This past summer I joined French-speaking librarians for four days in Montreal. The First International Congress of Francophone Librarians (AIFBD in French) was held at the Bibliotheque des Archives Nationales du Quebec (BAnQ) August 3-6. Two-hundred-fifty librarians from all parts of the globe were there, including 15 or so from the United States, representing CIFNAL (Collaborative Initiative for French and North American Libraries).
We heard talks about digitization, reference, statistics, databases, and Third World library development. Many new contacts were made in the cause of sharing Francophone resources. What I enjoyed most was conducting almost all discussions in French, getting a fresh perspective on our profession.
The Conference started with a warm welcome from the Directrice of the BAnQ, Mme. Lise Bissonnette, who emphasized the preeminence of the human over the technological. She is also a novelist, which gave literary authority to her presentation. She was followed at the podium by the National Librarian of Haiti, who made a dramatic appearance, following some recent difficulties in that country.
The talks, meals, and soirees afforded many opportunities to explore French-speaking librarianship and to see our points of commonality. One presentation was about changing demographics in one region of France and how public libraries have accordingly seen their usage patterns change. A Swiss librarian demonstrated the Swiss Virtual Reference Desk–SwissInfoDesk. A Senegalese librarian showed many pictures of a beautiful, modern library at the University of Senegal with students crowded all around the floors and even in the stairways. A Jewish librarian from Paris discussed Rachel, a European union list of Jewish material. A whole alternate library universe opened up to me by virtue of working in another language.
Our CIFNAL group held a formal meeting on the last day, greeting approximately 20 visitors, who expressed great interest in pursuing the dialogue with North American librarians. One of the best features of CIFNAL is that individuals memberships are free: www.crl.edu/grn/cifnal/join.asp.
The grand finale was a visit to three university libraries in the Montreal region. Two had gorgeous new buildings: Ecole Polythechniques Montreal and HEC Montreal. The beauty and sensibility were very pleasing.
The meeting of the Second International Congress of Francophone Librarians is scheduled for 2011 somewhere in the Caribbean.
Chip Stewart (City)
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