Call for Papers

Library Services to Multicultural Populations Section

Theme:
Multicultural Libraries - Inspiring, Surprising and Empowering your Communities

The IFLA Library Services to Multicultural Populations Section invites proposals for papers to be presented at a two-hour session in the next IFLA General Conference on August 2012 in Helsinki, Finland.

Advocating for multicultural libraries which are open and provide free access to information and library services to all members of the community still remains an important issue for the library community. While some countries have found success in providing access and welcome minority linguistic and cultural groups to the library, some areas of the world need help with advocating, developing and sustaining these initiatives. This session will further the awareness of the importance of the multicultural library offering examples of new multicultural library initiatives as well as promote the need and the steps to achieve multicultural library services.

Subjects of interest include

  • Multicultural library service provision and service development strategies
  • Multicultural library staff recruitment strategies
  • Promotion of services to culturally diverse groups
  • Promotion of services to politicians and decision makers
  • Best practices and knowledge sharing in providing multicultural library services

Proposals should include

  • Title of presentation
  • Abstract of no more than 500 words in English, French, German or Spanish
  • Name, e-mail address, position (title) of presenter(s), plus a brief presenter(s) biography
  • Presenter(s) employed or affiliated institution

Important dates and timelines

Please send your proposal for papers no later than 20 February 2012 to both:

Susana Alegre
E-mail: susana.alegre@mcu.es and to
Leena Aaltonen
E-mail: leena.aaltonen@turkuamk.fi

The proposals will be evaluated by the Program Committee members of IFLA Library Services to Multicultural Populations Section and the notification of acceptance will be sent by March 15, 2012.

The presenters selected for the program at the Helsinki conference will be asked to submit a formal paper (for inclusion on the IFLA conference website) no later than May 1, 2012.

If full papers are written in any IFLA language other than English they should include an abstract in English as well.

Both abstracts and full papers should be submitted as a MS World file by e-mail. Proposed papers must be original and not have been published elsewhere.

Submissions

All proposals must be in before 20 February 2012.

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.

Last update: 16 February 2012