IFLA Conference 1998: on crossroads of information and culture

Information Outlook, Dec, 1998 by Fred Casey

IFLA Impressions

The sixty-fourth IFLA General Conference convened in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 16-21, 1998. The quality of the presentations, the festivities of the social events, the variety of participants, the work done during business meetings, the vibrancy of the city, and the cooperation of the weather made this a conference a huge success.

Attending the conference were 3,328 colleagues from 120 countries, all of whom enjoyed the opening ceremony starting with a living tableau of Rembrandt's Nightwatch. At this same ceremony, they were welcomed to the culturally diverse city of Amsterdam which prided itself on holding the Gay Games prior to the IFLA conference and an important international conference on women's issues immediately following. The city is also proud of the $60 million dollars being devoted to a new library of the future that will be located in the center of the city. This library (like all other public libraries in the city) will be totally accessible to the handicapped.

In addition to last year's newly elected IFLA President Mdm. Christine Deschamps' welcome, the Deputy Mayor of Amsterdam; the newly elected State Secretary of Education, Culture, and Science; and a UNESCO representative all extended their greetings to the attendees. During this session, Maria Jose Maoura from Portugal was awarded the International Book Award for 1998 from the International Book Committee. The need to continue to fight for the right of all people to have access to information was stressed during the presentations in this session. As State Secretary Rick van der Ploeg stated in his address, "Freedom can only exist where books and libraries exist and books and libraries can exist only where freedom exists."

During the closing ceremonies, the Executive Board announced that it had created a Publisher Relations Taskforce. It also will be providing a report in the future on the examination that has been devoted to the structure of IFLA, including its goals and purposes. During the course of the conference it was reported that 2,132 professional meetings were conducted and that eight new discussion groups were formed. Lack of interest will cause the contributed papers sessions to be discontinued at future conferences. In addition, extensions of welcome to future conferences in Bangkok, August 18-28, 1999, and Jerusalem, August 13-18, 2000, were made and Berlin was named as the site of the 2003 IFLA General Conference. Finally, the announcement was made that a mirror site for IFLANET is being established at the National Library of Singapore for the regions of Asia and Oceana. The Cultural Foundation National Library-United Arab Emirates is being invited to host a mirror site as well. These two sites will join the mirror site in France and the host site in Canada. These additional sites should assist in ensuring rapid access to the information on IFLANET for all interested parties around the globe.

In addition to a variety of tours of libraries and other sites offered in The Netherlands and surrounding countries, there were also a few social gatherings to attend. Following the opening session, a reception was held in the RAI Congress Center complete with excellent food, refreshing drinks, and outdoor entertainment provided by slapstick actors and an authentic Dutch bluegrass band. On the second night, events were held jointly at the Scheepvaart-museum and the Metropolis Museum with boats running between the two locations. The night before the closing ceremony afforded the attendees to dance the night away at a local disco. SLA attendees had the opportunity to attend two special events. The first was the U.S. Caucus meeting and reception held at the beautiful Pulitzer Hotel, hosted this year by AALL. All delegates from the United States were invited to attend this event. The second affair was a dinner especially for SLA delegates, arranged this year by Daan Boom. The beautiful Kort Restaurant was the site of this fun event where SLA attendees had an opportunity to gather and share their experiences of the conference.

Overall, the conference was well organized and the programming was both interesting and useful. It sets a standard for next year's Bangkok conference, "On the Threshold of a New Century: Libraries as Gateways to an Enlightened World."

Select Workshops & Discussion Groups

MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE IN MODERN LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS

This workshop was co-sponsored by the Dutch Libraries Association.

Helen C. Kooijman-Tibbles, president of the Netherlands Libraries Association made the first presentation, "Navigating a New Course for the Netherlands Library Association." The association is comprised of 3,000 individual and 600 institutional members. It has one full time secretary and the rest are volunteers. The association is given no government support.

The association was considering a name change. However, the larger question arose, is it a name change the association needed or was there a larger problem? Looking at making changes in an organization is difficult with volunteer leaders who work for the association in their free time. What is their incentive for making the necessary changes?