Japan Trip 2015: IAFOR ACAH & LibrAsia 2015

Crossing the river towards the OICC

Let me first spell out these acronyms: IAFOR stands for International Academic Forum. ACAH means Annual Conference on the Arts and Humanities. LibrAsia is a coined word for Librarians in Asia or Libraries in Asia. Put together, these are the three reasons why I was in Japan in the first week of April this year.

I attended the IAFOR ACAH LibrAsia Conference (April 3-5, 2015), presented a paper, learned loads and had a good time. This last bit is the icing on the cake. A lot of work went into research and writing the paper. Now here's what happened in the conference.

The plenary sessions began in day 1 where academics from the arts and humanities presented their research papers. I came late on the first day so I only had the chance to listen to Mr. Jared Baxter talk about Van Gogh's Starry Night and the influences it has on different disciplines as well as its impact in the political, cultural and historical milieu of the artist, past and present. This was already in mid-morning. A session before the morning break. I met Filipino academics and presenters too. There was a good number of Filipino participants and paper presenters from Luzon and the Visayas. Somehow, the atmosphere did not feel so foreign at all.

The Pinoy Continget at the IAFOR 2015

Before lunch break, we were all treated to songs and dances of the Taiko Drum Perfomers. I was impressed by their youthful exuberance performing their traditional songs and dances that I wrote a haiku.
   
"Thunder in the flesh
Proud, powerful and unafraid
Taiko drum performers"

Candy receiving her certificate from Dr. Lo

Breakout session began at 1.30PM. I presented my paper on school librarians and leadership in the library session with Candy May Schijf and Mr. Wilson Chu of the Hong Kong Design Institute presenting too. Candy's paper was about Information Literacy and assessment while Mr. Chu's paper was on attitudes and perceptions of students on the library and how this can help librarians create the space, services and programs of the library. The session was chaired by Dr. Patrick Lo of Tsukuba University.

Discussion during our session thrived. The audience were interested to know about the government's guidelines on school libraries in the Philippines. Dr. Lo was particularly eager to know the school library landscape in the country. This led to an exchange of calling cards, more conversations and sharing of future research projects after our presentation. Right after, Candy and I rushed to Willian San Andres Frias' presentation. We didn't see her present her paper on collection development and research data, but a physicist and librarian from Vienna was giving her accolades for her paper, even encouraging her to have it published in an academic, refereed journal.

What were Cristina, Grace and Darrel doing all the time?

A haiku is about a moment.

Cristina chaired a session and presented her paper too. Grace and Darrel sat in sessions in the literature strand. During the afternoon break, I met Dr. Grace V.S. Chin from the Univeristi of Brunei Darusalam. She wrote a paper on Jose "Butch" Dalisay's novel, Soledad and Her Sisters, and the OFW experience seen through the lens of the matriarchal archetype. I was introduced to her by Grace Bansig (ye, another Grace), since she listened to her present her paper.

The last session we all attended was the Haiku Writing Workshop by haiku master, Emiko Yamashita. I will devout one post for that workshop since it is one of the more memorable sessions in IAFOR LibrAsia 2015. Well, at least, for me.

This is Day 2 of my Japan Trip of 2015. My post on Day 3 is next.