VI Encuentro de Biblioteconomía y Documentación: Cultura y Sociedad

On 20th October, Casa Africa celebrates its 6th Library and Information Meeting, which in 2014 is held under the title Culture and Society. This is a professional conference that wants to give continuity to the exchange of experiences between Spanish and African professionals started by Casa África in 2008 and that brings us closer to realities that are different from our own, encourages cooperation and opens up new horizons for collaboration and dissemination of African and Spanish cultural heritage.

Casa África continues its commitment to maintain these international meetings in its programming which this year under the theme Culture and Society  values the vital role that this cultural sector undertakes in our societies, rating them and therefore promoting their development.

Libraries are catalysts of culture and dialogue and also motors for the dissemination of knowledge that help the professional training of the population and economic development of societies.

Trying to strengthen the links created through previous editions of this meeting and through a permanent and enriching communication that results in mutual benefit, this year we will have representatives of the publishing sector from Cape Verde, Senegal and Morocco. The development of the day revolves around two panels:

1. The first will focus on Library Cooperation. The work being done by libraries and courses of action that they undertake will be presented. In particular, the speakers will focus on publicizing the cooperation projects and actions that encourage the network of African libraries.
2. The second panel will be oriented at  marketing of libraries focused on technological transformations generated by social media and applications on the social web, as well as in the development of synergies and opportunities that make them more sustainable and more visible to reach a new public. 

Closing the day with a lecture from Ismael Diadié Haidara, who is patriarch of the Kati family, and holds the legacy of alAldalus culture. Diadié is descended from an exile from Toledo who in 1468 took up residence in the surroundings of the river Niger bringing with him a valuable library that now contains 7,000 manuscripts from many different eras and is known as the legendary Library of Timbuktu (Mali), one of the major beacons of universal knowledge located in West Africa. He will speak of the recovery of the Kati fund, the vicissitudes of the Fund after the occupation of Timbuktu in 2012 and on the current and future state of the fund.

See programme