Thursday, August 16, 2007

Off to IFLA Conference: 19-23 August 2007, Durban, South Africa (part 1)

Will leave for Changi Airport in a few minutes time, for my 2am flight to South Africa. Flying SIA. About 10 hours to Johannesburg International Airport. Then a domestic flight to Durban.

Am a little worried about the time to clear immigration and customs at Johannesburg International, and then to board the domestic flight at Durban airport. Hope the two-hour buffer is enough. Crossing my fingers that our arrival to Johannesburg won't be late; no long queue at Johannesburg immigration/ customs/ baggage collection; that the walk from Johannesburg Airport to the Durban Airport (about 15 minutes; walking required) will be uneventful; smooth boarding at Durban domestic; then baggage collection; finding a transport from Durban airport to the hotel...

Ah well, too many "what ifs". Forget it. At least I'm mentally prepared what needs to be done. Will take whatever comes my way.

Theme for this year's IFLA conference is "Libraries for the future: Progress, Development and Partnerships". There'll be an official IFLA daily report, called IFLA Express.

My Standing Committee (Libraries for Children and Young Adults Section) will meet on Saturday, a day before the conference starts. Then an extra meeting during the conference, and then a final meeting the day after the conference ends. Standard stuff for the various technical committees such as ours.

Apart from updating my Standing Committee (SC) as Information Officer, I've tabled an agenda item this year -- a proposal for a Youth-related activity (kind of similar to this). Hope the SC might be interested in implementing as a IFLA activity. This year, there's a good chance we might even agree to start a blog or a wiki for a guideline revision project. We'll see.

My IFLA colleague, Lars (from Denmark) started this blog specially to keep his family and Danish colleagues informed about the conference happenings (I learned this from his update in SCL News, June 2007 issue).

Will check out these travel tips at Changi Airport internet terminals -- go2africa.com and southafrica.info.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:06 am

    Have a good flight to South Africa (my home country). I've heard that Singapore Airlines are really good. Don't worry too much about the 2-hour buffer - if you miss your connecting flight (assuming you booked them all in one), you can just hop onto the next flight from Johannesburg to Durban - they're pretty regular.

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  2. Hey, thanks for the assurance! :)

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  3. Anonymous3:57 am

    Ivan:
    Just did this yesterday in one hour. It was fine. It took about 45 minutes. You have to go through immigration, then customs, then pick up your bag and then walk it over to the next terminal outisde (about 10 minutes and up hill three flights) and re-check it in. Get a cart - they're free. The airport is under construction and there's no short cut. The you go through security again.
    Hope to see youo at IFLA.
    Stephen Abram (Stephen's Lighthouse)

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  4. Anonymous9:27 am

    woah..steady brudder..ur job actually allows u to fly and go for library conferences..tubad my ministry doesn't do such stuffs...

    erm..although it is sucky to know ur weekend is burnt on this one..but hey...South Africa man..have a safe trip man..:)

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