Everything about the IFLA Conference papers, posters, and satellite meetings are posted on the IFLA web page - http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/index.htm
YouTube has many clips from several events of the conference. Try a search using IFLA 2008 and you will find samples of Inuit singing which was part of the opening ceremony. Opening lasted 2.5 hours with speeches from the governor of Quebec, other government representatives, an honorary degree presentation and finally the keynote speech. IFLA is revamping its website to incorporate more social networking tools such as wiki’s, blogs, and forums. My personal best super star of copyright is Kenneth Crews. He came in for just his presentation and wowed the crowd. There are many exciting developments in global copyright issues. Kenny has a wonderful delivery method blended with humor and a clarity which brings his copyright cause to you. IFLA does not support one recipe for copyright. Rather, IFLA accepts different nations will construct copyright laws which best serve their country. However, there are international agreements to certain limitations and exceptions to copyright. Other speakers went into further detail about the World Intellectual Property Organization. There will be information released in October 2008 regarding developing policy issues which, for the first time, will include wording related to libraries. Several other speakers discussed copyright developments in their country. Good example is the Library and Copyright Alliance – see www.cilip.org.uk/laca. There are many more details which I'll post at a later date.
Blow up the Reference Desk program was packed. The content of the program was also packed with several examples and ideas for librarian and user relationships, accessibility, and concerns toward the disappearing reference interview and development of Avatars (Facebook/MySpace and Virtual Worlds). Many examples of how to exemplify web 2.0 concepts. However, the studies' conclusion indicated these social networking services are not yet strongly accepted. This has been my frustration with the set of presentation in this portion of the program. So much emphasis on the new social network tools yet the conclusion should only be understood as a failed project, not as encouragement to keep up the program. Reference librarians were sacrificing hours of their time to be present on Second Life sitting at a virtual reference desk. I think they had four visitors per month and other visitors who were just curious. None of them came back again. This is not an example of a winning project for Reference services. So after a few talks, one in fact called, “The Value of Turning Virtual”, I shook my head in disbelief that the speakers were so excited about the new frontier of social networking they ignored the results of their work.
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