| |
WOMEN AND LIBRARIANSHIP
No. 12
June/July, 1998
On Crossroads of Information and Culture
- RTWI Program
Wednesday, 19 August, 08:30-10:50
- Women's Roles in a Diverse and Dynamic World
Speakers and Topics:
- Joke Blom, Director, International Information Centre and Archives for the
Women's Movement (IIAV) in Amsterdam, Netherlands:
- "The Specifics of Women's Information and How to Make It Visible and Accessible"
- Young Joo Paik, Korean Women's Development Institute in Seoul, Korea:
- "Women's Development and Information on Women in Korea"
- Liudmila Anatolievna Glinskich, Ekaterinburg City Library System in Ekaterinburg, Russia:
- "To Make the Women Visible: the 'World of Women' Library"
- Obadiah T. Moyo, Rural Libraries and Resources Development Program in
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe:
- "Empowerment Through Information: the Role of Rural Libraries in Zimbabwe"
- Mimoune Mokhtari, Ecole des Sciences de l'Information in Rabat, Morocco:
- "The Professional Woman in Morocco: Barriers to and Prospects for Emancipation"
Executive Committee Meetings in Amsterdam
- RTWI Executive Committee I (No. 55)
- Saturday, 15 August, 14:00-16:50
- Okura Hotel, Panoramique Room
- RTWI Executive Committee Executive Committee II
- Thursday, 20 August, 9:00-11:00
- RAI, room to be announced
Message from the Chair, Marta Terry
I am very happy to be able to get in touch with you all through our
newsletter. It means we continue to go forward. I am looking forward to
our meetings at the IFLA Conference, since I think we must discuss there
our future work and make plans for the development of our group.
In my view, our work must be based on solid, feasible research programs so
that we can find out what the real problems of women in librarianship are
in different regions. Are they due to our gender or to the particular
characteristics of our profession? To what extent is either of these
possibilities so? We must also ask what are the trends in the development
of women's librarianship, what is the future we must face, are we all
trained and equally prepared for the dramatic changes that are taking place
in the information and library world? How can we help each other through
IFLA to reach a satisfactory level of development and visibility? Will we
be able to find sponsors to help newly graduating women librarians to get
acquainted with our work?
Many questions can be raised, and we must formulate ways of dealing with
them step-by-step. Would you, colleagues, like to pose your own questions
to us? Your input will help us to find the best ways to proceed. 'Hope to
see and hear from you!
Library Visit
The International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's Movement
(IIAV) will host a tour of their facilities for RTWI members on Thursday,
20 August. Details to be announced.
Immediately following the IFLA conference this year, in Amsterdam, there
will be an international conference for librarians and documentalists
working with materials relevant to women and gender issues. The
International Information Centre and Archives for the Women's Movement
(IIAV) intentionally timed the KnowHow Conference in order to strengthen
linkages with RTWI members.
A number of RTWI members have assisted with the planning of the KnowHow
Conference, some will be presenters (e.g., RTWI Chair Marta Terry will be a
keynote speaker, and members Jennifer Radloff and Beth Stafford will each
give presentations), and some are participating in a session on
mainstreaming women's information at the KnowHow Conference.
The primary goal of the KnowHow Conference is to increase the
accessibility and visibility of women's information services and activities
in all areas of the world. Librarians from forty-seven countries and
territories will be presenting and sharing what they are doing with women's
information, from organizing local archives, to improving classification
schemes to make women's information more accessible, to developing online
databases on women's information and giving more visibility to women's
information on Internet.
Keynote speakers, panels, and workshops will all address the development
of the profession, creation of useful collections, and increasing the use
of women's information as an instrument for making public policy decisions.
London Guildhall University is set to build Britain's first National
Library of Women. It was announced in May that the Heritage Lottery Fund
has awarded 34.2 million to the cause, which will be combined with support
from the Government's Regeneration Agency, English Partnerships, to begin
on a 38.65 million building at Aldgate East, London.
It will incorporate The Fawcett Library, the oldest established and most
comprehensive resource of women-centered material, with its roots in the
woman suffrage movement. A unique chronology of women's influence, the
Fawcett Library is a priceless collection of books, periodicals, letters,
papers, and artifacts that trace the developing roles and contributions of
women in society.
The award from the Heritage Lottery Fund, together with the proposed
support from English Partnerships, will allow the University to offer the
most up to date research resource, allow it to provide programs and
facilities linked to the National Curriculum, and open up the fascinating
subject of women's roles in society to a wider audience. (From a press
release)
Staff at the IIAV in Amsterdam report that among some recent acquisitions
are numerous photographs of The Women's Library in Barcelona, Spain. The
photographs are dated 1905.
The dual interests of RTWI, women in the library/information professions
and meeting the needs of women library users, are grounded in professional
concerns. Librarians operate in the real world, not in a theoretical
vacuum.
Females constitute over fifty-two per cent of the world's population and
over seventy per cent of librarians. The past twenty-plus years have seen
an explosion in the amount of new research and mainstream attention paid to
women and gender issues. Because of librarians' commitment to the
principle of access to information and freedom of expression, it only
follows that we have the responsibility to facilitate the transfer to all
users information and knowledge that are particularly relevant to the
majority of the population and, ultimately, to us all.
One of the finest single library resources on women and gender issues in
cyberspace is the website for the Office of the University of Wisconsin
System Women's Studies Librarian at:
http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/
It includes numerous bibliographies and core lists of women's studies
resources prepared by feminist librarians and has links to hundreds of
other websites.
Some European websites for information on women include
- the IIAV in Amsterdam at
- http://www.iiav.nl/
- The Nordic Institute for Women's Studies and Gender Research in Oslo, Norway, has a website at
- http://www.uio.no/www-other/nikk/
- In Italy, the Centro de Documentazione delle Donne in Bologna is accessible at
- http://orlando.women.it
- The African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, has a website at
- http://www.uct.ac.za/org/agi/
or to change address, etc., send your name,
address, job type, fax and phone numbers, and email address to:
Suzanne Hildenbrand,
School of Information and Library Studies,
Baldy Hall, State University of New York at Buffalo,
Buffalo, NY 14260, U.S.A.
Please type or print.
Women and Librarianship, newsletter of the IFLA Round Table on Women's
Issues (RTWI) is published semi-annually. Send articles, news items, and
comments 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
|
