NLA NEWSLETTER
FALL 2008
Before the good feeling that comes from all the energy of a conference dissipates, I must report on IFLA 2008.
For me it started with a 2 day pre-conference for the Parliamentary Library and Research Division hosted in Ottawa by the Library of Parliament. It went like clockwork, thanks to the incredible organization of Library of Parliament staff. We shared workshops and made presentations with people from all over the world; on a Canadian panel with 2 others I spoke about working in a small, new legislature with consensus government. What is remarkable is that so many issues are similar, just on different scales. While in Nunavut we are concerned about slow connectivity dependent on satellites, the parliamentary librarian from Uganda has to factor in no phone lines to many villages and how to use cell phone technology to get information out. We got to see many of the in-house tools Library of Parliament staff have developed for information management and retrieval – if we could just clone them (staff & tools!). A session with Canadian parliamentarians about their information needs and how to deliver to them was daunting – they want information analysed and in short reports, emailed. It was also obvious they value libraries and researchers.
It was not all work and no play in Ottawa. We had our opening ceremony in the House of Commons chamber and what a feeing of awe to be sitting there. Our chance to paddle a canoe to Victoria Island was cancelled by lightening and rain but we did enjoy a First Nations cultural evening under canvas.
From Ottawa we were shuttled to the main IFLA conference in Quebec City. There were approximately 4000 people at the 5 day congress. Some sessions were translated into 6 languages. Sessions had international scope and I attended ones about government information, literacy, copyright and library design as well as a couple of thought provoking plenary talks. I was pleased that my paper Ikajarutit: Delivering Legislative Library Services in an Aboriginal Language Environment (Nunavut, Canada) was well received as part of a session about “Challenges of communicating in a parliamentary environment” and once that was done I could relax a little more. In another session Sharon Rankin presented a paper about Canadian Inuit newspapers and periodicals. If anyone is interested it can be found on Monday, Aug. 11 16:00 hrs. http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/Programme2008.htm or I have an e-copy. My paper can be found at the same site Tuesday, Aug. 12 at 8:30.
All participants at the conference were given a copy of Library and Archives Canada's publication Reaching Out: Innovation in Canadian Libraries. It includes an article by Carol and Rae-Lynne “A catalogue in a multilingual, multi-script environment: the experience of Nunavut's library partnership”. So considering our small size I think Nunavut librarians had considerable input into the Canadian content of IFLA 2008.