LIASA Conference 2005, Nelspruit, Mpumalanga

LIASA Conference 2005

Having been to the annual LIASA conferences for a few years, I have a developed a few traditions. One is to make my way to the exhibitors to find out about new products, get catalogues, pamphlets, flyers and posters, and sometimes CDs. These I distribute to my colleagues who may be interested, back home. This is a tradition I managed to maintain his year between sessions and blogging.

Talking about blogging, this I hope will become a tradition that the Western Cape members attending the LIASA conferences will continue. You can view the blog at westerncapeliasa.blogspot.com. Another tradition is the Western Cape LIASA Conference photo. This year the Western Cape conference photo was truly memorable. The picture was taken on the occasion of the Western Cape being awarded the first Presidential Nielson Bookdata Branch Award. The criteria included membership and renewals as well as activities held.

Before I get to the other traditions of the Conference itself, such as the invited guests, let me tell you about another tradition I would rather not keep, being a city person myself. My accommodation, despite my best intentions, has always involved animals, both the domestic and the wild variety. In Port Elizabeth, it was just being splashed wet by the playful dolphins. In Rustenburg, my little chalet was raided by a gang of Baboons, who ate all my food. Luckily they did not get to my chocolate in the fridge. In Polokwane, very eager little doggies wanted to jump on me every time I opened the door. This year I again had very enthusiastic doggies, a 15 cm insect on the shower curtain and hippos to contend with. My colleague, whom I shared with, also thought it may be an interesting experience to sleep with cabin door wide open. I was enormously grateful that the grey haired monkey’s in the area had not been active during that night.

The pre-conference workshops are good value for money and are hard skills orientated. If you are attending conference to see immediate and direct return on your, money, then you have to attend the workshops. However, if you wanted to judge the quality of the conference then you have to look at the quality of the papers. Reflecting on the papers of the invited speakers, Mr Matos, Cuban National Librarian, and Ms Putri Saniah, President of the Malaysian Librarians Association, were valuable and inspiring because of the successes they have in their countries despite the economic challenges their countries faced during the 1990’s. Dr James O Daniel, President of the Nigerian Association spoke more generally of Africa and argued that libraries are part of the solution to Africa’s challenges, most notably, poverty. Jane Sharka, spoke about school libraries and studies conducted that shows that ‘Libraries matter’ in improving academic achievement of learners. Checkout the study that produced the evidence for what we all know to be true at www.islma.org/resources.htm. Then there was our very own Prof. Archie Dick who spoke passionately about the public library services in South Africa and argued that Libraries for the people, does not mean taking it away from other people. Statistics from the Census 2001 report shows that there are 1800 public libraries for 44 billion people, put another way, there is only one library per 25 000 people. Astonishing then that public libraries are being closed. I wonder whether the solution for us in South Africa is to move the public library system from the provincial and municipal goverance to the National Library, following the examples of Cuba and Malaysia.
This conference was indeed hectic with many sessions being held on the same day and it was difficult to choose. I will report on the Higher Education Libraries Interest Group on the Western Cape HELIG blog at http://www.wchelig.blogspot.com/, a further two papers are important to mention however. The report of Reggie Raju on the investigation of statutory status of LIASA produced several options for LIASA to take. The full report is available from the LIASA website at http://www.liasa.org.za/. Finally, Ray Lonsdale, from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, who captured everyone’s attention and imagination with his paper on the role of the Internet in supporting literacy and its place in school and public libraries. Not only has the Net been used by publisher and authors, there are also web sites that support writing literacy, where the authors of stories are the children themselves.

Some people believe that we should come to conferences only if there direct, tangible and immediate benefits to the home institution. I believe it is important for practising librarians to not only attend but also to contribute to the building of the profession and professionals in SA. One way that we can contribute is to present papers ourselves that reflect on our practice in whatever sector of LIS it may be. Higher Education Librarians in particular have much to contribute, and have a wealth of experience and expertise to share with South Africa LIS professionals. This is how we give more than we receive. I challenge all South African Librarians to grasp the opportunity to contribute to the profession globally, and share with professionals from all parts of the world at the IFLA conference in 2007.

17 January 2006