   
IFLA Tool Kit for the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Geneva December 2003 and Tunis 2005
Summary
Library and information services are key actors in providing unhindered access to essential resources for economic and cultural advance. In doing so, they contribute effectively to the development and maintenance of intellectual freedom, safeguarding democratic values and universal civil rights. They encourage social inclusion, by striving to serve all those in their user communities regardless of age, gender, economic or employment status, literacy or technical skills, cultural or ethnic origin, religious or political beliefs, sexual orientation, and physical or mental ability. The communities they serve may be geographically based or, increasingly, linked only by technology and shared interests.
What to do
- Participate in national and regional WSIS preparatory meetings
- Indentify representatives of your national government in the WSIS process [see http://www.itu.int/wsis/participation/prepcom2/], send them material on the IFLA position and seek to meet with them
- Contact appropriate ministers or interested members of parliament, send them material on the IFLA position and seek to meet with them
- Publicise the Summit an the IFLA position in library association journals and newsletters
- Organise library and association meetings to discuss the issues and future action at the national and regional levels
- Try to get media coverage of the Summit and the issues
- Use every opportunity !
Time line
15-18 July 2003
Inter-Session meeting, UNESCO, Paris
1-9 August 2003
IFLA World Library and Information Conference, Berlin
15-26 September 2003
PrepCom3, Geneva
3-4 November 2003
Libraries @ the Heart, Prelude Conference, Geneva
10-12 December 2003
World Summit 1st Phase, Geneva
16-18 November 2005
World Summit 2nd Phase, Tunis
WSIS documents
Key IFLA documents
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