Conference: Library History Seminar XI: Libraries in Times of War, Revolution & Social Changesponsored by the Library History Round Table of the American Library Association
Conference Location: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Conference Date: OCTOBER 27-30, 2005
Deadline: December 1, 2004
The Seminar's theme is a particularly timely one in terms of recent history. For example, the pillage and burning of Iraq's National Library in Spring of 2003 sent cultural shock waves around the world. The apparent contradictions of libraries, conventionally taken to represent stability and continuity, and wars and revolutions, involving rapid and disruptive change, suggest a number of urgent historical issues.
We seek papers relevant to the general theme of the seminar which includes:
--Books and libraries as agents of cultural memory to be protected, appropriated or obliterated.
--Library collections and services as instruments of political power in providing, restricting or withholding access to information.
--Libraries as places of refuge, solace and practical help in times of war, revolution and social disruption.
--Libraries and their contents as cultural heritage and as booty.
--The nature of the revolutionary cultural and political regimes in which libraries are situated and the attitudes of the regimes to literacy and learning.
--The responsibilities of the international community in creating and enforcing policies and procedures of protection, reconstitution and restitution of cultural artifacts, including books and libraries.
The conference organizers do not seek to impose any arbitrary limits of time or place on the papers to be submitted but seek to open the discussion of the subject as widely as possible.
For more details about the conference, see its website at the web address given below.
Send 300-500 word abstract and brief c.v. to:
W. Boyd Rayward
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
501 E. Daniel Champaign, IL 61820
217 244-9741 - phone
217 244-3302 - fax
Email: wrayward@uiuc.edu
Visit the website at http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/conferences/LHS.XI/home.html
