World Library and Information Congress: 74th IFLA General Conference and Council

"Libraries without borders: Navigating towards global understanding"

10-14 August 2008, Québec, Canada

Call for Papers

Health and Biosciences Libraries Section

Session Theme: "The Role of Humanities in Medical Education and Patient Care"

The IFLA Health and Biosciences Libraries Section invites you to submit an abstract for a presentation on this theme for its Open Session at the World Library and Information Congress: 74th IFLA General Conference and Council to be held 10-14 August 2008, Québec, Canada.

Aim and Scope of the Session

The purpose of the Session is to explore the role humanities in medical education and patient care and their implications for health sciences libraries.

The audience of this Session is likely to include health care professionals, educators, researchers and librarians.

The presentations that address the following issues are particularly welcome:

does the use of literature, art, music, and philosophy in the context of patient care improve communications skills, human understanding, and patient satisfaction?
examples of integration of humanities into medical curricula
collection development and use of a humanities collection in a medical library
practical considerations in building a humanities in medicine collection in a medical library
library support of humanities in medicine education
existing programs to address these issues
other relevant topics will also be considered.

The delivery of each presentation is anticipated to be 20 minutes with 10 minutes for questions and answers. The written version of the presentation should be made available prior to the session and these may be published on IFLANET.

Submission Guidelines

The proposals must be submitted in an electronic format and must contain:

Title of paper
Author(s) of the paper
Abstract or summary of the paper (200-400 maximum words)
Speaker's name, address, professional affiliation, email address, biographical note (40 words)

Important Dates

January 30th 2008: Deadline for submission of abstracts.
March 1st 2008: Notification of acceptance by the Review Committee.
May 1st 2008: Deadline for submission of full text of the paper (4000 words maximum).

Please send by 30th January 2008 an abstract of 200-400 words in your proposed paper, full contact details and a short CV to:
Päivi Pekkarinen
E-mail: paivi.pekkarinen@helsinki.fi
and copies to
Kate Oliver
E-mail: koliver@jhmi.edu
and to
Heather Todd
E-mail: h.todd@library.uq.edu.au

Regrettably IFLA's Sections do not have funds available to pay for speakers' expenses, although there may be limited funding available through other IFLA channels, especially for people from developing countries.
Small number of grants for conference attendance will be available at: http://archive.ifla.org/III/members/grants.htm