The Library Services to People with Special Needs Section of IFLA: an historical overview

Abstract

The Library Services to People with Special Needs Section of IFLA was founded in 1931 as the Sub-committee on Hospital Libraries. It was the first sub-committee IFLA formed for a special user group, that is, hospitalized people who could not use external libraries. The young sub-committee soon saw, however, that due to a range of disabilities often secondary to the cause of hospitalization, some patients required special reading aids, for example, sensory or mobility aids. Those needs also became evident among community members, confined or not. Wanting to address them, the sub-committee expanded its focus overtime to include people who, for whatever reason, could not use conventional libraries, materials and services. This paper traces the sub-committee’s evolution from sub-committee, to committee, to sub-section, and finally section that today promotes library resources and services for a broad range of special needs people. Its growth in part reflects the expansion of the Federation itself.