Day 3 in Oaxaca where the burnt-out cars and buses still partly blockade the streets after 90 days of demonstrations, shootings and city-wide trauma. Today there is strike by all Oaxacan businesses to protest at the lack of concern shown by the governor to the impact on their lives of the ongoing political turmoil. I am acknowledging it here because there seems to be no news coverage in Britain, save for a smattering on the BBC.
I wanted to give a little more reflection on the KnowHow gathering. The GWL team learnt so much from our colleagues from across all continents.
I learnt from Reetu Sogani about the pioneering work she is devloping with women in the Himalayas, preserving People’s Knowledge using ICT. During her paper I had the sense of hearing about a women’s information project whose strategies could change the world.
It was marvellous to meet Reiko Aoki and discover from her that there are hundreds of women’s libraries across Japan and to find out more about their structure and activities, including their work on a new Japanese Women’s Thesaurus, another project that germinated at KnowHow Amsterdam 1998 when the European Women’s Thesaurus was launched.
It was exciting to deliver a paper myself, ‘Pongamonos en pantalla y observemonos documentar la vibracion de la vida de una biblioteca de ‘La Mujer'(thanks for that Vanessa!). The round table was well attended and GWL generally had warm and positive feedback. One Norwegian delegate commented that Scotland had a ‘huge’ delegation – we took this as a compliment – we certainly met as many poeple as possible. It was heartwarming to see almost every delegate wearing a GWL badge. Even Juanita our lovely pal at the Museum of Popular Culture was wearing one after our visit.
I am looking forward to fully reporting on the many papers, meetings, ideas and contacts made during the conference and to sensing the ways that KnowHow 3 will directly impact on the Lifelong Learning programme at GWL in its new home. I was proud to represent GWL, Glasgow and Scotland and know we contributed as much as possible to the gathering.
Ok, Sue is waiting to send her first message so I’ll conclude this installment.
Adios,
Adele
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