Parliamentary Library Presentations & More at IFLA2009

IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, is meeting now in Milan, Italy. Couldn't get there? IFLA is posting many of the presentations on its conference website as they become available. Papers presented in the Parliamentary Libraries/Research area, for example, are online now. Following the theme of "Changing visions: parliamentary libraries past, present and the future," they include:

British Parliamentary Libraries: history, international comparisons and some lessons for tomorrow's legislature libraries, Christopher Murphy (Ravensbourne Research Limited, UK)

The development of parliamentary libraries: Illustrated by examples from the New Zealand Parliamentary Library and others, Moira Fraser and John Martin (Parliament of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand)

Changing visions of parliamentary libraries, Iain Watt (Library of the European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium). This one may be of special interest. From the abstract:

"Parliamentary libraries' founding ideal is of unbounded rationality: Members making decisions using full information, aided by the library. This is assessed as a necessary myth projecting the modernity of the parliament and the value of the library. The standard narrative, that changing visions are responses to the needs of Members, is questioned. The library may not fulfil its idealised role and it no longer signifies modernity. The myth has become a liability."

Other session topics include digital preservation, cultural heritage projects around the world, information literacy, national bibliographies, and open access (in particular, for agricultural information and in library theory/research).

These and additional presentations are linked from the Programme and Proceedings page.