As of 22 April 2009 IFLA has a totally redesigned new website
This old website and all of its content will stay on as archive – http://archive.ifla.org
As of 22 April 2009 IFLA has a totally redesigned new website
This old website and all of its content will stay on as archive – http://archive.ifla.org
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Presidential NewsletterNo. 2 February 2009Dear Colleagues,
On February 3-4, the 9th International Bielefeld Conference gathered around 500 professionals under the slogan: Upgrading the e-Library. Many papers discussed the future of e-libraries and their possible role in academic evaluation. You can also listen to the audio recording and see the slides of my paper, The Global Library challenges - e-libraries on the agenda. From February 19 to 20, the Third Presidential Meeting was held at the Foreign Ministry of Germany in Berlin as a part of my IFLA presidency, with 180 participants. This time we invited library professionals from countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and the Arab World. To put ‘Libraries on the Agenda’‚ we invited also political and administrative representatives, responsible for libraries in those countries. More than 30 students from library and information departments of different universities attended. The meeting attendance was made possible by our generous Sponsors ADACH Foundation, Robert-Bosch-Foundation, with the assistance of the Goethe Society, and last but not least the Foreign Ministry of Germany. The conference presented a state of the art report on library development in many Islamic countries and showed the need for further and closer co-operation between the librarians of the region and with IFLA. There were excellent and moving reports and the networking element was strengthened between the participants and IFLA during a bus-tour to Leipzig, Halle and Weimar. Among the participants was IFLA President-Elect, Ellen Tise, who also gave a keynote speech on access to knowledge. In the evening we had a wonderful reception in the Central and Regional Library with hot jazz and a great buffet, and I was happy to show the participants my library in my own hometown. I am very happy and thankful to our great staff at IFLA Headquarters that we are now able to produce a newsletter every month to inform you better about the progress we are making in pursuing our IFLA goals in all three pillars.
Photos by Elke Dämpfert AdvocacyEllen Tise, IFLA President-Elect and Winston Tabb, Chair of the IFLA Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM) represented IFLA at the 28th Intellectual Property Expert Group (IPEG) of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Singapore on 26 February. IFLA was invited to address IPEG on ‘Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries’ within the broader context of copyright and Intellectual Property. Attendees included representatives/IP experts of APEC member economies. The presentation, titled ‘Libraries and Users’ Rights: Balance in Intellectual Property’ was well received, as was the proposal for minimum Limitations and Exceptions for libraries/users. Ellen and Winston got lots of questions and strong praise for the work that IFLA is doing on behalf of libraries in this area in the international arena. Singapore colleagues also took the opportunity of Ellen and Winston being in town to hear about IFLA activities and discuss copyright developments. Ellen Tise with a gift presented by Dr. N.Varaprasad, Chief Executive, National Library Board, Singapore and Keat Fong Tan, IFLA Regional Manager. Photo courtesy of the National Library Board of Singapore. Winston Tabb at the sharing session with staff from the National Library Board, Singapore and library professionals from the Singapore libraries. Photo courtesy of the National Library Board of Singapore.
IFLA’s Senior Policy Advisor, Stuart Hamilton, attended the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) stakeholder platform meeting in Geneva on January 19th between rights holders and visually impaired sector representatives, including the World Blind Union (EBU), Royal National Institution for the Blind (RNIB) in the UK, DAISY Consortium and Knowledge Ecology International (KEI). The meeting concerned increasing accessibility to protected works for Visually Impaired Persons (VIPs). An action points document is being prepared and circulated to WIPO member states before the next meeting of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in May 2009 which IFLA will attend. Stuart Hamilton also attended follow-up consultation meetings on February 23 and 24 in Geneva regarding the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Hyderabad last December (see the SPA Blog). The meetings sought to clarify themes for the 4th IGF to be held in Egypt this November. IFLA recently helped assess civil society candidates for the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) that administers the IGF, and during the Geneva meetings met with its civil society partners to discuss future strategy as the IGF enters the final two years of its first mandate. The Slovakian Library Association took strong advantage of hosting the mid-term Section Meeting of the IFLA Management of Library Associations Section in Bratislava, from February 12-14, to promote libraries and IFLA. The Section representatives were guests and speakers at the opening of an exhibition, sponsored by the Goethe Institute and during a special reception at the American USA Info Center, hosted by the U.S. Embassy. Both events received media coverage. For more information, please see the Embassy Events from the U.S. Embassy in Slovakia. |
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'Viruses infect all cellular life', says Wikipedia. Sometimes they infect a computer, but this year they infected tens of thousands of people in central Europe and I was no exception. But before and after, I had very interesting activities. At the end of January, the 
