Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE)
& Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM)

Organised by the IFLA Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) in partnership with the IFLA Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM).

In this session we want to study the future of intellectual freedom in cyberspace by analyzing trends, cases and current concerns.

The goal of the session is to provide a current view of changes and challenges to intellectual freedom. Presentations may focus on trends or case studies, or concentrate on legal, economical or technological constraints. Conversely, we also can take a look at possible advances which may benefit intellectual freedom on the Internet.

An emerging trend of Internet censorship includes data surveillance. Increased data collection on information behavior and other activities may lead to many undesirable consequences from "knowing what is good for you" to misusing personal data in unexpected circumstances. Privacy is one of the key issues related to data surveillance. Accordingly, papers on privacy, anonymity and user's rights on person-related data will be emphasized in the session program.

We invite papers in the following areas:

Trends in intellectual freedom on the Internet

• Future of the Internet and democracy
• Economic and regulative censorship on the Internet

Technologies of censorship and data surveillance

• Cases of Internet censorship or efforts to protect intellectual freedom

Regulative threats for freedom of access to information

• Intellectual property and copyright
• Digital rights management and fair use
• Other types of regulations which may restrict or have chilling effects on the access and use of digital information

Redefining intellectual freedom and user's rights on the Internet

• Privacy of information behavior
• Data collection on users' information behavior in digital libraries, library systems
• Data collection by publishers and e-book vendors
• Anonymity and privacy of information behavior

Special attention will be paid to paper proposals that suggest how the battle for freedom of access to information in cyberspace can be won.

The program will consist of a mixture of invited presentations and papers selected as a result of this call for proposals. The expected audience is likely to include librarians from university, public and school libraries, library associations' management, other library professionals, students and university professors.

Format of proposals

The following information should be provided:

• Name and institution of author(s)
• Brief biographical information on author(s)
• Title and abstract of paper (about 300 words)
• Language in which full paper will be submitted

The proposals should be in English. A full paper in any IFLA language will be accepted and will be published on the Congress web site. Possible simultaneous translation for other IFLA languages is being explored.

Send your proposals by 15th March 2012 via e-mail to:

Päivikki Karhula, researcher, Member of the FAIFE Committee
Tampere University, Finland
E-mail: paivikki.karhula@gmail.com

Review Committee

The abstracts will be reviewed by the Review Committee and suitable proposals will be selected. Successful proposals will be identified and announced by 15 April, 2012.

All accepted papers will be listed in the final Conference Programme. Therefore, a full text papers should be provided by 15 May, 2012; papers should be from 3-20 pages long.

The delivery of each presentation will last 20 minutes to allow a time for Q&A

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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 Finnish National Committee and IFLA have worked hard to secure funds for Conference Participation Grants. Up-to-date information is available on our Conference Participation Grants webpage.