User:Book/BlogEntry: 2009 February 02 09:41:29 EAT

The most recent World Social Forum event ended yesterday in Belém, Brazil, without, as far as I know, any input from the world's library community. I hope to be proven wrong by public librarians who went there to do what Kay Raseroka suggested (no, adviced, or even recommended and requested) them to do. IFLA chair Kay Raseroka (at the WSF in Mumbai, January 2004) said that the librarians should all attend the Social Forums in order to document the Forums in their libraries. 

As for the public librarians in, say, East Africa, I can understand why they where not there.  It costs a lot of money and effort to go to Belém, Brazil. And so it might be with librarians and library activists (like me) in other parts of the world. If they have  jobs as librarians or library activists at all, they are not well paid, anyway.  (The library activist is a pro, who earns his necessary cash working half-time  in the greater library of the internet.)   

===Reports from Belém===

* WSF 2009 Highlights 30 January — World Social Forum TV THIRD DAY OF THE MEETING OF THE WORLD CIVIL SOCIETY E SOCIAL MOVEMENT TO FACE THE GLOBAL WARMING AND THE FINACIAL CRISIS interviews with Jorge Furagaro - Amazonia Colombia; Nilma Bentes - Afro descendent movement; Jorge Marubo from Jawari area, Amazonia Brasil; Walden Bello (Focus on the Global South-Philippines), author, academic and political analyst - text and video http://www.wsftv.net/Members/focuspuller/videos/highlights3.mp4/view

* World Social Forum 2009: a generation’s challenge PEOPLE Geoffrey Pleyers | open Democracy News Analysis 30 january 2009
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/world-social-forum-2009-a-generation-s-challenge

*  Crisis as Opportunity for "Another World" Mario Osava - IPS Inter Press Service - 21 January 2009
http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=45494