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COPYRIGHT 2003 American Library Association
Some 4,500 professionals from 131 countries gathered in Berlin, Germany, August 1-9 for the World Library and Information Congress, the newly renamed annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). The IFLA conference is arguably the world's most important and widely attended international library conference, offering nine days of programming emanating from eight divisions and 45 sections involved in every conceivable area of international librarianship.
Among the featured speakers was Jean-Marie Arnoult, inspector general of libraries in France, who recently returned from a UNESCO mission to assess the damage to libraries and other cultural institutions in Iraq. Arnoult reported that what he had seen in Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra was "a shock." The contents of libraries and archives were systematically burned, he said, "and nothing was done to protect them."
Arnoult said he had seen destruction of buildings and collections on a massive scale, and protecting them clearly "was not a first priority" of the occupying American-led forces (see News Fronts, this issue).
Saying he had taken part in an August 1-2 meeting in Tokyo, where experts from nine countries, including Iraq and the United States, issued a set of recommendations, Arnoult said one of them was that UNESCO set up an international committee to coordinate recovery efforts. His complete report is available on the IFLA website at www.ifla.org.
Kay Raseroka of Botswana, who at the close of the conference succeeded Christine Deschamps of France as IFLA president, noted that developments in the United States-particularly passage of the USA Patriot Act-have alarmed librarians in developing nations who look to the United States as an example of democratic principles.
New President-elect Alex Byrne of Australia hosted a FAIFE meeting at which Raseroka spoke. The Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression committee also provided a platform for Stuart Hamilton, IFLA/FAIFE PhD scholar from the U.K., who presented a scathing indictment of the Patriot Act and other American legislation that abridges First Amendment rights.
Speaking from the audience, James Neal, vice president for information services at Columbia University, compared the current political climate in the U.S. to the McCarthy era and emphasized that American librarians were doing all they could to monitor and combat the threatening provisions of the act.
The FAIFE meeting,...
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