19 August 2015, 09:30-12:45, Ballroom East
Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC)

In the spirit of the Lyon Declaration—preserving and ensuring ongoing access to cultural heritage, government records and information by the public—and of its principle of ensuring  accountability, transparency, good governance, participation and empowerment, we offer a practical approach to sharing ideas and successful solutions to these issues faced by a wide variety of libraries. This highly interactive session is designed to stimulate discussion and information sharing, enabling participants to return to their workplace with ideas they can contextualise for the benefit of their users/clients.

Topics for discussion may include:

  • there is no access without preservation;
  • what do you do when your digital “preservation“ copy is now obsolete?;
  • starting and sustaining the preservation of government and parliamentary information;  
  • building partnerships and finding funding to preserve and provide access to government and  parliamentary information;
  • how to deal with small and medium-size disasters in such a way  that you will be able to provide access again;
  • selecting, handling and preparing for digitization;  
  • examples of existing digital preservation initiatives underway in libraries and consortia around  the world;
  • how to handle unique materials/information now to ensure that they will be  accessible in the future; and
  • other preservation and access challenges.

The session is jointly sponsored by the Government Information and Official Publications Section, the Preservation and Conservation Section, and the Library and Research Services for Parliaments Section.  We are seeking facilitators with knowledge of, or interest in, one of the above (or related) topics to lead discussions.  Please send a brief statement explaining why you would like to be a facilitator on the topic and a brief biographical note highlighting facilitation/leadership experience and language skills. Preference may be given to candidates with previous experience leading or facilitating groups.  

Contact Jim Church (jchurch@library.berkeley.edu) by June 12, 2015. 

Selection is by committee and successful submissions will be informed no later than July 3, 2015.