Stinson and Orlowitz began with a general Wikipedia overview, and the stats were staggering. Wikipedia ranks in the top five visited websites on the planet, with 15 billion page views each month. It features 40 million articles; has 80,000 monthly contributors; contains 32 million media files in its Wikimedia Commons; and has 280 different language … Continue reading Come Together, Right Now
Irene Munster, associate director of the Priddy Library for the Universities at Shady Grove in Rockville, Maryland, described the waves of Jewish immigrants to Argentina from 1889 to the 1930s, many of whom established their own library collections in Yiddish, Russian, German, or Polish languages in the towns and cities they settled in. As refugees … Continue reading Immigrants and the Library
In December 2009, Ferriero said, the president issued an Open Government Directive that called on each government agency to submit an open government plan to increase the availability of its documents. NARA is now developing its fourth plan with 50 specific commitments to strengthen open government. These feed into a National Action Plan (currently the … Continue reading The National Archives and Open Government
Marie Ostergaard, head of community engagement at Dokk1, a large cultural center in Aarhus, Denmark, that includes the Aarhus Public Library, led the session with a detailed presentation on the Dokk1 project and how it reenvisions the library-going experience. Dokk1 is a massive, open-air complex located in the city center on the waterfront that encompasses … Continue reading Moving Beyond the “Third Place”
Michael Zubal, a manager of Zubal Books in Cleveland, Ohio, related two instances when his store was involved with stolen books. The first took place in 1995 when he purchased a first edition of Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1929) by Edgar Rice Burroughs from an individual who came into the store. Shortly afterwards he … Continue reading Security, Inventory, and Provenance
The panelists addressed the topic from a variety of angles. Bogdan Filip Zerek, head of the conservation department at the National Library of Poland, presented an exhaustive study of how the library combated the effects of water damage in the Krasiński Palace in Warsaw, built in the 17th century, which houses the library’s iconographic collections. … Continue reading Preparing for the Worst
Lili Boshevska, director of the University St. Kliment Ohridski Library in Bitola—one of five national libraries in Macedonia—said that the majority of the UN goals are already mirrored in national policy. “Sustainability is possible,” she said, “but there is still much to be done by 2030.” Combating poverty by eradicating illiteracy is one of Macedonia’s … Continue reading National Libraries and Sustainable Development
Section Chair Jayshree Mamtora said that the problems these countries face—relations with indigenous peoples, developing economies, immigration, climate change, multilingual populations, and communication over vast distances—are all being addressed by libraries that are experimenting with new ways of contributing to the social and economic development of the communities they serve. Keynote speaker Loida Garcia-Febo, a … Continue reading Libraries Improving Lives in Asia and Oceania
OCLC made use of the occasion to showcase its services at its “Industry Symposium” on August 14. President and CEO Skip Prichard compared the work of OCLC with the Disneyland attraction It’s a Small World, saying that “Making the big world of information small enough to manage is what we do.” Prichard added that OCLC … Continue reading OCLC: Purpose, Place, and People
Awards at the closing session included naming IFLA Past President Ingrid Parent, university librarian at the University of British Columbia, as Honorary Fellow, IFLA’s highest award. The award noted her “landmark work” in producing the 2013 IFLA Trend Report, which identified five high-level trends that are shaping the information society. Among other awards, the IFLA … Continue reading Rewarding the Past and Looking to the Future
