total change to CFLA’s bookkeeping services, resources, processes and timelines have all been implemented.
  • New streamlined processes for invoicing, which will improve the experience for members and greatly improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency.
  • New reporting processes have been developed for better accountability and budgeting.
  • Review and transition of some legacy systems/processes have been completed for better accountability with resources.
• A comprehensive assessment and total redesign of internal record keeping and information management has also been introduced.
  • Complete records management improvement program in progress to improve access and organizational administration.
  • Improvements to access through the CFLA website.
  • Currently undertaking significant updates to several administrative policies to improve clarity and efficiency of operations.

(Via Canadian Federation of Library Associations)