ALIA Board Blog

I am sitting staring at a yacht skimming across the blue waters of Gothenburg, well I assume it is Gothenburg as it is just a photo on the wall of my hotel room in front of the desk that I am sitting at. 

The weather has been warm but overcast and the threat of rain looms at all times.  Like my colleagues from the ALIA board, I have had a busy week.  It started in Oslo at a joint pre conference satellite from the IFLA sections, Libraries Serving Persons with Special Needs (LSN), the Literacy and Reading section and the section I chair, Libraries serving persons with print disabilities (LPD).  Over the two days I heard many talks on the delivery of services to people with dementia, blind and dyslexic. But the main one that stood out for me was the report from the BUS-biblioteket which is a hospital library for children and young people. It is situated at the Queen Silvia hospital for children and young people in Gothenburg, which is the largest children and youth hospital of northern Europe. The library was awarded the prize ’Library of the year’ 2009-2010, which is appointed by DIK – the Swedish librarian´s trade union.  The activities and events they offer for the patients and visitors of the hospital are truly amazing, inspiring and impressive.

 Now in Gothenburg I have spent many hours in meetings, discussions on copyright especially limitations and exceptions.  Information meetings about recent  WIPO and standing committee discussions on the treaty for cross border lending of copyright material for the print disabled, the development of a manifesto for libraries serving persons with print disabilities, the Global Accessible Library and the Trusted Intermediary project, plus our own section committee meeting.  

Graham has advised that we were entertained by the ABBA cover group at the opening of the conference, who from a distance did look remarkably like ABBA back in the 80s.  Now I was not one of the many who got up an danced, ABBA is fine in small doses or through movies like muriels wedding but the rest of the audience did appreciate the chance to move their arms and hips.  

Over 3,000 delegates have converged on Gothenburg at the same time that the cultural festival is underway so you can imagine what a lively and exciting place it is to be.  Last night was the opening of the trade exhibition and the usual vendors were present, w that was interesting is the precence of family search, the church of the latter day saints geneaology software, this is the first time I have seen this group at a library conference. I wonder if Ancestry.com is taking their market share.   Ironically opposite their stand is the Ron L Hubbard booth, rows of books by the charismatic and infamous author are available for viewing, one wonders if this is a recruitment drive for the church of scientology or the selling of Ron’s books, probably both. 

This morning the key speaker, Henning Mankell, a renowned Swedish crime writer, occasional children’s author and dramatist, best known for a series of mystery novels starring his most iconic creation ,Inspector Kurt Wallander now made into a television drama and has recently aired in Australia spoke on literacy and dignity and the importance of improving literacy levels across the world and how important libraries are to this cause.

Join the Australian National year of reading 2012     http://www.love2read.org.au/

Julie Rae

Board member

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 10:29 pm and is filed under National Year of Reading, IFLA, Board director, ALIA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.