Day three of the World Library and Information Congress of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) was a day of awards, honors, and the announcement of new partnerships.
IFLA Secretary General Jennefer Nicholson and Ismail Serageldin of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt signed an agreement at the conference–which is taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden—officially making the library IFLA's Arabic Language Center. Serageldin noted that bringing Arabic into the IFLA family of lanugages helps fulfill the great mission of the federation, that of bringing nations together in the advancement of knowledge.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced the winner of its annual $1 million Access to Learning Award to the Veria Central Public Library in Greece "for its creative use of information and technology services to meet the economic, educational, and cultural needs of more than 180,000 people." In Gothenburg to accept the award, Veria Library Director Ioannis Trohopoulos said, "I am astonished, I am humbled, I am grateful." He told me after the ceremony that it is the citizens of Veria who deserve the award, they are the ones who have cause for celebration, and he said that what the award makes him most proud of is his staff (video). Making the announcement, Deborah Jacobs, director of the foundation's Global Libraries Program in the U.S., compared the achievements of the relatively small Veria library to the American children's classic The Little Engine That Could. They thought they could and they did, she said.
IFLA President Ellen Tise of South Africa announced today that Cameroon, Lebanon, and Peru have been chosen to work with IFLA on the new "Building Strong Library Associations" program, and Jacobs announced that the Gates Foundation would support three other participants–Botswana, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Strong associations are essential to developing nations, said Tise, and Jacobs added that the project is aimed at strengthening the library associations' access to online resources, including case studies and training materials.
OCLC President and CEO Jay Jordan himself announced the winners of the coveted Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development fellowships, six librarians from Botswana, Nepal, Philippines, Malawi, China, and Serbia.
Other awards presented today include: the De Gruyter Saur/IFLA Research Paper Award, the 8th IFLA International Marketing Award from Emerald Group Publishing, the IFA LIS Student Paper Award sponsored by ekz.bibliotheksservice, and the Shawky Salem Conference Grant. Visit the IFLA website or the sponsor websites for details.
IFLA Senior Policy Advisor Stuart Hamilton announced the release of the new electronic IFLA World Report (formerly the print IFLA/FAIFE World Report), a free database containing 122 country reports on censorship. Work on this electronic version of the report was done at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and "there is nothing else like it in the world," said Hamilton.