[fse-esf] Librarians network meeting during the EPA in Stockholm

[Mikael Book]

Hi!

Librarians and library activists (the latter being defined as friends and
promoters of universal public library service) will meet with networking
intentions during the EPA in Stockholm.

Time: Saturday 15 September, 14.30-18.30. The meeting may/will be
continued on Sunday. 

Venue: Årsta Folkets hus (room "Båven") 
 (Tunnelbana Green Line to Gullmarsplan; from there take bus 160 or 164 to
 Årsta torg - Tel: 08-91 50 21)

Purpose: 

Initiate the planning of library related activities (conference, workshop,
documentation of the ESF in libraries)  during the ESF 2008 in
Malmö-Copenhagen. 

On our agenda:

- European Campaign on the Public Lending Right Directive of the EU. This
  will be presented by librarian Marilena Cortesini, Cologno Monzese, 
  Italy.

- The Library takes up the Case. Library blogs on local issues illustrated 
  with the case of the airport in Rygge. Presentation by librarian
  and journalist Anders Ericson from  Moss, Norway.

- Librarians' role(s) in the Social Forum(s). Presentation by 
  library activist Mikael Böök, Pernå, Finland. (see enclosed news
  item)  

We will also hear Anna-Lotta Jadinge's presentation of Ture Edbom's
concept of the political library. Anna-Lotta works as hospital librarian
in Uppsala, Sweden. Ture Edbom, Social Democratic Municipal Commissioner
in Gävle was one of Sweden's foremost library activists in the 1960ies and
1970ies.
 
News item:

Jo Labadie, Detroits's anarchist labour leader, donated his personal
papers and library to the University of Michigan in 1911. This was the
beginning of a great collection of documents on radical history (The
Labadie Collection. http://www.lib.umich.edu/spec-coll/labadie/ ). Elaine
Harger, a member of Progressive Librarians Guild (USA), contacted Julie
Herrada, its curator, about the possibility of depositing materials
collected by librarians during the first US Social Forum (Atlanta 27 June-
1 July 2007) at Labadie. Julie Herrada's response was positive, and so the
leaflets, brochures, booklets etc. were dispatched to Detroit when the
post office opened on Monday morning after the USSF. 

Discussions have started on whether the physical documents, which were
gathered by seventy East African librarians during the Nairobi WSF in
January, should also be deposited with the Labadie Collection. Julie
Herrada likes the idea, and so does Roberto Savio, the chair of the WSF's
Communications Commission, when asked by email. 

For natural reasons, the staff of Kenya Library Association, who managed
the documentation work on the ground in Nairobi, is more hesitant. We need
to know which role we must play in the archive and how we can benefit from
it being so far, says Esther Obachi, the secretary of the KLA.

Esther Obachi has recently published the first printed manual for
librarians who participate in Social Forums with a view of contributing to
its documentation in libraries and archives. The booklet is called
"Creating a knowledge Base from the World Social Forum. A manual for
Library and Information Professionals" (published by KLA, PO Box 46031,
00100 Nairobi, Kenya).

Preserving physical documents from the social forums for posterity is a
goal of NIGD's library project. ( About NIGD's library project, see
http://www.nigd.org/libraries .) An open question is the potential role of
librarians and libraries in the ongoing processes and activities of the
social forum(s). The library should take up the cases, says Finnish
library activist Mikael Böök. He proposes that libraries proactively start
to keep track of the thousand of activities started by participants in the
social forum. Wiki-powered websites like http://www.wsflibrary.org/ should
provide a Civipedia of ongoing social forum workshops and this project
should be run by librarians, says Mikael Böök. 

Mikael Böök * book at kaapeli.fi * gsm +358(0)-44 5511 324 * 
http://www.kaapeli.fi/book/  * http://blogi.kaapeli.fi/book/