IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, chose Libraries Creating the Future: Building on Cultural Heritage for the theme of its 75th World Library and Information Congress (WLIC), held in Milan, Italy, in late August. It attracted a lively crowd of almost 4,000 attendees from over 135 countries.

Congress sessions are planned by individual sections and special interest groups. Some focused on the Creating the Future half of the theme, while others concentrated on Cultural Heritage. A few chose to ignore the theme, among them Library Theory & Research, which opted for papers about research into open access. The presenters, from Malaysia, New Zealand, Iran, and Uganda, brought different perspectives to the topic. Kiran Kaur, University of Malaya, won the section's Best Student Paper award for her research into open access initiatives in academic libraries. Miriam Kakai, Makere University, looked at the challenges faced by her university in its advocacy for open access through institutional repository building. Kayvan Kousha, University of Tehran, looked at ISI impact factors for IFLA conference papers, which proved somewhat discouraging.

   Cultural Heritage

Earlier this year, IFLA reclassified Library History from a section to a Special Interest Group, due to its declining membership. That didn't stop the SIG from presenting a stellar program on library collections throughout the ages. Serbian books and libraries, lost Transylvanian manuscripts from the 15th and 16th centuries, a reconstruction of lost book collections from 18th century Finland, and the dispersed library of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) demonstrated how, even though we know that books and manuscripts once existed, some are now gone forever - a strong argument for preserving cultural heritage using modern technology.

Combining the past with the future was the topic of the Asia and Oceania programme session. Speakers from New Zealand, American Samoa, Japan and the U.S. told of digitisation efforts to preserve the past. Some involved citizen-created content and the use of citizen comments to illuminate print and photographic materials found in archives.

During the session sponsored by the Regional Activities Division, Piyadasa Ranasinghe, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, investigated how various types of libraries regard cultural heritage. His small survey revealed differing levels of recognition about the cultural heritage concept. Public libraries have limited understanding of the importance of it, while university libraries are aware of its importance, but collect only printed materials. Most aware are the National Archives, which places emphasis on preservation, and the National Library, which is not very active in preservation. I suspect the same situation obtains outside Sri Lanka.

Poster sessions are always a hit at WLIC. Positioned in the exhibit hall, they bring a visual element to the Congress. Information literacy competence in Germany, the librarian's role and the diversification of librarian's work in Korean special libraries, the use of personas to develop library services in a Chinese 2.0 world, a Finnish project on collection mapping, the Croatian Cultural Heritage portal (http://www.kultura.hr ), a Danish project that had people with intellectual disabilities running a successful Library Café, an Ethiopian library embracing 2.0 technologies, and a somewhat poignant one on the Action for Development through Libraries Programme (ALP) by its director, Birgitta Sandell, were a few of the 103 posters on display.

Throughout the sessions, I found an interesting blend of papers about libraries, archives and museums. Although IFLA presents itself as a library organisation, the Cultural Heritage part of its theme brought into sharp relief the conversion of these three information-based institutions. Each have different missions, but can learn from the practices of the others.

   Creating the Future

If you listened closely to the papers given at IFLA concerning the future, you'd assume it is closely allied with digitisation, open access, new staffing models, electronic repositories and eBooks. In other words, it's not the web, it's well beyond that. The Library 2.0 SIG held an open discussion on 2.0 technologies that ranged from recommendations of Twitter applications to what level of involvement the library and its librarians should have on social network sites used by students. Does an undergraduate really want a librarian in their friend list?

One thing not very futuristic about IFLA this year, not even very ‘present-ish’, was the lack of free wireless access. The conference had several internet workstations set up - with a 10 minute time limit - and charged 10 Euros (USD15) for 4 hours. The Information Technology Standing Committee was sufficiently incensed to present IFLA with a resolution calling for free wireless not only for the 2009 conference but also for all future conferences. By the time of IFLA's General Assembly, which is when the resolution would have been heard, conference organizers had backed down and removed the access fee. Thus, we had free wireless for about half the time we were there.

Some found an alternative for their checking email, tweeting and blogging addiction outside the exhibition hall, in the big yellow bus that the Finns drove down from Tampere. Billed as ‘the heaviest and most yellow mobile service in the world,’ Nette-Nysse (literally, Internet Bus) contains a small theatre and 10 computer workstations. The Tampere City Library uses it for information literacy and computer training.

Creating the future for libraries isn't simply about technology. For IFLA delegates, it's also political and economic. During her term as IFLA president, Claudia Lux chose Libraries on the agenda as her presidential theme. Certainly how to obtain government support for libraries and how to persuade funding bodies to provide money for library operations were shared concerns for all types of librarians and information professionals.

The agenda of IFLA includes freedom of access to information, freedom of expression, and intellectual property concerns. Commitment to these principles is one of the pillars of the Association. Winston Tabb, Chair of the IFLA Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters, presented a Joint Statement of Principles by IFLA, eIFL, and LCA on Copyright Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives (http://www.ifla.org/en/clm ), noting that 21 countries have no copyright provisions for libraries and another 27 have provisions so general that they're not useful.

   IFLA News

As announced last year, this Congress saw the implementation of a new professional structure. It telescopes the previous eight divisions into five: Library Types, Library Collections, Library Services, Support of the Profession, and Regions. This has been a carefully planned, thoroughly transparent process. The smoothness of the transition from old structure to new proved that the process worked. My only gripe is that it is still not fully detailed on the redesigned IFLA website. (http://www.ifla.org )

Several new SIGs came into existence during WLIC. One, reflecting a worldwide concern with ‘going green,’ is the Environmental Sustainability and Libraries SIG. At its initial meeting, Vincent Bonnet explained why the SIG was created and issued a plea for more members from outside Europe and North America. He particularly cited Asia/Oceania as a region lacking representation in the SIG.

In the midst of the economic downturn, there was some good financial news. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave a USD1.5 million grant to IFLA for administrative expenses. The Foundation also selected the Fundacion Empresas Publicas de Medelin (Colombia) for its USD1 million Access to Learning Award. The Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development announced that it gave 120,000 Euros to the Beichuan Library that was destroyed in the Sichuan earthquake. The money will be used to build a secure storage place for the collection, which contains much cultural heritage of the Qiang minority in the province. The library director, Li Chun, was in Milan to accept the award and describe the devastation of her library.

It wasn't all seriousness at the 75th WLIC. The first IFLA Football Tournament took place on Wednesday. The winner? Germany's Bavarian State Library. So if you're thinking of going to Gothenburg next year, maybe the soccer stars who read ACCESS should put together a team. If we can't have a conference in the region, we can succeed on the sports field outside the region.

   Ruth’s IFLA:

It was not this year’s venue, Italy’s northern city of Milan, known for fashion, food and design that were on attendees minds, but the location of next year’s conference, which was supposed to be in the ACCESS region in Brisbane, Australia. See the sidebar for my impressions.

I tried to juggle my IFLA commitment to the Knowledge Management section, which I also thought would provide content for the KM course I am teaching at Nanyang Institute of Technology, with my current SMU interests in all things related to digital libraries and the regional interests of ACCESS readership.

These and most of the conference papers are available on the IFLA website (http://www.ifla.org/annual-conference/ifla75/ ) and highlights of many sessions appear in the conference newsletter IFLA Express. (http://www.ifla.org/annual-conference/ifla75/ifla-express2009.htm)

   Divisional Caucus and Asia-Oceana Section:

Meetings for the Africa-Latin America-Asia Caucus usually have underwhelming attendance. So the conference planners selected a small meeting room which was bursting at the seams with attendees who wanted to hear about the relocation from Australia to Sweden. IFLA President, Claudia Lux (Germany), incoming President, Ellen Tise (South Africa) and Secretary General, Jennefer Nicholson (Australia) all attended. 

The next day’s Asia-Oceana standing committee meeting was primarily a rerun of the caucus meeting with the same threesome presenting the same press release. Over half the attendees were not from the region. In addition to the Australian affair, the section also recognized the years of work by Action for Development through Libraries Programme (ALP) and its Programme Director Ms. Birgitta Sandell, and administrative officer Ms. Gunilla Natvig. After this conference, IFLA HQ is taking over the ALP programmes with some seed funding from the Gates Foundation. The section recognized Singapore Management University’s Li Ka Shing Library for our taking in the last ALP trainee, Chulalak Hongatikul, from Bangkok University (see page 9).

Information Literacy is taking a back seat to the Memory of the World project, UNESCO's programme aimed at preservation and dissemination of valuable archive holdings and library collections worldwide that are considered endangered. Helena Asamoah Hassan of Ghana presented the structure of MOW and Joie Springer from UNESCO Information and Communication Division provided more context within UNESCO’s Information For All initiatives: Development; Information Literacy; Preservation of Information; and Ethical, legal and societal implications of ICTs.

Michelle Rago talked about the World Digital Library, introduced in April 2009 to worldwide media fanfare and interest. Countries and institutions are contacting WDL to have their collections included in this international open access initiative. Currently there are almost 50 partners in 30 countries. The site is included in PC Magazine’s top 100 websites of 2009.

A third player in this important arena is Europeana, which was discussed in more detail at the Digital Library Futures workshop.

In our quest to find sessions relevant to ACCESS readership, I attended the product presentation for the Chinese Citation Database (CSCD) distributed on the Thomson Reuters Web of Science Platform. Zhang Xiaolin from the Chinese Academy of Sciences presented the database and its application in analyzing Chinese output in China as compared to Chinese output that appears in WOS. Like all product presentations at IFLA, attendance was sparse and I was the only representative from the region in the audience.

Google Book Settlement or Copyright and other Legal Matters

One of the major programmes examined the Google Book Settlement. The papers are not available but settlement is presented by Google on the web and articles about the controversy are on the web and in article databases. (See also page 12). Speakers included Jonathan Band (policybandwidth, Washington DC, USA), Herman Spruijt (International Publishers Association, Netherlands), Jon Orwant (Google, USA) and James G. Neal (Columbia University, USA).

While the audience of over 500 people were primarily non North American, the proposed settlement affects just the United States and the only advice to the rest of us is that we have to negotiate on a country by country basis. The question Who archives the books? arose from the discussion, with Neal assuming it was libraries and Spruijt assuming that publishers would play a role.

   Digital Libraries Workshop

I was one of the chosen who received an invitation to Digital Libraries Futures: User Perspectives and Institutional Strategies sponsored by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities hosted by the Università degli studi di Milano – Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia.

Fewer than 5 percent of the attendees were from the ACCESS readership area. David Nicholas talked about the results and implications of the recently published CIBER study on the scholarship implications of the Google generation. Daniel Teruggi, INA / Chair of Europeana User Group, introduced Europeana and gave a review of usability characteristics. Europeana discovered that users wanted a place to publish and add their own content. Most of the other speakers also represented European projects except for Zhu Qiang, who reported on collaborative digital initiatives in mainland China.

Overall, all of the digital projects discussed during the conference, including the Memory of the World, World Digital Library, Europeana and the individual initiatives presented from Italy and in the session on Library Services to Multi-Cultural populations, impressed me. The three major projects (MOW, WDL and Europeana) include content from our region. However, this key session, along with the Google Book session both of which covered major professional issues, disappointed me because they generally failed to discuss or analyze the future impact beyond North America and Europe.

I saw some Asian faces on the street carrying their burnt orange Bric bags, but I did not see them on the podium or in the audience of the sessions I attended. They were better represented at the poster sessions (KoreaScience). It is hard to know if this is a result of the high cost for Asian librarians to attend a conference in the Euro zone, a lack of interest or awareness of IFLA in the region, or a lack on the part of IFLA to provide a meaningful conference for our readers.

Two things clearly stood out of for me by the end of the conference: the lack of Southeast Asian representation and content (outside of attendance at the Council for National Library Directors) at IFLA and more importantly, the lack of regional cooperative initiatives in our readership area.

Marydee Ojala is the Editor, ONLINE: Exploring Technology & Resources for Information Professionals and Programme Director for Internet Librarian International. Ruth A. Pagell, is the University Librarian, Singapore Management University.

The Australian Affair Last year (ACCESS #66), we recommended that regional librarians interested in IFLA skip Milan so that they could go to Brisbane in 2010. Luckily we were not giving financial advice! The main topic of conversation in Milan was Brisbane. President Claudia Lux, incoming President Ellen Tise and Director General Jennefer Nicholson appeared at the caucus for Regional Activities and also at the Asia-Oceana section to read a report and answer questions. The main points from the report are in the IFLA Conference Express #5. Despite clarification that The Australian National Committee was involved in the decision and that Malaysia could not come back with a proposal in time, rumours were rampant and no explanation could appease many of the critics. Certainly going to a European site again next year, Gothenburg Sweden, and then back to Finland in 2012 did nothing to help the situation. However, the Southeast Asia–Oceana region will be given the opportunity to bid again in 2013, even though that is out of regional sequence. The bottom line for the decision was indeed the bottom line. It’s all about the money. In these difficult economic times, the national committee did not think that they would get enough attendees to make up the gap between the amount of money pledged by the Australian government and the cost of the Conference. There already will be a shortfall from the Milan conference The outcome of this sorry affair is the realization that IFLA needs a different process choosing sites. Claudia remarked that many regions do not have convention centres that are large enough to handle a conference of this size. I commented that not only do countries not have convention centres but more importantly IFLA cannot be so reliant on government contributions since governments do not have the money to support the conference. I also suggested that IFLA look at participating in more regional conferences and not rely so heavily on an international event. Ruth A. Pagell.