All presentations should be relevant to the theme and as such both school and/or public libraries should be addressed and should clearly show the impact on national development

Proposals may focus on:

Political Aspects
Do Governments realise and accept their role and responsibility in
the provision of excellent public and school library services and
will commit to provide the necessary funding? How can it be
reinforced at the highest decision-making levels that libraries have
a role to play in nation building.

• National Policy for libraries (focus on school and publiclibraries)
• Role and responsibility of national/local government in the development of libraries (funding/physical infrastructure etc.)
• Advocacy

Educational Aspects
School and Public libraries are centres of learning and play a
critical role in the development of individuals, communities and
the nation as a whole

• Libraries as centres of literacy and learning
• Promotion of reading
• Continuing education/ Lifelong learning

Informational Aspects
The information infrastructure involves a network of people,
organizations, policies, processes and technologies organized to
enhance the creation, production, dissemination, organization,
storage, retrieval and preservation of information and knowledge.
What is the role of the school and public library in the national
information infrastructure?

• National information infrastructure
• National information systems
• Creating synergies between all types of libraries

Social Aspects
The role of libraries in communities is multifaceted, aimed at
meeting the needs of diverse user groups and acting as an agent for
social and personal development. What strategies, programmes,
and activities are being implemented to achieve this? What are
some of the successes and challenges?

• Information ethics
• Information fluency/competency
• Providing for special needs groups (housebound,
• institutionalized, disabled, non-readers etc.)
• Cultural role / Preservation of cultural heritage
• Role of libraries in facilitating social well-being, peaceful
• environment
• Innovative services for users with no access to technology
• Public and School Libraries as engines of social change

Economic Aspect
Two areas are to be considered:

• Facilitating the productive sector
• Sourcing and generating funds to support library development including developing partnerships.

Technological Aspect
Updates on the latest technologies and how they impact the provision of library services are to be addressed.

• Using technology to attract non-users
• Supporting E-governance
• Provision of E-services
• Emerging technologies/innovations in libraries
• Children and the Internet
• Digitization
• Whither the non-automated library