Date: August 16-19, 2023

Time: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Central European Time

Location: Brussels, Belgium

Program: CIFNAL

Le congrès de l’AIFBD (Association Internationale Francophone des Bibliothécaires et Documentalistes) will be held in Brussels from August 16 to 19, 2023. The theme will be “Access to information at the heart of development: advocacy for libraries and documentation centers.” This is one of the official satellite meetings of International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and will be held in collaboration with the IFLA Law Libraries Section. Most events will take place in the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique which is hosting the congress.

CIFNAL has made available stipends so that staff members from libraries that are institutional members of CIFNAL and personal members of CIFNAL can  attend this year’s meeting. The stipend is awarded to defray costs of registration and travel for the conference, where the recipients will represent CIFNAL at meetings, report on CIFNAL activities, and network with colleagues to support and strengthen the development of CIFNAL. After the conference, the recipients will report on their activities at AIFBD to the membership of CIFNAL. This year’s recipients are:

•  M. Stéphanie Chancy is Caribbean Partnerships Librarian at the University of Florida. She will present a paper entitled Une Introduction à la Bibliothèque Numérique des Caraïbes which introduces dLOC and its operating model and highlights existing partnerships in the Caribbean, Canada, Europe, and the United States.
• Cecile Coulibaly is coordinator of activities for the Université Virtuelle de Côte d’Ivoire. She  will present a paper entitled La Bibliothèque Virtuelle de l’Enseignement Supérieur et la Recherche Scientifique de Côte d’Ivoire, un outil de plaidoyer au cœur de la mise en œuvre de la recommandation de l’UNESCO sur la Science Ouverte.
• Hélène Huet is European Studies Librarian at the University of Florida. She is Chair of CIFNAL's Engaging Francophone Partners Working Group and also Secretary of the AIFBD.
• Sarah Sussman is Curator of French and Italian Collections and Head of the Humanities and Area Studies Resource Group at Stanford University.  She previously served as Chair of CIFNAL's Engaging Francophone Partners Working Group.

AIFBD is an international association dedicated to the networking of French-speaking librarians and documentalists, as well as to their promotion in their professional environment. Since 2008 and every three years, AIFBD has organized an international congress, in partnership with an IFLA section in a French-speaking country at a reasonable distance from the host country of the IFLA congress. To date, AIFBD has organized five congresses: Montréal 2008, Martinique 2011, Limoges 2014, Sierre 2017, Brussels 2023.