President’s Meeting, Day One, Session Two

Blog notes on the IFLA Presidential Meeting, (Stellenbosch, South Africa). "Ellen’s keynote...ranged over all aspects of the ‘Libraries Driving Access to Knowledge’ theme, taking in the role of knowledge as a catalyst for both development and poverty reduction, the decline of oral culture in Africa (including a Kay Raseroka quote “Every time an old person dies [in Africa], it is a library that burns down”) and the need for open systems – open access and open source – to revitalise and grow African scholarship which has suffered from the high costs and barriers of accessing journals and resources...."