“Inclusiveness through Openness” with keynote speaker Sabelo Mhlambi

Conference at Erasmus University 18th and 19th August, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

IFLA’s Academic and Research Libraries Section (ARL) is proud to be organizing and hosting a satellite conference in Rotterdam, on the Friday and Saturday before WLIC 2023, on Inclusiveness through Openness. This satellite is a collaboration with Erasmus University Library, Continuing and Professional Development and Workplace Learning (CPDWL), Serials and other Continuing Resources, Health and Biosciences Libraries, IFLA Open Access Group, Women, Information and Libraries, Max Planck Digital Library – Open Access 2020 Initiative and The British Library.

We are honoured to announce our opening keynote speaker, Sabelo Mhlambi, (Zambia/US) a fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society and a Fellow at Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab.

Our assumption is that we are moving into a world in which open science and open access publishing are the rule not the exception, the norm not an experiment. Ever since “open” became an ambition in academic libraries (one of our organizers has been an OA publisher since 1990!), we have believed and assumed that a critical benefit will be opening up science and scholarship to those who are disadvantaged in the world of high paywalls and closed systems. The time has come to make sure the publishing and library worlds are ready to deliver on that promise.

We will meet at Erasmus University in Rotterdam for a day and a half, August 18 and 19, with a full programme but with time for what we hope will be lively and productive discussion. The question we hope will be uppermost in participants’ minds will be, how can and should IFLA understand these issues and seek to make a difference? What, in short, is our message from the satellite conference for all the colleagues joining WLIC and sharing in the work of IFLA?

The full programme and registration information are available on the conference webpages.