This news in the first days of 2024 is the occasion to wish you the best for the new year.

 This is also an opportunity to give you update about the different events that the IT section, the Big Data SIG and AI SIG are planning within incoming months:

 1.  “AI and Libraries: Transforming Information Access and Discovery” Symposium, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile, 11 April, 2024. Progress has been excellent under the leadership of local host, María Loreto Puga and our IT Section Mentor, May Chang. The Call for Proposals had a large response with many excellent papers to select from. The finalized program will be shared soon. Registration will be free of cost and the sessions will be translated (English/Spanish) and live-streamed. Please plan to attend in-person and enjoy the wonderful local hospitality, and let us know so we can plan to connect on site.  The IT Section mid-term meeting will be held virtually ahead of the Symposium.

 2.  “AI Potential for Aiding Preservation/Conservation of Materials” project in conjunction with the Preservation and Conservation Section is under review. If the participation to an in-person event in Rome in March is not possible it may turn out a more IT-focused virtual webinar about AI and technology components of the topic.

 

The following actions are expected in 2024 and will be soon concretely planned, organized and / or launched: 

 IT Section Lead

  • 24 Hours of IFLA. This idea was to form a collaboration with several other sections to run a virtual webinar series on IT topics that cover all 5 IFLA region timezones. 
  • Accessibility. This idea was to work on a virtual webinar with the Libraries Serving Persons with Print Disabilities Section, Library Services to People with Special Needs Section, Accessibility Metadata Network, and Bibliography Section. The topic of accessibility also came up in relation to Big Data SIG work and this could be combined into one more focused session.

 AI SIG Lead

  • “Engineering with Artificial Intelligence (AI)” with DH/DS SIG. 
  • AI Book Publicity Project: Panel discussion with authors and AI SIG (virtual) – This session is dependent on the timeline for the editing of the monograph.
  • AI Literacy with Science and Technology Section.

 Big Data SIG Lead

  • Checklist on Security/Privacy
  • Ethical Guidelines for Privacy and Security

 

The work on providing Expertise IFLA Openbadges is still going on with the idea of deploying the proposition more widely inside the professional units members.

 Feel free to mention if you would like to participate to any of these projects, contact IT Section and AI & Big Data SIG officers!