61st IFLA General Conference - Conference Proceedings - August 20-25, 1995
Section on Regional Activities: Africa
Annual Report 1994
H.K. Raseroka
University Library of Botswana
Private Bag 0022
Gaborone
Botswana
Fax: (267) 356591
is Chair of the Regional Section for Africa.
Stanley M. Made
Library
University of Zimbabwe
POB MP 45
Harrare
Zimbabwe
is Secretary.
Standing Committee and Section Membership
The Standing Committee has nine members from nine countries, two corresponding members, and one special advisor. Henri Sene, Director of the Regional Office in Dakar is an ex-officio member. There ar
e 90 IFLA members registered for the Section.
Regional Office
The Regional Office, directed by Henri Sene with the assistance of Antoinette Correa, both from the Bibliothèque universitaire, Dakar, carried out the following activities:
- Management of financial resources put at the disposal of the Regional Office by IFLA and the ALP Core Programme
- Exchange of correspondence with Standing Committee members, IFLA Headquarters and the ALP Core Programme for the implementation of the Section projects and programme
- Dispatch of information and documents to colleagues and institutions
- Management of projects submitted to the ALP Core Programme
- Published the Africa Section Newsletter, with issue No. 8 published in January 1994 and No. 9 in July 1994
- Began preparations for the election of two new members for the Standing Committee for 1995-1999
- Organized the planning of African delegates to participate in the pre-session seminar and the Istanbul General Conference;
- Followed up on the implementation of the recommendations of the Nairobi Pan-African Conference on Preservation and Conservation, held in June 1993.
Projects and Meetings
Workshop on Microcomputer Applications
The Section, in collaboration with the ALP Core Programme, organized the 3rd Workshop on Microcomputer Applications in Libraries, held in Rabat, in January 1994. The workshop was attended by 35 manag
ers of national and university libraries from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. The National Library of Abijdan hosted the workshop. The main o
bjectives of the workshop were to enhance the knowledge of participants in interlibrary loan and document supply; and to improve their experience in the use of information technologies.
Workshop on UAP
A workshop on Universal Availability of Publications for West African Francophone Countries was held in Abidjan, 11-13 July 1994 at the National Library. The workshop was organized by the Regional Of
fice and the UAP Core Programme.
Pan-African Seminar
A Pan-African Seminar on Provision of Information to Rural Communities was held on 20-25 June for participants from all of Africa. Sixty participants from 14 countries in Africa and six participants
from other parts of the world attended. The main aims of the seminar were to bring together and document African experience and practice in provision of information to rural communities and to find i
ndicators of success or failure in rural information provision through sharing of experiences in the various African countries. Papers that were presented centred around the main themes: ongoing expe
riments; case studies by country; training of information workers; and methods of research and evaluation. Ongoing experiments were presented at the regional level: francophone West Africa; anglophon
e West Africa; and those developed in Southern Africa and Eastern Africa. Case studies were presented from seven African countries selected for the quality of their services in the field of informati
on provision for rural areas. Under the topic on the training of information providers in rural areas, the papers stressed that in formal library and information sciences institutions, there was litt
le concern for information in rural areas. Papers on the methods of research and evaluation pointed out that although many pilot projects had been carried out, little appraisal was done. The proceedi
ngs of the workshop will be published by IFLA. It is also expected that a directory of African institutions involved in the provision of information in rural areas will be compiled.
Bilingual African Journal
A sub-committee under the chairmanship of A.O. Banjo (Nigeria) is responsible for this project.
Uppsala Meeting
The officers of the Section attended a meeting of the Coordinating Board held in Uppsala, Sweden, 5-8 April 1994. The meeting was extremely useful in providing time for sharing of ideas as well as in
teraction as Division VIII. It laid a foundation for joint meetings and projects as well as a transfer of knowledge gained through successful projects in the individual regions.
Tracer Study of IFLA Pre-Sessions
The Section is involved in a Division study to determine how pre-session attendees have benefitted and whether pre-sessions should be continued. Regional Office Managers will compile an historical st
udy of pre-session seminars in each Section. The Chairs and Secretaries will design the questionnaire and cooperate with Estella Morales (Mexico) for database design.
Future Conferences
Istanbul 1995
The Regional Section will cooperate with the Section on Library Services to Multicultural Populations on a joint meeting on "Availability of Library Materials in African Languages". It will contribut
e to a Divisional session on "Enhancement of the Library Profession".
Havana Meetings
Professional Board
The Regional Coordinating Board (consisting of the Chairs, Secretaries and Regional Managers of the three Sections) was invited to attend the second meeting of the Professional Board. This was a welc
ome first, as in the past only the Chair of the Coordinating Board, who is a member of the PB, attended the meeting.
Third World Caucus
A caucus meeting in which all Third World IFLA members participated was held. It had been hoped that Africa would field a candidate to stand for the Executive Board, but this attempt has failed. It i
s now essential for all SC members to encourage IFLA members in their sub-region to pay their dues to ensure that they may vote in support of Third World country candidates. The Third World caucus wi
ll be scheduled for all future IFLA Conferences.
Open Session
The Section co-sponsored an open session with the Section on Libraries Serving Multicultural Populations. The theme of the meeting was "Library Materials in the Threatened Languages of Africa".
Workshop
The Section also co-sponsored a workshop with the Section on University Libraries and other General Research Libraries on the theme "Collection Development Needs in the Third World".