10 December 2013
Under the Second International Special Libraries Workshop organized by the Marti Studies Center (CEM) and the Cuban Association of Librarians (ASCUBI), held in Havana, Cuba, from 20 to 22 November, Dr. Maria Elena Dorta- Duque(*), member of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section of Social Science Libraries, conducted a comprehensive presentation of the IFLA TRENDS REPORT, newly released at the International Conference of IFLA held in Singapore past August.
The presentation raised varied interventions by those attending the workshop, some of which referred to the trends identified by the IFLA from the perspective of the reality of Cuba. As requested by IFLA the associations of librarians and information specialists, as leaders in the library community, convened to organize as soon as possible the participation of librarians and information specialists in the study, analysis and discussion of the issues raised in the Trend Report and thus give in-depth knowledge about our reality in Cuba.
Dr. Dorta- Duque referred in her lecture to various crucial issues of interest to the profession , presented and discussed during the conference in Singapore, such as IFLA Code of Ethics for Librarians and Information Workers, the creation of the Standards Committee of IFLA, the IFLA Statement on libraries and development, the launch of the Digital Library of IFLA, the work that is being developed on copyright exceptions, and the presentation of new books, among which was the title "Open Access and Digital Libraries. Social Science Libraries in Action" which discloses the work of specialists from Argentina, Cuba , Spain and the United States.
Precisely the II Special Libraries Workshop mentioned was convened with the aim of exchanging experiences about the challenges and professional expectations that are generated in such institutions, specially focusing on the procedures, methodologies and results and which was attended by specialists from Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Cuba who debated and socialized their knowledge about new trends in librarianship and the role of libraries and the challenges of today's society.
Dr Dorta-Duque is Professor and Director of Scientific Information of the Higher Instituteof International Relations, Cuba
