Welcome to the Library History community far and wide. 

I am pleased that the IFLA Library History SIG continues, though I was not expecting to be its convenor. I retired as an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Information Studies at Curtin University, Western Australia in 2013 and thought that my days on IFLA committees and the like were over. My IFLA involvement started with the IFLA Copenhagen conference in 1997, and I have subsequently been an executive member of the Section on Library Theory & Research 1999-2005 and after that was elected to the IFLA Standing Committee on Education & Training (SET) in 2005-2011 and re-elected for another 4 years 2011-2015. I stepped down as Secretary of SET at the 2013 IFLA conference.  However my attendance at the 2015 IFLA Cape Town (just over the ocean from Western Australia) conference saw me volunteer as Convenor of the IFLA Special Interest Group on Library History.

A small group of us are planning a session at the IFLA 2016 conference in Columbus, Ohio.  You have no doubt seen the SIG's Call for Papers and with the help of colleagues from the IFLA Section on Library Services to Multicultural Populations (with whom we are sharing a 2 hour session) and the American Library Association Round Table on Library History we hope to have a very interesting session on “Libraries and Immigrants: Historical Perspectives”.

I am also delighted to announce that my plea on our SIG e-list for a Webmaster had a positive result and I welcome and thank Dr. Anup Kumar Das from the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, for volunteering.

With good wishes

Dr. Kerry Smith, Convenor, IFLA Library History SIG

Dr Kerry Smith at IFLA Cape Town