Dr Fernanda Campos - Chair
SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES AT IFLA , GLASGOW ( SEE APPENDIX 1 FOR DETAILS)
Strategic Plan 2002-2003
The IFLA Professional Board having decided that the 4-year cycle of the Medium Term Program should be replaced by a Strategic Plan based on a 2-year cycle, the Section had to prepare a strategic plan covering the period 2002-2003.
This strategic plan which comprises three parts: mission, priorities and action plan and which is linked to the Professional priorities of IFLA has been approved in March 2002 by the Professional Committee. The action plan will be reviewed during the Glasgow Conference.
Mission
The IFLA Section on National Libraries is a focal point for supporting the vital role of national libraries in society as custodians of the nation's intellectual heritage, thus providing organisation, access and preservation to the national imprint in all media and always in recognition of the needs, concerns and views of every region of the world, particularly those in developing countries.
Goals
1. To promote the universal availability of information by such activities as encouraging the creation and building of national libraries, the development of national legislation for national libraries - especially legal deposit dispositions and fostering discussion on the impact of copyright laws in national libraries.
(Professional priorities: (a) Supporting the role of libraries in society; (b) Defending the principle of freedom of information; (d) Providing unrestricted access to information; (e) Balancing the intellectual property rights of authors with the needs of users; (f) Promoting resource sharing; (g) Preserving our intellectual heritage)
Actions
1.1 Organise Open session on Legal deposit and copyright laws: how to meet the needs of national libraries, with the committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters at Glasgow, 2002.
2. To serve as a forum to share and learn from the experience of the practical problems of national libraries, in order to promote benchmarking, best practices and quality models.
(Professional priorities: (a) Supporting the role of libraries in society; (b) Defending the principle of freedom of information; (d) Providing unrestricted access to information; (f) Promoting resource sharing; (g) Preserving our intellectual heritage; (i) Promoting standards, guidelines and best practice)
Actions
2.1 Organise Workshop on National libraries capturing the Web: learning from experience, with the Section on Information Technology and in liaison with CDNL, at Glasgow, 2002. 2.2 Organise Open session on Benchmarking and performance evaluation: developing quality services in national libraries in liaison with the Division of General Research Libraries and CDNL at Berlin, 2003. 2.3 Publish Section newsletters print and electronic version and distribute them widely, including conference papers and news relating to national libraries (2002-2003). 2.4 Update and distribute leaflets and other information regarding the Section (2002-2003).
3. To promote research in fields of interest to national libraries, always considering the opportunities to share experiences with other groups within IFLA and in close cooperation with CDNL - Conference of Directors of National Libraries.
(Professional priorities: (a) Supporting the role of libraries in society; (b) Defending the principle of freedom of information; (d) Providing unrestricted access to information; (f) Promoting resource sharing; (g) Preserving our intellectual heritage; (h) Developing library professionals; (i) Promoting standards, guidelines and best practice)
Actions
3.1 Liaise with School Libraries Section for joint presentations at a Workshop, under their coordination, at Glasgow, 2002. 3.2 Liaise with Bibliography Section for joint presentations at an Open session, under their coordination at Glasgow, 2002. 3.3 Initiate a project/survey on performance evaluation in liaison with CDNL and the Division of General Research Libraries and present results at an Open session (Action 2.2) at Berlin in 2003. 3.4 Organise survey and possible Workshop at Berlin in 2003 on Web services for users and non-users of the national libraries in liaison with CDNL.
4. To support IFLA's Core Programmes also by actively contributing to the discussion of forthcoming activities and models.
(Professional priorities: (a) Supporting the role of libraries in society; (b) Defending the principle of freedom of information; (d) Providing unrestricted access to information; (f) Promoting resource sharing; (g) Preserving our intellectual heritage; (i) Promoting standards, guidelines and best practice)
Actions
4.1 Support the propositions of the WG settled by CDNL (Boston, 2001) with the purpose to identify existing and desirable core activities and assist in presenting a report in Glasgow.
Membership
174 national associations and institutional or personal members are registered for the section per October 2001.
The Section Standing Committee numbers 20 members from 18 countries.
Officers
During the Boston Conference in August 2001, election of new Standing Committee officers took place for the 2001-2003 term.
Mr Winston TABB, Associate Librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress, achieving his second term as chair, was not authorized to apply for a new mandate. Mrs Alix CHEVALLIER has agreed to stand for re-election as secretary.
CHAIR/TREASURER: Mrs Fernanda CAMPOS Deputy Director, Biblioteca Nacional Campo Grande, 83 1749-081 LISBOA, Portugal Fax: (351) 21 798 21 40 E-mail: fcampos@bn.pt SECRETARY: Mrs Alix CHEVALLIER Director for International Relations Biblitohèque nationale de France Quai Fançois-Mauriac 75706 Paris cedex 13 Fax: (33) 01 53 79 47 37 E-mail: alix.chevallier@bnf.fr
Information Coordination
The secretary of the section
Meetings
The section has held no special meeting between the two annual conferences.
Projects
No running project
Publications
Newsletter of the IFLA Section on National Libraries, June 2001
Conference Programmes
During the Boston Conference, the section organized two workshops, jointly with two other sections.
1. The workshop organized jointly with the Section on Management and Marketing was on the theme "Marketing national libraries".
National libraries face many challenges in building on effective strategy to market library products and services. The discussion was organized around four questions that had to be answered with presentation of experiences.
a Is it really necessary to market National Libraries?
- Natalia SANTUCCI (Bibliotheca Nazionale Centrale , Roma, Italy)
- Perry J. MOREE (Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, Netherlands)
b How to raise the profile for the National Library?
- Andris VILKS (National Library of Latvia, Riga)
- R. RAMACHANDRAN (National Library of Singapore)
- Ian McGOWAN (National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK)
c National Libraries - not for researchers only: how to market the content of the National Libraries
- Pam GATENBY (National Library of Australia, Canberra)
- Willy VANDERPIJPEN (Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels)
- Mick OSBORNE (The British Library, London)
d Marketing tools: cultural programmes, exhibitions, www, relationships with the press etc.
- Jill BRETT (Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA)
- Christopher BLAKE (National Library of New Zealand, Wellington)
- Vivianne CABANNES (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)
From these case studies, participants tried to determine necessary steps that should be taken to create a marketing strategy that works and results that take place as a consequence of building a successful strategy.
2. The workshop organized jointly with the Section on Bibliography was on the theme "What makes a good national bibliography even better? Current situation and future prospects".
It started with the dissemination of the findings of a recent study regarding the status and trends concerning the production of national bibliographies throughout the world and was followed by a presentation of specific case studies. Then emphasis was put on the changes in the national bibliographies in a changing information environment and a range of questions was raised about dynamic electronic publications, national bibliographies production and the role of the national bibliographic agencies.
a National bibliographies and the International Conference on National bibliographic services recommendations:
- Anne LANGBALLE (National Library of Norway, Oslo)
- Barbara BELL (College of Wooster, Ohio, USA)
b Special accomplishments and features of selected national bibliographies:
- Tienie DE KLERK (National Library of South Africa, Pretoria)
- Eva TEDENMYR (National Library of Sweden, Stockholm)
c The national bibliography concept in a changing information environment:
- Janne ANDRESOO (National Library of Estonia, Tallinn)
- Changes in the national bibliographies 1996-2001:
- Unni KNUTSEN (National Library of Norway, Oslo)
d Uses and usefulness of national bibliographies: what are the perspectives?:
- Marcelle BEAUDIQUEZ (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris)
- Legal deposit of on-line materials and national bibliographies:
- Marianne SCOTT (former national librarian of Canada)
Relationship With Other Bodies
The Section has strong relationship with CDNL. Several members of the Standing Committee, among whom the chair and the secretary, are members of the working group set up by CDNL about IFLA Core activities (Boston, 2001) and they contributed to the survey led about this topic by Mr Christopher Chia, vice-president of the CDNL and chair of the group.
Report prepared by Mrs Alix Chevallier, Director for International Relations, Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Secretary for the IFLA Section on National Libraries , 20 June 2002
Glasgow, 18-24 August 2002
1 OPEN SESSION (MONDAY 19 AUGUST, 14.45-17.15)
Organized by the Preservation and Conservation (PAC) Core Activity with the support of the Section on National Libraries, "A Blue Shield for the protection of our endangered cultural heritage".
This session is led by the director of the PAC core activity and will focus on how to protect our cultural heritage from armed conflicts and natural disasters. The National Central Library of Florence will explain how it has been recovering from the river Arno flood (1966-2002).
2 OPEN SESSION (TUESDAY 20 AUGUST, 15.15-17.45)
Organized jointly with the Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters on "Legal deposit and Copyright laws: how they meet the National Libraries mission", particularly in the environment of electronic publishing. with an introduction of Jon BING, Professor Dr jurist and writer, and presentations of different legislations and systems across Europe, South Africa, North America and Australia.
3 OPEN SESSION (WEDNESDAY 21 AUGUST, 14.00-16.30)
Organized jointly with the Section on Bibliography on "Bridging the gap between the publishing industry and national bibliographies", with examples of collaboration and conflict between deposit libraries and publishers.
4 HALF-DAY WORKSHOP (THURSDAY 22 AUGUST, 8.30-12.00)
Organised jointly with the Section on Bibliography on "Bibliographic control or chaos? How to treat remote electronic resources in the (national) bibliographies", with presentations of case studies from Europe, North America and Australia.
5 HALF-DAY WORKSHOP (THURSDAY 22 AUGUST, 12.15-15.45)
Organized jointly with the Section on Information Technology on "Capturing the web: learning from experience in the National libraries" with an introduction of Brewster Kahle, director of Internet Archive.
From some experiences made in U.S.A. and Europe, this workshop will raise important questions about the handling of the incoming electronic material: how shall we collect, store, preserve and present this material to meet the needs of future researchers.
6 HALF-DAY WORKSHOP (THURSDAY 22 AUGUST, 12.15-15.45)
Organized by the Section on School libraries and Resource centres and the Section on Libraries for children and young adults with the support of the Section on National Libraries, on "Reading development with young people in public, school and national libraries".
As regards the national libraries, the National Library of Malaysia will give the results of its experience.