IFLA Women, information and libraries Special Interest Group (WILSIG)

Activities Report September 2015-August 2016

 

A new convener and information coordinator were elected in 2015: they are Mathilde Koskas (France) and Kelly Grogg (USA); Maria Cotera (UK) is acting as the group’s adviser.

The objectives defined in the group’s action plan for 2015-2017 were defined in terms of communication on topics to be adressed:

Ojective 1: Address the topic of women in IT

Ojective 2: Address the topic of women in conflicts

Ojective 3: Increase the reach and influence of the SIG to get our key messages to a wider audience.

 

WILSIG Activities from September 2015 to August 2016

 

1.     WLIC 2016 satellite meeting

Women & Library Technology – Empowering Women’s Participation in Open Technology & Culture (11th August, Northwestern University Libraries, Chicago, Illinois, USA)

A collaboration between the IT section and WILSIG, the event evolved from a session meeting to a full day satellite meeting in Chicago, at the invitation of Northwestern University Libraries. Co-organized by Evviva Weinraub Lajoie (IT section) and Mathilde Koskas (WILSIG), it will take the form of an UnConference.

19 proposals were submitted from 8 different countries. Only one was outside the topic and therefore rejected. Several speakers could not attend due to personal or visa issues, but thirteen 40-, 20- and 5-minutes talks were set before the day, and more topics will be proposed and voted on by the participants on the day. The keynote address will be given by Amy Buckland, Institutional Repository Manager at the University of Chicago, and Vice-chair of the ACRL’s Research and Scholarly Environment Committee.

Northwestern University gives a welcome dinner for the participants to meet on the eve on the UnConference, and Facet Publishing donated a copy of The Top Technologies Every Librarian Needs to Know (ed. Kenneth J. Varnum) to use as a prize draw at the event.

A turnout of around 40 people is expected.

The Carter center reached out to add the event on their Access to Information (ATI) and Transparency calendar.

2.     Open session and business meeting during WLIC 2016

Session 224, August 18th, 13:45 – 15:45 (Room C213-215)

This serves as both session and open business meeting for WILSIG. A summary of the proceedings of the UnConference will be given by Evviva Weiraub Lajoie. Mathilde Koskas will present the group’s activities and action plan to start the discussion with the participants.

On the agenda:

Start planning the 2017 satellite meeting, choose a team to work on it

Discussion about the group’s mission and goals

Communication plan, outreach and recruiting

3.     Women in conflict: 2017 satellite meeting

The topic features regularly in the group’s discussions, and it was decided during WLIC 2105 in Cape Town to dedicate a satellite meeting in 2017 to  it. The proposal was sent to IFLA HQ and accepted in April, and preliminary contacts with potential hosts made.

4.     Communication

Kelly Grogg updated the group’s webpage with information about the group’s events.

There were two Facebook pages, one public and one private, under the name of WILSIG. She deleted the one that was no more in use, redirected to the active one and made it public. She also created a new Twitter account, IFLA WIL SIG, which we started using in conjuction with the congress.

We started making use of Basecamp for internal communication within the group and to try and keep all documents in one place to  ease the transmission when team changes occur.

The conditions for having information about WILSIG’s activities in languages other than English on the official IFLA website were cleared with IFLA’s webmaster : it can be done in the form of presentation sheets embedded in the page.