ULIA President sends greetings and advance welcome message to SCECSAL XXIII participants

Sarah Kaddu, PhD
President, ULIA

The President of the Uganda Library and Information Association (ULIA), Dr. Sarah Kaddu, has sent warm greetings and extended an advance warm and big welcome to library and information professionals in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa and beyond, to the SCECSAL XXIII conference to be held from the 23rd – 28th April 2018 at the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel, Entebbe, Uganda.

Dr Kaddu, in her welcome note posted on the SCECSAL website, said: “There will be colourful opening and closing ceremonies, plenary and professional sessions, exhibitions, the memorable Cultural Evening and tours to different places such as the historical Uganda Martyrs shrines in Namugongo, the Source of the Nile, the Equator, Kasubi Tombs, Uganda National Archives and other crowd pulling places of interest. The weather during the conference will be friendly. Security is assured”.

"I extend to all of you a big and warm welcome to SCECSAL XXIII, Entebbe, Uganda, 23rd – 28th April, 2018", Dr. Kaddu said.

ULIA has made significant progress in preparing for the SCECSAL XXIII conference and thus far the National Organizing Committee (NOC), headed by Prof. Okello-Obura Constant, has:

• Selected sixty abstracts, through a blind review process, from among 131 that were submitted for consideration. 
• Contacted authors whose abstracts were not accepted for paper presentation and highly advised them to consider presenting posters so that the region does not completely miss out on their good ideas.
• Worked on arrangements to hold a conference composed of plenary sessions, parallel workshops, special and poster sessions as well as exhibitions of different library materials, products and equipment from different stakeholders in the library and information fields and beyond. 

Approximately 400 participants (librarians, information scientists, documentation officers, archivists, records managers, publishers, books sellers, academics, ICT innovators, literacy experts, policy makers, etc.) are expected to attend the SCECSAL XXIII conference.

Registration for the conference is now open and the registration form (in PDF) is available here.  The following are the applicable registration fees:

• Early Bird Registration (deadline 31st January 2018) = USD 360.00 
• Late Registration (by 31st March 2018) = USD 400.00 
• Onsite Registration (from 24th April 2018) = USD 430.00 

Rental fees for exhibition stalls (2 x 2 square metres) are fixed at USD 200.00.

Delegates and exhibitors are strongly advised to leverage the early bird registration dates to confirm their attendance.

The organizes have identified many hotels along the Entebbe-Kampala highway that are closer to the conference venue. Among others, they include:

• Country Lake Resort, Garuga
• Best Western Garden Hotel Entebbe
• Precious Hotel, Entebbe
• Entebbe Traveler’s Inn Hotel

For detailed information about the hotels and other suitable accommodation facilities available in Entebbe town, visit Booking.com and search for Entebbe.

The NOC is advising potential delegates to the conference to visit the website of the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for entry visa and related information including the list of countries exempt from paying visa fees, visa fees, etc. Application for e-Visas is also available on the same website.

Further information on the conference is available on the ULIA SCECSAL XXIII conference website.

Inquiries should be sent to scecsal2018@ulia.or.ug.