A Krueger National Park giraffe.
Serials and Other Continuing Resources Section in Cape Town, South Africa, 2015
THE IFLA SECTION ON SERIALS and Other Continuing Resources met twice and went to dinner together during IFLA’s 81st World Library and Information Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. Our section “concerns itself with all issues which make serial publications unique in both the print and electronic environments.” (http://www.ifla.org/about-the-serials-and-continuing-resources-section) Although the expense of traveling to South Africa limited the number of members of the Standing Committee who could make it to the conference, we had about ten interested librarians drop in on our meetings, and we recruited two new members while we were there. During the first meeting we elected officers, did last minute arrangements for our session (see below), and took care of other miscellaneous business. Our second meeting was mainly devoted to discussion of future business centered around our program supporting the overall conference theme for the IFLA WLIC in Columbus, Ohio next August 13-19, 2016: “Connections. Collaboration. Community.” With the welcome brainstorming help of our guest librarians, we formulated an action plan and a subcommittee to choose from a list of topics we came up with. Finally, our Secretary, Meg Mering, added another feather to her hat when she was elected Secretary of the IFLA Division of Library Collections (Division II).
Session 116 Dynamic Transformations and Developments in the World of Serials and Other Continuing Resources
OUR SESSION’S PROGRAMME featured three presentations:
- “New Serials, New Roles, New Issues? An Update,” by Sharon Dyas-Correia, University of Toronto, Canada
- “New Roles for Serials Professionals: Description and Discovery,” by Sandy Chen, Clarion University of Pennsylvania, United States
- “E-serials Preservation: a Worldwide Challenge for Research Libraries,” by Gaëlle Béquet, ISSN International Centre / CIEPS, France, and Peter Burnhill, EDINA and Head of Edinburgh University Data Library
Committee dinner at “Mama Africa”
Old friends and new hats
THE PLOT THICKENED in the story of the hat-exchanging librarians (see last year’s ALA/ALCTS report) when Monena and Nathan Hall, two librarians at Virginia Tech, asked the author if he might know of a way to get toys and learning materials donated by the children in a daycare in Virginia to a remote pre-school in South Africa. Paul was able to check in one suitcase free, but how does one get the materials from Cape Town to Wolmaranstad, 1,188 kilometers (738 miles) away? By asking a librarian, of course! Paul contacted his hat-exchanging friend of a year earlier, Senovia Welman, Librarian at the University of the Free State, South Africa, for ideas. She was part of the awesome group of South African librarian volunteers assisting IFLA, and soon had it “sorted,” enlisting the help of librarians from the North West Province. For the complete story, please see the ALA’s American Libraries online story by George Eberhart entitled “Fifty Pounds of Books, Paper, and Toys Delivered to South African Preschoolers.” Anele Moko, Head Librarian, Tswaing Local Municipality, reported the suitcase delivered by Ian Segone and Moloki Poo of the North West Provincial Library Services.
Majestic South Africa
I WON’T ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE how awesome South Africans are—it would take a poet. I will instead close this post with words from a proverb from the Africans themselves:
“Do not flee from a roaring lion towards a crouching lion.”