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WOMEN AND LIBRARIANSHIP
No. 11
June/July, 1998
- Marta Terry (Cuba), Chair
- Isabel Stirling (USA), Secretary
- Beth Stafford (USA), Newsletter Editor/Information Coordinator
Chair Mary Biblo welcomed all person interested in RTWI to discuss,
contribute, and advance women's issues in librarianship. Minutes of the
meetings held in Beijing in 1996 and published in the RTWI Newsletter were
approved unanimously.
The report of Secretary/Treasurer Leena Siitonen pointed out that
membership has grown steadily. After discussion, the committee recommended
that RTWI bookkeeping should be done more carefully and be fully
documented. RTWI's Web site on IFLANET is available, but more effort
should be expended to keep its contents up to date. Marta Terry offered to
take the issue of maintaining accurate Web sites to the Professional Board.
Yoko Taguchi reported that two issues of the Newsletter have been
published annually. She asked members to contribute news, articles, and
reports. In addition, assistance in distributing the newsletter is needed.
After the Copenhagen meeting, Beth Stafford will edit the newsletter.
A group appointed at the first Executive Ctte meeting prepared
RTWI Scope and Goals (below), which were approved at the Executive Ctte's second
meeting. Members of the working group included Marta Terry, Mary Biblo,
Isabel Stirling, Kalpana Dasgupta, Beth Stafford, and Suzanne Hildenbrand,
assisted by Marlise Mensink of the IIAV. (See below).
In response to a charge from IFLA Headquarters, at the Copenhagen
conference a working group of RTWI members wrote a description of our scope
and goals. At its last meeting during the conference, the Executive
Committee approved the following text.
Scope:
The Round Table on Women's Issues concerns itself extensively with
questions and issues that have special relevance for women in the library
profession and in the library user community. Further, it develops
programs designed to enhance the opportunities and the image of these two
groups of women. The RTWI promotes the collections, research, publication
and dissemination of information on the status of women in librarianship.
Another concern is to identify discrimination in all forms and disparities
in resources, programs, and opportunities relating to women in
librarianship. The RTWI will collaborate with and support sections, Round
Tables, and groups within IFLA interested in these issues.
Goals:
- Provide a forum for discussion of issues concerning women in
librarianship.
Action: Develop a series of open sessions/workshops at IFLA
conference.
- Provide opportunities for research into the role of women in
librarianship and insure its dissemination.
Action: Publish the workshop proceedings and research results
stimulated by the Round Table's activities.
- Communicate with groups within librarianship and other information
professions that have similar concerns.
Action: Establish an IFLA RTWI Webpage providing links to relevant
collections and information sources.
- Promote the inclusion of women's issues in library and information
education.
- Promote awareness of the RTWI within IFLA membership.
- Encourage collection development and establishment of information
services on women's issues worldwide.
- Promote literacy and life long and distance learning for women.
Members of RTWI visited this library in Copenhagen in its new two-story
home, next to the national library. Anne-Marie Erikson, reference
librarian, explained the Center's work and its role within the context of
the Nordic tradition. The Center is a most impressive enterprise that
serves all members of the public in Denmark, from members of Parliament to
public school students.
At the Copenhagen conference, it was announced that Suzine Har
Nicolescu had been appointed as Program Chair for the 1998 conference RTWI program.
Later, Beth Stafford volunteered to assist with planning.
The theme of the 1998 program will be "On Crossroads of Information and
Culture: Women's Roles in a Diverse and Dynamic World". The Executive
Committee decided to invite carefully selected speakers present our 1998
program, with a mix of women and men librarians speaking. We will have two
to three women speakers talk about their work relating to women's issues.
In addition, we will have one or two men present their perceptions in
regard to RTWI issues outlined in our scope and goals from the perspectives
of concerned men in the library and information profession.
The International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's
Movement (IIAV) located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is holding an
international conference for librarians and document- alists working with
materials relevant to women and gender issues. Deliberately timed to link
with IFLA's annual conference, the "Know How Conference on the World of
Women's Information" will be held in Amsterdam August 22-26, 1998.
Only two meetings of such librarians and documentalists have been
held previously, one of which was by invitation. Following up on the
foundations lain at those conferences, the "Know How" conference will
further:
- develop concrete ways of making women's information available,
visible, and accessible
- connect local sources of women's knowledge to global women's
information networks in order to create a sustained and intercultural
exchange of information throughout the world.
Official registration forms are now available. For full
information on the conference, go to the URL or email site.
The conference URL on Internet is http://www.iiav.nl
Email information is at knowhow@iiav.nl
Program coordinator for the "Know How Conference", Marlise
Mensink, urged RTWI members to be active participants in the IIAV program.
Suzanne Hildenbrand (USA) has written a brief history of the IFLA RTWI
for inclusion in the book "Libraries: Global Reach, Local Touch", to be
published by the American Library Association (ALA) by mid-1998. The book
is being edited by current ALA President (and RTWI member) Barbara Ford and
Kathleen McCook (USA).
or change address, etc., send your name,
address, job type, fax and phone numbers, and email address to:
Wendy Bartlett, Head,
Reader Services Unit,
Vienna International Centre Library,
Int'l Atomic Energy Agency.
Wagrame Strasse 5,
P.O. Box 100, A - 1400 Vienna, Austria
Fax: 43-1-2060-29584
Please TYPE or PRINT carefully.
Women and Librarianship, newsletter of the IFLA Round Table on Women's
Issues (RTWI) is published semi-annually. Send articles and news items to
Editor:
Beth Stafford,
University of Illinois,
1408 W. Gregory Dr.,
Urbana, IL 61801, U.S.A.
Fax:217-333-2214;
or
E-mail: bstaff@uiuc.edu
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