We invite you to submit a proposal for the session of Preservation and Conservation Strategic Programme at the 81^st IFLA General Conference and Assembly to be held in Cape Town, South Africa in August 2015.

The theme of the session will look closely at the library networks within Africa, their response to natural disasters and man-made conflicts as well as the strength of the community.

The Preservation of Conservation Strategic Programme therefore encourages submissions around the topics of:

• Responses of the (international, regional and national) library community to natural disasters in Africa
• Responses of the (international, regional and national) library community to man-made conflicts in Africa
• Lessons learned from disaster responses (including challenges and successes)
• The importance of regional cooperation to effective disaster response
• The importance of adequate training for effective disaster response

Submission Guidelines

Proposal for the Preservation and Conservation Strategic Programme Open Session must be submitted by 6 March 2015 and should clearly include:

• Title of the proposed presentation,
• Abstract of proposed paper, no more than 300 words, in English
• Curriculum vitae of the author(s),
• Contact details and professional affiliation(s).

The abstracts will be reviewed by a Programme Committee composed of members of the Preservation and Conservation Strategic Programme.

Submission should be send to Julia.brungs@ifla.org.

Selected presenters will be notified by 13 April 2015.

Accepted papers

• should be 3000-6000 words in length and be an original submission not published elsewhere,
• must be submitted as formal papers for inclusion on the IFLA conference website by 1 May 2015,
• accepted papers and accompanying presentation slides must be submitted by the 1 July 2015,
• accepted papers should be submitted with a one-page abstract in English,
• final papers should be written in any of IFLA's official languages,
• the papers will be made available on the Conference website and eventually in the IFLA Library,
• in accordance with IFLA’s Statement on Open Access all papers that are presented at the WLIC 2015 will be made available under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) license.

Presentation at the Conference

A maximum of 20 minutes will be allowed for the presentation of each paper during the Section's Open Session in Cape Town. Please note, although every effort will be made to provide simultaneous interpretation into other IFLA languages, interpretation may not be available. Therefore, presenters should use a PowerPoint in English to facilitate understanding of the ideas presented.