Resolutions at the IFLA Council meetings held at Bangkok Thailand on 22nd August and 27th August 1999.

Warren Horton, Chair of the Working Group on the Revision of the Statutes and Rules of Procedure reported on the open hearings held during the conference on the working group's recommendations. He said that there was general support for all the recommendations, except for recommendation 12, the proposal to abolish the Division for Regional Activities (Division 8).

The President then introduced the general resolutions submitted during the conference.

She said that the Executive Board proposed that:

1. Council should give its broad support for the proposed changes to the Statutes and Rules of Procedure recommended by the Working Group, providing that recommendation 12 [concerning the proposed abolition of Division 8] is set aside.
2. The issues involved in that proposal should be explored later by an advisory group representative of the membership at large. Members of the current Working Group who wish to continue to serve may be included in the new advisory group.
3. The current Working Group on the Revision of the Statutes and Rules of Procedure would go on working to help with the process until the Executive Board meeting scheduled for December 1999
4. The Secretary General would carry out the drafting of the modified Statutes together with the new advisory group
5. Providing Council adopts Resolution 4 [below], the Secretary General would then send the revised text to the membership in accordance with the statutory time notice, for a postal ballot.

The President explained that this resolution was acceptable under the Rules of Procedure and would not require a change to the Statutes.

The resolution was carried by show of voting cards.

General resolutions submitted at the conference

The President ruled that, in view of the wholesale changes to both the Statutes and the Rules of Procedure required as a result of Council approving the broad thrust of all the recommendations of the Working Group on the Revision of the Statutes (except recommendation 12), and, because due notice under the Statutes had not been given, resolutions 1 and 2 [below] could not be voted upon at that meeting. She gave an undertaking however, that the proposals contained in the resolutions would be carefully considered when the new Statutes and Rules of Procedure were drafted.

1. A resolution was proposed by Francis T. Kirkwood, Secretary of the Coordinating Board of Division 5 (Collections and Services) and seconded by Christopher Wright, Secretary of the Section on Document Delivery and Interlending, which would amend the Statutes and Rules of Procedure in order to facilitate the appointment by IFLA sections of a Treasurer separate from the posts of Chair and Secretary. The Treasurer, where separately appointed, would be able to serve as an honorary adviser to the Divisional Coordinating Board and would be eligible to attend the board's meetings without a vote.

2. A resolution was proposed by Francis T. Kirkwood, Secretary of the Coordinating Board of Division 5 (Collections and Services) on the instruction that Board, and seconded by Winston Tabb, Chair, and Jennifer Tanfield, Secretary, of the Coordinating Board of Division 1 (General Research Libraries), which would amend the Rules of Procedure to replace the requirement that each candidate for election to a section standing committee be nominated by either one association member or two institutional members of the section, in favour of a simpler requirement that each candidate be nominated by one qualified member.

   The President ruled that the following resolution had been superseded by the resolution submitted by the Executive Board and which Council had approved earlier in the meeting. This resolution was therefore not put to the vote.

3. A resolution signed by Kay Raseroka, member of the Executive Board, Stanley Made, Chair of the Coordinating Board of Division 8 (Regional Activities) and Chair of the Section on Regional Activities:Africa, Adolfo Rodriguez Gallardo, Chair of the Section on Regional Activities: Latin America and the Caribbean, Amelia McKenzie, Chair of the Section on Regional Activities: Asia and Oceania, Russell Bowden, Honorary Fellow and Ian Johnson. The resolution commended the Executive Board's initiative to review the Statues, called upon the Board to strengthen the position of third world librarians in the mainstream of IFLA activities and called upon the Board to "reconsider its decision to dissolve Division 8 (Regional Activities) until a successful alternative is in place". [Note: No such decision had been take by the Board. The proposal referred to was one of a number of recommendations made by the Working Group on the Revision of the Statutes].

4. The Executive Board presented the following resolution;

   "Be it resolved that

   1. Council invoke the special cases provision in the Statues [Article 13] so that in the run up to and including the IFLA General Meeting in 2001, all proposed changes to the Statutes and any contested elections be determined by a postal ballot of the entire voting membership
   2. Where changes to the Statutes are proposed in a postal ballot, where appropriate, supporting statements for and against the changes be provided"
      
   The resolution was carried by a show of voting cards.

Professional Resolutions submitted at the conference

Sissel Nilsen, Chair of the Professional Board, reported that three Professional resolutions had been submitted.

1. Collecting and Safeguarding Oral Traditions: John H St-J McIlwaine, committee member and Ralph Manning, Chair, both of the Section on Preservation and Conservation, submitted a resolution arising from the Satellite meeting held at Khon Kaen immediately before the Conference. The resolution called for IFLA to support and encourage the collection and safeguarding of the world's oral tradition and to take measures to ensure increased awareness of oral tradition as an integral part of the world's intellectual and cultural heritage.

   This resolution was remitted to the Professional Board for consideration and action as appropriate.

2. Al Kagan, Convenor of the Social Responsibilities Discussion Group, submitted a series of recommendations arising from the Group's discussion of a paper concerned with the growing gap between the information rich and the information poor.

   The recommendations were referred back to the Section on Education and Training, since they did not have the required signatures.

3. Francis T. Kirkwood, Chair of the Section on Government Information and Official Publications, submitted four resolutions arising from the seminar on The Role of Libraries in Ensuring Public Access to Official Publications and Government Information, held in Moscow in May 1999 by the Section. The resolutions concerned:
   1. the need for basic cataloguing-in-publication information in official documents published in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to assist in bibliographic control and retrieval
   2. the need for collaboration to develop common on-line access in English and Russian to a data base of the most important legislation of all countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
   3. the need for international agreements on the comprehensive international exchange, deposit and archiving of official publications in electronic formats
   4. a programme to be developed by the Section of professional exchanges and practical training to provide the region (Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union) with sufficient specialists in access to government information.

   This resolution was remitted to the Professional Board for consideration and action as appropriate.

   The full text of all the general and professional resolutions will be made available on IFLANET and are available on request from IFLA HQ.

September 1999

Ross Shimmon