Food for thought: IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2004

Citation

McKee, B. (2005), "Food for thought: IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2004", New Library World, Vol. 106 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2005.072106aac.001

Food for thought: IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2004

Bob McKee found plenty to get his teeth into at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress held in Buenos Aires in August 2004.

This was my fifth IFLA Conference so I’m beginning to get the hang of it by now.

The IFLA Conference – or World Library and Information Congress as it is now rather grandly called – is really three events in one: an international conference, a trade exhibition and a complex web of meetings of IFLA Council, committees and Governing Board which shape the governance and management of IFLA’s activities. And wrapped around the whole thing is the added dimension provided by the host community – the social and cultural programme laid on by the organisers and, of course, the city itself in which the World Congress is held.

It’s a long, long way to Buenos Aires – but IFLA 2004 was well worth the trip. In a country renowned for its beef there was certainly a lot for IFLA delegates for get their teeth into.

The world of IFLA sometimes seems dominated by a mindset which is part North American and part North European but the first ever IFLA Conference in the southern hemisphere – hosted by Argentina, presided over by an African IFLA President, and conducted largely in Spanish – was never going to be like that. It was sometimes difficult to combine the day-long IFLA schedule with the late-night lifestyle of Buenos Aires – but I tried my best.

The conference attracted large numbers of delegates from all over South America in addition to the usual heady IFLA mix of people from some 130 different countries around the world. Over 3,000 people turned up for IFLA 2004 and the South American flavour came across strongly in the conference programme and the trade exhibition. Highlights for me were conference papers on libraries in the Mexican revolution and the Chilean dictatorship – the latter demonstrating chillingly that libraries really can be a matter of life and death and the former showing clearly that all the ideas in Framework for the Future about public libraries in England had already been thought of by Mexican revolutionaries about 85 years ago!

The city of Buenos Aires also worked its magic on me. I didn’t tango or go gaucho – although many did – but I loved the late-night cafés and restaurants; and steak and chips will never taste the same again! Oh and I almost forgot – there’s the football. Argentina won Olympic gold while we were in town and now I know why Nessun Dorma has become an international football anthem – you don’t sleep when Argentina win a world championship at 5.30 in the morning local time!

And I only had one conversation – at a football match, naturally – which included any reference to the Malvinas or to Maradona and the “hand of God”.

Meanwhile, back at the conference, IFLA was going about its business. A new structure of membership fees was agreed, a New Professionals Discussion Group (a sort of IFLA version of CILIP’s Career Development Group) was established, and alarm bells were sounded about the IFLA finances. Now that the Core Activities of IFLA have been included in the core budget for IFLA (sounds like a sensible move to me) it has become apparent that IFLA is operating with an annual deficit which is not sustainable. The new Secretary-General, Ramachandran Rasu, and the new Treasurer, Ingrid Parent, will be working with the Governing Board to try to balance the books. Doubtless we’ll hear more about this at IFLA 2005 in Oslo.

In the meantime I’ll play the CD of tango music thoughtfully provided by one of the sponsors, pour myself a large glass of Malbec (there’s some really excellent Malbec out there) – go harass your local wine merchant to source the good stuff), and think of the group of Argentinean librarians who endured 27 hours in a minibus to get to the IFLA Conference in Buenos Aires from Patagonia. In our comfortably established professional existence here in the UK it’s easy to lose sight of the levels of commitment and courage that many of our colleagues elsewhere in the world have to display simply in order to do the day job. So, get involved with IFLA – and be inspired by the humanity, dignity and sheer determination of our professional colleagues from around the world.

Bob McKee Chief Executive of CILIP, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals