The geographical distribution of information professionals at the IFLA Annual Congresses, with an emphasis on the IFLA Division V Regions

Critical analysis of the levels of participation and representativeness of countries in the IFLA Annual Congresses, based on the mapping of the geographical origin of the delegates and authors of papers and posters. It discusses and highlights the global and comparative presence between regions at first, and then furthers the discussion on the participation, contribution and impact of professionals from Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, regions that make up the IFLA Regional Activities Division, entitled Division V. It is a bibliographical and documentary study in four IFLA World Library and Information Congresses from 2015-2018. We analyzed the geographical origins of: (a) 10,756 delegates with an average of 126 countries by years; (b) 2,427 authors from 1,329 papers presented in 242 sessions, with an average of 71 countries per year; (c) besides 1,066 authors from 548 posters, with an average of 46 countries per year. The results show that the IFLA congress promotes greater participation of professionals from both the host and neighboring countries and / or the same region. Yet it shows that there are many countries that still do not use IFLA as a space to share their activities and best practices. Similarly, it is also noted that a large number of countries are still being represented by a very small number of delegates and authors of articles and posters. The largest number of papers and posters presented at the four congresses analyzed came from American authors. In addition to the number that usually come from Canada, we can see the predominance of North American content being disseminated at the IFLA International Congress. As far as posters are concerned, China is the second-largest producing country. Several developing countries, especially Latin America, are represented exclusively at sessions hosted by Division V Sections. We also identified that there is not much collaboration between authors from different countries or even in the same country. The importance of WLIC's annual offer in the different regions of the planet is proven, in order to offer more opportunity to all. However, there are still a number of strategies that IFLA can apply to really offer equity to all librarians in the world. We suggest rethinking the strategies of aggregation of geographically dispersed professionals, along with planning short- and medium-term actions, considering the different levels of development of each country and region.