Status Report

GLOBAL CONGRESS ON INFORMATION LITERACY
Status report as of October 23, 2003

In preliminary discussions held in 2001 between UNESCO, NCLIS, and the National Forum on Information Literacy, a two-stage meeting format was discussed as a "preferred scenario." First would occur a smaller, by invitation only, "meeting of experts," to which would be invited no more than three dozen experts from a representative cross-section of countries located in all of the major geographic regions of the world. Details of this meeting appear elsewhere on this website.

The Meeting of Experts scheduled for September 20-23, 2003 in Prague, The Czech Republic, did, indeed, take place on schedule, and was an outstanding success. Details of the meeting appear elsewhere on this webpage.

A major outcome of the meeting was the promulgation of a "Prague Declaration: Towards and Information Literate Society." In addition to several "basic principles" underpinning the information literacy concept that the expert group articulated, three quite specific recommendations were made. One of those recommendations was:

"The progress in, and opportunities for implementation of the above should be assessed by an International Congress on Information Literacy, which could be organized in the first half of 2005."

Both the results of the preliminary Meeting of Experts held in Prague, and planning for the larger Global Congress, are being closely coordinated with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which is to be held in two partsThe first part will be held in Geneva in December, 2003. The second part will be held in Tunis in 2005. Moreover, the recommendation for a major international meeting, in the weeks ahead, will be discussed at UNESCO, and by interested national governments, by elements of the Civil Society, and so on.

Dr. Joan R. Challinor, Chairperson of NCLIS, will be attending the World Summit meeting in Geneva and, along with the UNESCO delegates to that meeting, will be discussing the global conference idea with appropriate fellow delegates to that meeting.

As planning proceeds for the larger meeting, details will be posted on this webpage.

Suggestions are welcome, and should be directed to Woody Horton at whorton@nclis.gov.