   
Section on Reading
Annual Report 2003
Chairs report
Berlin World Library and Information Congress
1- 9 August 2003
Catharina Stenberg
Chair, Reading Section, 2002-2003
The IFLA Section on Reading has a special responsibility : to give ideas for promoting reading through libraries around the world – and at the same time to promote the idea of how books could open doors to "new" interests in learning, other personal experiences, entertainment, active citizenship and more.
For the Glasgow congress 2002, the Reading Section chose for its Open Session the theme "New Book Policies". It is an important theme in the sense of quality: you can carry out lifelong discussions around book quality items, but countries with a new book policy have chosen – normally also at a governmental level – to make books and reading active instruments, with the purpose of creating an equality of access to culture and a greater democracy.
How different aims to reach such goals could be worked out was illustrated by the Reading Section Open Session through papers given by Bob Usherwood of the UK, Florence Ponce and Francoise Lerouge of France, Birgitta Modigh of Sweden and Marietou Ndongue Diop of Senegal.
The Glasgow workshop of the Reading Section showed outstanding examples on reading promotion, mostly in the US, Russia and the UK, with papers from John Cole of the USA, Maria Vedenyapina of Russia, Eric Davies and Briony Train of the UK.
During the past year since the Glasgow congress, much of the work of the Reading Section has been focused on the theme chosen for the Berlin Open Session 2003.
The theme is: "The impact of the Internet on Reading and Libraries".
In an increasingly globalised world, a challenge for the Section on Reading is to find possiblities for the new media to cooperate with the printed book in order to fulfil several IFLA goals, among them to reduce the gap between the information rich and the information poor.
In the second Standing Committee meeting in Glasgow a paper selection group ( John Cole, Adele Fasick, Catharina Stenberg ) was set up to make a call for papers according to the theme chosen (see above), to discuss the papers received and to make a choice of three among them. The group has worked by email during the year. Seventeen papers were received, in total.
The following speakers were invited to talk at the Open Session in Berlin:
- Reading outside the library: how has the Internet affected reading in China
HUANG QUNQING (Guangdong Provincial Library of Science and Technology, Guanzhou, China)
- The impact of the Internet on the reading practices of the university community: the case of UNAM
ELSA RAMIREZ (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico)
- How the Internet can influence Iranian readers
ZAHRA SEIFKASHANI (Alameh Tabatabaii University, Teheran, Iran)
Some of the other papers are published in the Section Newletter, July 2003.
One of IFLA’s important concerns is to work with the appropriate national and international bodies to promote policies and develop programs that equalize access to the internet.
Our selected papers for the Open Session in Berlin inform these ideas and other IFLA ideas, such as fighting for equal access to the internet, a theme that comes back in the Report from the Brainstorming Session, Glasgow 2002, hosted by Kay Raseroka, IFLA President-Elect 2002 . Here it was said that "people, communities and organizations need universal and equitable access to information, ideas and works of imagination for their social, educational, cultural, democratic and economic wellbeing."
To summarize, the papers selected by the Reading Section to be presented at the Open Session in 2003 is at the heart of IFLA’s overall responsibility, and demonstrates the aim of the Section to disseminate the ideas of IFLA.
At the Glasgow congress a subcommittee was also set up for an interactive workshop in Berlin : Ivar Haug, Briony Train and Alec Williams were chosen. Briony gave us ideas from her work with Bob Usherwood about methods for developing interactivity. Unfortunately we were given no conference time to promote a workshop in Berlin.
During the past year the work has continued on the Literary Guidelines/ Library-based Literacy programs. Gwynneth Evans edited the final version, which has now been translated into Spanish. The Newsletter of the Reading Section is edited by John Cole. This is a high quality document that is widely disseminated and promotes our Section well. Adele Fasick has done an important task in putting up the Call for papers on IFLAnet and commenting on all the papers received.
During the year Catharina Stenberg, in addition to selecting papers for the open session, has tried to increase membership on the Standing Committee and in the Section on Reading. After discussion with the SC members, John Cole revised the Strategic Plan.
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