CONFERENCE LOCATION

The Small Guild Hall, 3/5 Amatu Street, Old Town, Riga, Latvia

THEME

The IFLA satellite conference on "Information for Civic Literacy" will explore the role of information professionals, educators and public actors in promoting civic literacy and informed public choices by citizens. This is not a matter of advocating particular political or public policy positions, but of education for responsible citizenship through the ways in which we provide information for citizens' decision making in the public forum. Issues to be examined might include, for example:

• the delivery of reference and information services to citizens from multiple sources and viewpoints so as to encourage democratic choice, citizen participation and the rule of law;
• awareness of selective information delivery, propaganda and media bias as a new component of information literacy training; and
• assistance to the public in accessing information from and about governments to promote effective popular involvement in governance, democratic opposition and economic development.
• Special areas of interest to the conference include the development of civic literacy in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as increasing professional and public awareness of information control and manipulation in the Western democracies.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

Librarians, teachers, information literacy specialists, political thinkers and journalists interested in the promotion of civic literacy and of informed public choices by citizens, through library and information services, educational institutions and the information media.