World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly

"Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage"

23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy

Call for Papers

Audiovisual and Multimedia Section

Theme: "Herding Cats in a Dust-storm: Bibliographic Control of Audiovisual and Multimedia Materials in a Time of Rapid Change"

The IFLA Audiovisual and Multimedia Section, with the endorsement of the Bibliographic Control Division, will be holding a two hour Session next year during the IFLA conference in Milan, Italy on the theme of "Herding Cats in a Dust-storm: Bibliographic Control of Audiovisual and Multimedia Materials in a Time of Rapid Change".

With the current emphasis on digitisation and the preservation of the original carriers of audiovisual materials, it could be easy to forget the importance of improving the discovery of, and access to, the content itself. Yet the bibliographic control of AVM has never been more important – or more difficult.

The first one hundred years of AVM have seen the introduction and obsolescence of a vast range of media technologies, yet new technologies are coming onto the scene at an ever-increasing rate, each posing new cataloguing problems.

Meanwhile, in the world of bibliographic control, new developments such as digitisation, the convergence of libraries with museums, and Web 2.0 with its increasing focus on the user, have contributed to the formulation of a range of new conceptual standards, frameworks and methodologies, including Functional Requirements for Bibliographical Records (FRBR), the consolidated International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD), the report on Metadata for Digital Objects, and new developments in the fields of Classification and Indexing.

Some of the trends seem to contradict each other, eg mapping the relationship between separate documents (film of the book, storyboard, poster etc), versus individual cataloguing of multiple content (images, text, movie etc) on a single carrier, or multiple sound-tracks on a single movie, through shot-by-shot indexing of movies, to disaggregation of digital materials into reusable Learning Objects.

Organisational change, also, affects parts of the AVM world: many specialised AVM archives are being absorbed into more general institutions, and the merging of catalogues created from such different points of view poses its own challenges.

Trying to retain control when change is so rapid, contradictory and unpredictable has been likened to “herding cats in a dust-storm”!

The time is right for a conference session, following on from the IFLA sessions of 2008 - “Rethinking Access to Information” (Boston satellite), “Resource Description and Access: Foundations, changes and implementation” (Québec satellite) and “New challenges in bibliographic control” (Québec congress) – but dedicated to the Bibliographic Control of AVM. Proposals are therefore invited for papers addressing the theme.

Submissions

Please send a detailed abstract, in English, of your proposed paper (1 page or at least 300 words), plus relevant brief biographical information on its author(s), by 19 January 2009, via e-mail to:

Bruce Royan
E-mail: bruce.royan@concurrentcomputing.co.uk

The abstracts will be reviewed by a Programme Committee, and Successful proposals will be identified by 2 February 2008.

Full papers will be due by 21 April 2008 to allow time for the review and preparation of translations. If speakers cannot produce a full paper, they must at least prepare a substantial abstract, including references such as URLs and bibliographies, by this date.

IFLA’s first preference continues to be a full paper however, and each full paper must be an original submission not published elsewhere, and no more than 20 double spaced A4 pages in length. The paper should be in one of the IFLA official languages.

At least one of the paper's Authors must undertake to be present to deliver a summary of the paper (no more than 20 minutes, including immediate questions) during the Section's programme in Milan.

It is hoped that Simultaneous Interpretation will be available for this session, but we strongly recommend that the presentation slides should be in English, even if the presentation is delivered in one of the other official languages. Authors will also be invited to participate in a Panel Discussion, along with their fellow authors, at the end of the programme.

The nature of this session's subject matter lends itself to the use of sound and projected imagery. The Committee would particularly welcome proposals which offer to use such materials, and will endeavour to ensure that the appropriate technology is available on the day.

Please note that the Programme Committee has no funds to assist prospective Authors: abstracts should only be submitted on the understanding that all the expenses of attending the Milan conference (including travel, expenses and conference fee) will be the responsibility of the author(s)/presenter(s) of accepted papers. Some national professional associations may be able to help fund certain expenses, and a small number of grants for conference attendance may be available.