IFLA-log

International Federation
of Library Associations

presents

A Satellite Conference prior to the 71st IFLA General Conference
and Council in Oslo 2005

The Multicultural Library: Staff Competence for Success

10-12 August 2005, Stockholm – Sweden

Sponsors/Co-Sponsors
The conference is organized by the IFLA Section on Library Services to Multicultural Populations in conjunction with the Swedish Library Association, the International Library in Stockholm and the National Council for Cultural Affairs.

Themes
The conference will focus on the issues of Staff Training and Multilingual Catalogues. The following aspects will be part of the program:

  • Language Rights - safeguarding and encouraging linguistic diversity.
  • Library Staff Competence – focusing on the importance of staff training programmes, on the issues of multicultural society, multilingualism and ethnic diversity.
  • Multilingual catalogues as means of overcoming information obstacles in a  multilingual environment, where powerful catalogue tools are vital in order to facilitate communication.
Subtopics
In relation to the themes above the following aspects may be discussed:

Language Rights

  • Language Rights – Human Rights
  • The multilingual challenge to the world community – and the agenda of world organisations such as the UN, UNESCO, EU etc.
  • Social and political factors as obstacles to multilingualism
  • Multi-ethnic nations – multi-lingual societies
  • Recognition of lingual diversity as a means of promoting cultural pluralism
  • Regional languages – indigenous languages

Library Staff Competence

  • Diversity knowledge and cultural competence – how do they relate?
  • ”Inclusiveness” in library planning, policies, services, collections and relations
  • Seeking multicultural knowledge from adequate sources
  • Empowering the communities concerned
  • Library staff training on multicultural issues – what has been done?
  • Recruiting, mentoring and training staff from diverse cultures

Multilingual Catalogues

  • The concept and theory of multilingual cataloguing
  • The issue of cataloguing in different alphabets
  • Implementations of today – exemplified
  • Perspectives and possibilities of tomorrow

Objectives
The conference will give participants an opportunity to:

  • Meet professional collegues with international experience
  • Take in new knowledge, visions and working practices within the field of multiculturalism
  • Create or discover tools for improving multicultural library services
  • Make contacts and establish networks for future sharing of experience
  • Be introduced to speakers with excellent views on research concepts of today and visions of tomorrow