Not quite the end

Well (thank you for asking) this afternoon went well. In the Council meeting we approved the changes to the Statutes and left any tidying-up to the Secretary General. In the Closing Session we were invited to Milan for the IFLA Congress in 2009 and heard that the Congress in 2011 will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico. If you want to know more about Milan 2009 the initial announcement is on the IFLA website, www.ifla.org . And all that work with the French dictionary paid off - as Christine Deschamps, former President of IFLA, said, I must have had a good French teacher in school!

Afterwards, over a glass (or two) of wine, IFLA President Claudia Lux and members of the IFLA Governing Board thanked the National Committee for their work in hosting such a successful Congress - and thanked IFLA Secretary General Peter Lor for all his work for IFLA. Peter retires from his post with IFLA on 5th September.

But before the thanks and the goodbyes there were lots of other moments to enjoy and think about since my last blog posting. Last night the Public Libraries Section of IFLA launched a new IFLA professional publication, Public libraries, archives and museums: trends in collaboration and cooperation, which linked very nicely with this morning's meeting between the IFLA Executive Committee and representatives from other major international organisations in cognate fields. The key theme to emerge was convergence - between IFLA and the Conference of Directors of  National Libraries; and between the library domain and the scientific domain, the cultural domain, and the museums/archives domain. More work will be done on this as the key international agencies continue the dialogue - but, as Ian Wilson, National Librarian and Archivist of Canada, pointed out, many major institutions are well ahead of professional bodies in embracing convergence. We need to find a modern form of professionalism which will transcend the boundaries and barriers of traditional professional domains - and this something that CILIP is working on already. I'll be writing about it when I get back to Ridgmount Street next week.

What else? An excellent dinner for the FAIFE Committee and friends last night at the Paris Grill - on my table, we heard fascinating stories of archiving the Stasi regime in the former East  Germany, and of the current situation with libraries in Cuba. And preparation for more work on the governance of IFLA with various Standing Committee meetings tomorrow and the Governing Board itself meeting on Saturday. Just as there was a round of governance meetings before the official opening of the Congress, so there is another round of governance meetings after the official closure of the Congress. I'll tell you more about the governance of IFLA in the next couple of days - but now I'm off to get a drink and to lap up the praise from all those people who never believed an Englishman could master the languages of mainland Europe. A bientot, mes amis!