Sunday, July 27, 2014

Lilongwe welcomes SCECSAL 2014 participants

Participants to the SCECSAL 2014 conference started arriving in Lilongwe on Saturday, 26 July to take part in pre-conference events scheduled for Sunday, 27 July. The main pre-events are the Digital Course Redesign: Resource Repurposing for Librarians Workshop and SCANUL-ECS conference.

The Malawi Library Association (MALA) is hosting the biennial conference from 28 July to 1 August. This is the second time MALA is hosting the SCECSAL conference. The first time was in 1994.

This year’s conference is on the theme Information and Knowledge Management as a Driving Force for Socio-Economic Development in Africa. About 60 papers will be presented at the conference sessions. These will cover the following conference sub-themes:
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for knowledge-based economies
  • LIS Education and Socio-Economic Development
  • Social media and socio- economic development
  • Conflict management: The role of archives and records
  • The impact of Libraries and Information services in shaping knowledge economies
  • Information literacy for socio- economic development
  • The Role of Agricultural Information services in socio-economic development
  • Knowledge and Information for persons with special needs
  • Knowledge and Information in health care delivery services
 
Professor King Mchombu, a renowned of library and information science from the University of Namibia, will deliver the keynote address.
 
SCECSAL 2014 will also include a panel discussion on the IFLA Trend Report. The Report identifies the following five top-level trends that will play a key role in shaping the future information ecosystem:

  • TREND 1 - New Technologies will both expand and limit who has access to information.
  • TREND 2 - Online Education will democratise and disrupt global learning.
  • TREND 3 - The boundaries of privacy and data protection will be redefined..
  • TREND 4 - Hyper-connected societies will listen to and empower new voices and groups.
  • TREND 5 - The global information environment will be transformed by new technologies

The panellists – Jacinta Were, Justin Chisenga, Sara Kaddu and Ujala Satgor, will deliberate on the report and identify its impacts on Africa, and recommend strategies for information access and delivery.

Dr. Buhle Mbambo-Thata, from the University of South Africa, will facilitate the discussions.

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