From August 13-19, 2016, the 82nd annual congress of International Federation of library associations and institutions (IFLA) has taken place in Columbus, Ohio, United States of America with the theme: “Connections. Collaboration. Community”
This congress brought together nearly 4,000 library - information leaders and experts from 145 countries in the world. Right after the congress’s opening ceremony, hundreds of papers were presented in 228 sessions. Topics presented at the congress aimed at building a developed global library network, at the same time, raise the issue of tighter cooperation among every member countries to jointly solve all challenges of the era successfully.
In particular, the congress emphasized the tasks and roles of national libraries in the digital age; their contributions to lead the sustainable development goals by implementing library laws, boosting the activities of exploring information resources in the libraries, building digital collections, conducting library marketing, cataloguing, preservation, and cooperation of precious collections sharing, connecting the global information network... in each country.
There are 04 Vietnamese delegates attending this 82nd IFLA Congress, including 02 delegates from the NLV, 01 from National Centre for Scientific and Technological Information (Ministry of Science and Technology), 01 from An Giang Academic Library. Within the congress’s agenda, the Viet Nam delegation has actively and fully participated in such sessions as:
- The Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) held in Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio. U.S.A. The conference gathered over 90 directors and representatives of national libraries in the world, had the theme “National Library on the digital market” and key presentations, such as: Digital collaborations @ the Library of Congress, The Digital market: What’s new in national libraries, NGO and the private sector, What is the next technology? National Libraries to look into the future... Besides, the delegates have also ebulliently discussed such issues as: Value of the national libraries, national cultural heritage, evolution of the ISSN network... In his speech at the conference, the 2016-2017 IFLA General Secretary also emphazized the importance and significance of the active participation and contributions of the national libraries at the IFLA’s conferences which are believed to have significant impacts on the planning and implementation of IFLA’s action plans in the future.
- The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) industry symposium introducing OCLC’s initiatives, trends and research.
- The IFLA President’s Session – Answering the Call to Action: How might we respond to the challenges presented in the IFLA Trend Report.
- And several other symposiums such as: The role of National Libraries in contributing towards the achievement of sustainable development goals, What makes a great marketing initiative in library?, Public access in libraries (hosted by IFLA in connection with the dynamic coalition on public libraries), and sessions on cataloguing, preservation of rare and precious documents, building digital databases... These are the areas that the NLV has been effectively implementing recently. Joining these sessions helped Viet Nam delegation accumulate more experiences and open up new ideas for conducting professional activities at the NLV in particular and the libraries throughout Viet Nam in general.
Beside attending sessions and group discussion as an IFLA official member, the NLV’s director has also had several meetings with national library partners, and achieved some agreements and active sharings, such as:
- Signing a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the National Library of Viet Nam and the National Library of France.
- Discussing the document preservation collaboration activity with the National Diet Library
- Joining some receptions and group discussions with OCLC, IFLA President and General Secretary, acting librarian of the U.S. Library of Congress, director general of the National Library of Australia and National Library and Archives of Canada,... to enhance the partners’ attention and support of human resource training, technical document exchange and related issues.
At the closing session, IFLA President Donna Scheeder officially announced that the 83rd IFLA WILIC in 2017 (IFLA 83) will be held in Wroclaw – Poland.
Photos of the same events:
A panorama of the 82nd IFLA Congress Opening ceremony
Conference of Directors of National Libraries all over the world
Signing MoU between the National Library of Viet Nam and the National Library of France
Meeting with 2017-2019 IFLA President-elect
Meeting with Acting Librarian of the U.S. Library of Congress
Disscussion with National Diet Library about document preservation activity
Exchange with directors of national libraries in the Southeast Asia
Viet Nam delegation with international delegates
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News, photos: Phương Lan