---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lars Aronsson <lars@aronsson.se>
Date: 2012/5/15
Subject: [cultural-partners] IFLA

In August, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)
holds its 78th annual conference, this year in Helsinki, Finland. Does
the Wikimedia Foundation have any representation there? I guess not,
or that it is very limited. When I look at the program, I'm surprised
how they can fill a week with program details about everything from
literacy and reading to statistics and evaluation, all aiming to supply
information and knowledge services to the common people, without being
more in touch with Wikipedia. At best, we can hope that there are
wikipedians in residence at a handful libraries and museums worldwide.

http://conference.ifla.org/ifla78/programme-and-proceedings

Surrounding this full week August 9th to 17th, are satellite conference
and pre- and post-meetings. What caught my eye was one across the water,
in Estonia's capital Tallinn, on August 17-18, on the topic of "subject
metadata in the digital environment and semantic web".

http://www.nlib.ee/index.php?id=17763

The letter sequence"w-i-k" doesn't appear anywhere in these two programs.

Is Wikipedia a marginal, fringe interest, similar to Esperanto poetry
or scale model trebuchet competitions? If Wikipedia were the largest
encyclopedia ever written, one might guess libraries would show interest.

If we were at war with libraries, bitter enemies, trying to put them out
of business, the lack of contact between our communities and our lack of
presence at the global library conference couldn't be any greater. So if
it looks like a war, is it a war? Even if we haven't realized it yet?

--
Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se