By Jerry W. Mansfield
Another successful conference filled with valuable, educational and cultural programs and international networking has come and gone. As always the scheduled meetings and the ad hoc unscheduled meetings made for a busy, yet productive, week.
The Government Libraries Section program on "Conquering Barriers -- the Politics of Information: Communication, Collaboration, and Content" included three speakers including a deputy minister in the Canadian government, a professor from England, and a librarian from Spain. We also co-sponsored a program with the Law Libraries, Library and Research Services for Parliaments, and Government Information and Official Publications Sections on "The Seal of Approval: Official and Authentic Law in Digital Form."
A publication on which the Government Libraries Section had been working for years came to fruition just weeks before the conference and during the conference it was premiered at an IFLA-sponsored publications event. Our Guidelines for Libraries of Government Departments is available as No. 106 in the IFLA Professional Reports, 2008 series. The Guidelines were prepared to provide advice, guidance, and ideas to librarians and staff working in libraries affiliated with government agencies, primarily in developing countries. Not included in the focus of the content are national or parliamentary libraries. We will be mailing gratis copies to libraries and library schools in developing countries. We hope to have a brief mid-term Section conference in 2010 in Europe where we will discuss the implementation of the Guidelines and share success stories from libraries. The mid-term conference will also include a program on either information architecture or e-government.
We are looking forward to a more interactive IFLA website in which all sections may enter their own information, create blogs, wikis, add RSS feeds and more. The new website will be live in January 2009. Between now and the next conference, the Government Libraries Section plans to obtain and post samples of mission statements received from libraries in government departments worldwide on its website. It is hoped that these will serve as models or ideas for inspiration and excellence in service for government libraries.
Planning is already underway for the 2009 IFLA conference in Milan. For the conference we have selected the theme "Transforming Learning Cultures: Government Libraries as the Treasures Within." Watch for our call for papers on the IFLA website in November and consider submitting a paper for presentation at the conference. 2009 is an election year for all IFLA sections. If you are interested in serving a four-year term on the Government Libraries Section, please contact me at the address below. Nominations need to be garnered by early January and submitted by the end of January 2009 with elections scheduled for February 2009.
IFLA Social Science Libraries Section
By Steve Witt
The IFLA Social Science Libraries Section enjoyed a busy and productive August, hosting a satellite conference with the University of Toronto and successful program on Borderless collections in the social sciences: platforms for digital access, disseminations and preservation.
The Social Science section collaborated on a two day satellite conference with the University of Toronto Library and Faculty of Information, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign library, and the Illinois' Center for Global Studies. The conference focused on the ways in which libraries can support research and resource development on interdisciplinary topics that require data and knowledge from multiple disciplines within the social and natural sciences, humanities, or professional fields of study. Much of this research is focused on global phenomena such as climate change and economic sustainability. The scholarly networks within these areas tend to blur traditional disciplinary and institutional boundaries. As a growing number of institutions and scholars venture into interdisciplinary global studies, academic libraries are responding with new services and resources for researchers and students.
Sixty-five librarians and researcher from North America, Europe, Asia, and Central America gathered at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Information from August 6 through 7, 2008, to share new practices and focus on the development of collaborative partnerships. The conference focused on changes within the social sciences and ways in which academic and special libraries can continue to provide services and resources to researchers who are working on necessarily interdisciplinary research questions within the constraints of organizational structures (universities, libraries, associations, and journals) that can't easily support this work.
Twenty papers explored the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary aspects of the social sciences with a view to the effects of emerging disciplines. Themes included interdisciplinarity, data services in the social sciences, continuing challenges, social networks and interdisciplinary networking, and social science portals. Conference papers will be edited and reviewed for publication by the conference chairs, Steve Witt, CGS Associate Director, and Lynne Rudasill, Global Studies Librarian, for a forthcoming volume to be published by K. G. Saur Verlag in 2009. All conference papers are also archived in the University of Illinois' digital repository.
The conference received financial from support the University of Illinois library, the University of Toronto Faculty of Information, the World Universities Network, and CQ Press, and the U.S. Department of Education's Title VI NRC grant program.
In collaboration with the IFLA Map and Geography Section and Division II, Special Libraries, the Social Science Libraries section hosted a four hour session which featured eight papers and much lively discussion. The session was organized by Jacques Hellemans of the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Social Science Section Secretary. Go here for papers from the session. For more information about the Social Science Section, please visit the site or contact Steve Witt, the Section's Chair.
IFLA Cataloguing Section
by Dorothy McGarry
The open program of the section was on the theme "Sharing standards: cooperation with other actors." Four papers were presented: FRBRoo: enabling a common view of information from memory institutions, by Pat Riva of Bibiothèques et Archives nationale du Québec, Montréal, Martin Doerr of the Institute of Computer Science, Crete, and Maja ?umer of the University of Ljubljana; Bibliothèques et archives: partager des orms pour faciliter l'accès au patrimonie, by Françoise Leresche of the Bibliothèque national de France; Sharing standards: developing a cooperative/collaborative model, by Elizabeth O'Keefe of the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, and Murtha Baca of the Getty Research Institute; and ALM convergence in the field of standardisation, by Anita Goldberga of the National Library of Latvia, Riga.
The Standing Committee held two meetings at which updates on activities and plans for the future were discussed.
A Working Group on Aggregates, a subgroup of the FRBR Review Group, met to discuss what approaches should be made to aggregates and to define the term. The RG itself also met at the conference.
The ISBD Review Group met three times, discussing the update planned for 2009 and going over a number of the comments left over from world-wide review of the preliminary consolidated edition. It was decided that ISBD training materials were needed, and perhaps a workshop can be organized for the Milan conference.
One group worked on reviewing comments from the world-wide review of the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles. It is expected this may be published in 2008 or early 2009.
The group working on FRAD (Functional Requirements for Authority Data) met to discuss some issues still to be resolved so that publication can proceed. It also decided that an international standard authority data number should not be pursued. The ISADN has been discussed for a number of years, but technology has changed the need for it.
Anonymous Classics and Names of Persons are both being worked on.
Plans for the Milan and Brisbane conferences were discussed and the Strategic Plan was also considered.
Information on some of these topics can be found on IFLAnet. The two Newsletters published this year are there, and when something is sent out for world-wide review, it also appears there.
IFLA Classification and Indexing Section
by Dorothy McGarry
The Standing Committee had two meetings, where Working Group activities and plans for the future were discussed and a revised Strategic Plan approved.
The Working Group on Guidelines for Multilingual Thesauri has almost finished it work, with just a few things to be done before it is sent for approval by the SC and then for publication.
The Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies has not made progress this year because of other commitments by the chair, but it is expected that progress will be made in 2008/2009.
The Working Group on Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records (FRSAR) met twice during the conference and it is expected that a draft will be ready early in 2009 for the WG and then for world-wide review.
Two issues of the Newsletter were published this year; these are available on IFLAnet.
Plans were made for next year's conference in Milan, Italy, and the beginnings of plans were discussed for the 2010 meeting in Brisbane, Australia. Next year there will be a satellite meeting in Florence just prior to the IFLA conference in Milan.
The Section's open program for this conference consisted of three papers on the theme "Classification and indexing without language borders." STITCH: le web sémantique et les collections patrimoniales d'enluminurers numérisées, by Anila Angjeli of the Bibliothèque nationale de France; Cross-concordances: terminology mapping and its effectiveness for information retrieval, by Philipp Mayr and Vivien Petras, of GESIS Social Science Information Centre, Bonn, and Subject headings for the 21st century: the lcsh.es.org bilingual database, by Michael Kreyche of Kent State University.
IFLA Management and Marketing Section
By Christie Koontz
The Management and Marketing Section International Marketing Award, sponsored by Emerald Publishing Group is in its 7th year. For the 6th award there were 27 applicants from 16 countries including Russia, Canada, Australia, India, Singapore, Philippines, USA, Belgium, Burundi, Colombia, Congo, Cuba, Ivory Coast, Serbia, South Africa, Tanzania. Check out this link for the full application and award criteria.
This year, first place was awarded to Ros Dorsman of Central West Libraries, Australia, where an online classroom partnership had been developed: online homework help for school students. The slogan for this campaign was: "Have you done your homework?"
Second place was awarded to Shelley Civkin, Richmond Public Library, Canada for the Ralphy card Campaign. The winning slogan was "Go Anywhere, Learn Anything: read Every Day." Third place was awarded to Grant Kaiser, Calgary Public Library, Canada. The winning slogan was "The Neatest People Have a Library Card".
The section's newsletter also grabbed recognition in the 'best of the top three' at this year's annual conference.
The section's two pre-conferences in Montreal were well-attended. "Navigating with youth", had 165 attendees, co-sponsored by the Public Libraries Section. The French-speaking conference, co-sponsored by "Association Internationale Francophone des Bibliothécaires et Documentalistes" had 250 attendees from 26 countries, included 75 speakers. The proceedings from the conference would be published in the IFLA series.
The MM section's programs included: "Managing Libraries in a Changing Environment -- Legal, Technical and Organizational Aspects" co-sponsored by Theory and Research and Statistics and Evaluation sections; and "Public and Private Partnerships" co-sponsored by Academic and Research Libraries
Plans for 2009 include: pre-conferences in Torino before Milan on "Libraries as Places and Spaces", a cooperation between five sections: Library Theory and Research, Public Libraries, Academic and Research Libraries, Library Buildings, M&M; and Athens, Greece, chaired by Christie Koontz, and hosted by the President of the General Library Council in Greece, in cooperation with Antonia Arahova. Theme "Service Strategies for Libraries."
Milan programming is suggested by Steffen Wawra "Where do we stand - Where do we want to stand in 10 years? - Planning a vision: Libraries of the Future".
Cosponsor: Academic and Research Libraries Section.
The midyear meeting will be held in conjunction with the Presidential 3.meeting in Berlin Thursday 19th and Friday 20th of February 2009. Steffen Wawra offered to organize the venue in Berlin on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd of February.
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