The IFLA Governing Board and Irish National Committee have made the difficult decision to cancel the 2020 World Library and Information Congress (WLIC).
The professional programme of the IFLA WLIC 2020 is shaped by open sessions organised by IFLA’s Professional Units. Every year, the IFLA Professional Units (Sections and Special Interest Groups) issue Calls for Papers to receive proposals from colleagues around the world.
Calls are launched between December 2019 and January 2020 and are collected on this page as soon as they become available.
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Open Sessions
Academic and Research Libraries joint with Statistics and Evaluations
Theme: "Alignment with Research: Providing, Communicating and Assessing the Value of Research Support"Deadline for proposals: 5 March 2020
Access to Information Network – Africa (ATINA)
Theme: "Opportunities and Challenges of Enhancing the Well-Being of Women in Africa through Access to Information and Knowledge"Deadline for proposals: 15 February 2020
Acquisition and Collection Development
Theme: "Collection development in the era of open access: impacts of open access business models and open access resources on library collection development"Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2020
Africa
Theme: "Working together: building strong information structures for sustainable society"Deadline for proposals: 28 February 2020
Art Libraries
Theme: "Rethinking the concepts of art libraries, in view of changing cultural heritage paradigms: collection building, facilitating access, reaching new audiences"Deadline for proposals: 1 March 2020
Asia and Oceania
Theme: "Sharing our stories: libraries in Asia and Oceania supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)"Deadline for proposals: 28 February 2020
Audiovisual and Multimedia joint with Metropolitan Libraries
Theme: "Inspire, Enable, Engage and Connect: Video and Multimedia Productions by and for Libraries and Library Users"Deadline for proposals: 1 April 2020
Bibliography
Theme: "Smarter Bibliographies: Connecting and engaging national bibliographies with new platforms"Deadline for proposals: 1 April 2020
Big Data
Theme: "Better Together: Collaborative Solutions to the Challenges of Data and Libraries"Deadline for proposals: 30 March 2020
Cataloguing
Theme: "Metadata quality issues and policies"Deadline for proposals: 1 April 2020
Committee on Standards
Theme: "IFLA Standards and Library Practices in Conversation"Deadline for proposals: 8 April 2020
Digital Humanities/Digital Scholarship joint with News Media, Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression and Copyright and Other Legal Matters
Theme: "The Technology Behind Media Misinformation: The Creation, Detection, and Investigation of Fake News"Deadline for proposals: 25 March 2020
Education and Training
Theme: "Putting Emerging LIS Competencies into Education and Practice: Challenges and Opportunities"Deadline for proposals: 15 April 2020
Evidence for Global & Disaster Health (E4GDH)
Theme: "Engage, enable and connect in global and disaster health: increasing access to multi-language evidence"Deadline for proposals: 16 March 2020
Government Information and Official Publications
Theme: "Navigating the Government Information and Official Publications Landscape: Authority, Reproducibility and Accessibility "Deadline for proposals: 5 April 2020
Government Libraries
Theme: "Evidence based policy making – maximising the influence of library services"Deadline for proposals: 3 May 2020
Health and Biosciences joint with Information Technology
Theme: "Enabling open science, open access, and artificial intelligence to advance and support healthcare practice and scientific discovery"Deadline for proposals: 9 March 2020
IFLA’s Policy and Advocacy team with Offline Internet Consortium
Theme: "Expanding Offline Access to Networked Information"Deadline for proposals: 20 March 2020
Indigenous Matters
Theme: "Why authentic relationships matter: examples from the field showcasing libraries leading with Indigenous communities "Deadline for proposals: 20 March 2020
Information Literacy joint with School Libraries
Theme: "Perspectives on the role of information literacy education in fostering a smooth transition throughout a learner’s formal education journey - from PK to 20 and beyond"Deadline for proposals: 2 April 2020
Knowledge Management joint with Subject Analysis and Access
Theme: "Subject Access and Artificial Intelligence: Enhancing competencies and safeguarding ethics"Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2020
Knowledge Management joint with the Information Technology
Theme: "The future of the library and library systems: outsourcing, cloud, and new tech impact of user communities"Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2020
Latin America and the Caribbean
Theme: "La ciencia abierta: los desafíos de los profesionales de la información en Latinoamérica y el Caribe / The challenges of information professionals in Latin America"Deadline for proposals: 1 March 2020
Law Libraries joint with Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM) Advisory Committee
Theme: "Libraries and Public Rights to the Law: International Perspectives on Barriers to Free Legal Information"Deadline for proposals: 21 February 2020
LGBTQ Users
Theme: "LGBTQ+ collection development and services: best practices around the world"Deadline for proposals: 3 April 2020
Library and Research Services for Parliaments
Theme: "Evidence-based policy’ and parliamentary library & research service practice: what works?"Deadline for proposals: 6 March 2020
Library Buildings and Equipment joint with Environment, Sustainability and Libraries
Theme: "Something old – something new. Transforming an existing building into a new library"Deadline for proposals: 21 February 2020
Library History
Theme: "Librarians learning from the past to inspire, connect, enable and engage"Deadline for proposals: 21 February 2020
Library Publishing
Theme: "Library Publishing: Catalyst for Change"Deadline for proposals: 3 April 2020
Library Services to People with Special Needs
Theme: "A New Home: Library Services to Refugees, Immigrants, Migrants, and Asylum Seekers"Deadline for proposals: 1 May 2020
LIS Education in Developing Countries joint with Information Literacy
Theme: "Information Literacy in LIS programs in the Developing Countries"Deadline for proposals: 28 February 2020
Local History and Genealogy joint with Indigenous Matters and Rare Books and Special Collections
Theme: "Local History and Genealogy Collection Classification, Preservation, Sharing, and Access Practices of Local Regional, and International Libraries and Institutions"Deadline for proposals: 31 March 2020
New Professionals joint with Audiovisual and Multimedia and the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres
Theme: "Music in the library world"Deadline for proposals: 15 April 2020
News Media joint with Digital Humanities–Digital Scholarship, FAIFE (Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression Advisory Committee), and CLM (Copyright and Other Legal Matters Advisory Committee)
Theme: "How Fake News Impacts and Engages the Library Mission and Services "Deadline for proposals: 13 March 2020
Preservation and Conservation joint with Information Technology
Theme: "Preserving complex digital objects in libraries"Deadline for proposals: 10 March 2020
Public Libraries
Theme: "Public Libraries as a Reflection of their Communities"Deadline for proposals: 23 March 2020
Rare Books and Special Collections joint with Preservation & Conservation, Art Libraries and Strategic Programme on Preservation and Conservation (PAC)
Theme: "Building Trust through Exhibitions"Deadline for proposals: 15 April 2020
Rare Books and Special Collections joint with Statistics and Evaluation
Theme: "Heritage as Value: the Different Values of Special Collections"Deadline for proposals: 3 May 2020
Reference and Information Services
Theme: "Enabling Information Ethics in a Technologically Saturated World"Deadline for proposals: 13 March 2020
Religions: Libraries and Dialogue
Theme: "How to get engaged and connect libraries in the interreligious dialogue?”"Deadline for proposals: 28 February 2020
School Libraries
Theme: "A focus on Inquiry from the perspective of the IFLA School Library Guidelines"Deadline for proposals: 6 April 2020
Science and Technology Libraries joint with Social Science Libraries
Theme: "Open Science: Roles for Libraries to Promote Collaboration, Access and Advance Public Understanding"Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2020
Serials and Other Continuing Resources
Theme: "Worldwide Open Access Mandates and Policies "Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2020
Women, Information and Libraries and the Access to Information Network – Africa (ATINA) joint with Evidence for Global and Disaster Health (E4GDH)
Theme: "Climate change: Supporting communities, Users, Collections and Spaces in the era of Climate Uncertainty"Deadline for proposals: 15 March 2020