Newspapers Section

IFLA's Newspapers Section invites you to submit a short proposal for a presentation on the conference theme for its session at the IFLA Congress 2011 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the two hour session, we aim to have six presentations covering this subject.

Theme and Objectives

The expected audience is likely to include librarians who have responsibility for newspaper libraries, in the national, regional and public library domain, and archives which include newspapers. The session aims at sharing knowledge about newspaper publishing and the librarians’ efforts to collect, preserve and present newspapers as cultural heritage to their public. The Puerto Rico meeting provides a good opportunity to gain insight into the wide variety of states, libraries, publishing houses and newspaper landscapes of the Caribbean, Central, and South America.

Proposals for papers are invited particularly from countries of the region mentioned above. Papers may be written in Spanish or English, and will be presented in either language.  Abstracts need to be submitted to the Chair and Secretary of the Newspaper Section by 28 February 2011. The author will be notified of acceptance by 15 March 2011.  The full paper and accompanying presentation slides must be completed submitted to IFLA before June 2011 (exact date will be posted later).

Topics

We are particularly interested in presentations on the following topics although other topics will also be considered:

• structures of newspaper production and distribution (print and online) in the Caribbean, Central, and South America
• the variety of news media and publishing strategies
• diversity of the press: metropolitan v. regional, local press
• how collections of newspapers have been formed and preserved over time
• the current state of newspaper collections
• actual or planned newspaper digitisation projects of Caribbean, Central, and South American newspapers
• newspapers as agents of political change in the past 200 years – the press as national memory (contributions to the Bicentenario)
• collections of Caribbean, Central, and South American newspapers abroad

Please note

All expenses, including registration for the conference, travel, accommodation etc., are the responsibility of the authors/presenters. No financial support can be provided by IFLA, but a special invitation can be issued to authors.

Congress Attendance Grants

The Puerto Rico National Committee and IFLA have worked hard to secure funds for Conference Participation Grants. Please check our Conference Participation Grants webpage for the most up-to-date information.