Witt Featured in IFLA Journal Special Issue

Steve Witt

The latest issue of the IFLA Journal (Volume 50, Number 4, December 2024) features the work of several University Library and iSchool scholars. The special issue draws on papers presented at a satellite conference of the IFLA Library & Information Congress which took place in Mons, Belgium in August 2023, entitled “Preserving our origins: Approaches to the organization, curation, and historiography of the record of national and international organizations in libraries, information, and documentation.” The conference, sponsored by IFLA’s Library History Special Interest Group, was organized by the Group’s Chair, Dr. Steve Witt, Head of the International and Area Studies Library, Director of the Center for Global Studies, and editor of the IFLA Journal. As editor of the special issue, Witt provides a comprehensive summary of, and reflection on, the fourteen-paper collection, under the editorial title “Libraries at the intersection of the history and the present.” The collection includes studies by two iSchool Professor Emeriti: W. Boyd Rayward traces efforts after World War II to create an international information order, while Alistair Black examines the archival practices of the world’s national library and information associations. Cara Bertram (Archives Program Officer) maps out in detail the responsibility that the University Archives has assumed for preserving the history of the American Library Association. The special issue represents a significant stepping stone to upcoming celebrations marking the centenary of IFLA in 2027, which will include the publication of a historical monograph edited by Witt.

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