———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Nhlapo, Lindi <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 7:46 PM
Subject: [IFLA-L] re: Women, Information and Libraries Quebec update
To: [email protected]
Subject: Women, Information and Libraries Quebec update
*Women, Information and Libraries Discussion Group Update*
The Women, Information and Libraries Discussion Group (WIL DG) focuses
on women as users of library and information services, as workers in the
library field, and as providers of information. Our mission is the
promotion, development and support of library and information services
for the benefit of women, and society as a whole.
The Discussion Group is being sponsored by the Management of Library
Associations Section.
*Our* Durban program focused on women` professional contribution to the
UNESCO Millennium Development Goals. The presentations delivered by our
four speakers were truly inspirational and attracted lots of interest
from the 200+ strong audience.
Right after the session we had an extremely well attended meeting with
delegates interested in collaborating with the discussion group; this
helped us established the focus of WIL’s future work.
Three threads for the Group conveners to follow emerged from that meeting:
· *Woman professionals would like to communicate and share experiences
throughout the year, not only at the annual conference.* We discussed
further promoting our mailing list WILL-L (to subscribe go to:
http://infoserv.inist.fr/wwsympa.fcgi/info/will-l) and starting a
discussion group newsletter.
Adetoun Oyelude from the Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan,
Nigeria, kindly volunteered to become our Newsletter Coordinator and has
been preparing our first newsletter which will be out at the end of
April. If you have any news of interest from your area do not hesitate
to send them to Toun at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
· *Women professionals (especially those in developing countries) are in
need of grants and financial assistance to enable them to attend future
IFLA conferences.* It was proposed to create a directory of institutions
which could offer development grants to women professionals. WIL DG
Convener Nthabiseng Kotsokoane, Chief Librarian of the Monash South
Africa Library is leading this idea. If any of your library associations
offers grants for attendance to Quebec City Conference or you know or
any such initiatives, we will be delighted to promote them, so please
get in touch with Ntabi: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
· *Women professionals are in need of mentorship and support from
colleagues.* The idea of starting a Big Sister-Little Sister mentorship
scheme came up, and we hope to materialise this at the forthcoming
Conference.
The WIL DG theme for Quebec City „Putting Women on the Agenda“ would
move away from the traditional program of speakers presenting papers in
a lecture style. We aim to do a session based on interactive workshops.
Michele Reid, Director of Hoover Library, McDaniel College, Westminster,
MD, has kindly agreed to act as the overall workshop leader and is
helping us putting the program together. The idea is to present several
workshops of 45minutes each and give delegates the opportunity to choose
to participate in two of them. We are planning to hold workshops in
several IFLA official languages, English, French and Spanish at least,
to cater for a wider range of delegates.
We hope you would like these ideas and welcome suggestions on themes
which would attract interest from delegates coming from your region. Our
objective is to give women professionals the opportunity to share
experiences, be inspired by others, learn something new, and hopefully
help facilitating some individual partnerships between delegates from
different countries.
We are calling on you, experienced and committed activists who have been
working for years to put women on the agenda; your presence and support
would not only guarantee attendance, but also inspire delegates. We need
the support of both library associations and individual members within
the IFLA family. We hope many of you would feel inspired by the WIL DG
program and will join us at our session in Quebec City.
If you would like to help facilitating one of the workshops (we
specially welcome French language speakers) or have any ideas on how to
develop the Big Sister, Little sister mentorship scheme, do not hesitate
to contact me at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Finally, our Website Coordinator Em Claire Knowles from Simmons College
Boston, MA, has joined the IFLA website working group as WIL DG
representative. Em Claire is looking forward to participate in this IFLA
project which aims to redesign Iflanet to better promote all IFLA
activities and services, and will manage and update content for the WIS
DG area on our pages once the new software is up and running. Please
contact Em Claire if you have any ideas related to the website:
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Hoping to hear from you and/or to see you in August in Quebec City!
Best regards,
Maria Cotera, WIL DG Convener, University College London
—
Maria Cotera,
Cataloguer,
UCL Library Services,
Science Library,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 2302 (internal x32302)
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7679 7373
E-mail: [email protected]
Ms Lindy Nhlapho
IFLA Regional Office for Africa
[email protected]
[email protected]
Tel: +2711 471 2826
Fax: +2711 471 2200
Mobile: +271172 7145 125
864 6220
[email protected]
