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Annual Report 1997
Graham P Cornish
Programme Director
Introduction
As always, this has been a busy year for the Universal Availability of Publications Core Programme. Involvement in project work has continued to be a major feature of our work; the voucher scheme has now become a permanent part of the library cooperation scene and partnerships with other organizations continue to flourish. These words are very like those which opened the report last year and the satisfactory nature of their content means that little change is needed!
Interlending News
Work has begun on editing the papers from the Fifth Interlending and Document Supply Conference held in Århus in August 1997. They should be ready for publication early in 1998.
In May Sara Gould organized a basic training course in ILL, which was attended by a group of Ghanaian librarians as part of the "Document Delivery in Africa" project being run by the Document Delivery and Interlending Section. The week-long course was held in Manchester, and trainers were Sara Gould, together with David Orman and Stephen Prowse from the UK Forum for Interlending (FIL).
Later in the year, a workshop on international lending was run by Sara Gould at the FIL Annual Conference, at which she was able to highlights the benefits of the IFLA Voucher Scheme, many of the Office's publications, as well as exploring other problems specific to international lending.
Projects
Projects continue to be funded by outside organizations and we are constantly looking for other organizations with which to work. As some of our major projects enter their final phase the finding and funding of new work will become essential.
The IFLA Voucher Scheme
It is with great pride that the programme can report that the Voucher Scheme is now a permanent part of the international library cooperation scene. At its meeting in Copenhagen in August the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) approved a proposal that the scheme cease to be experimental and become permanent. The support of CDNL has been crucial in this development phase and its trust in the Office has been fully justified. The Scheme continues to go from strength to strength, with now almost 200 libraries listed as participants. The true number of participating libraries is likely to be much higher because many libraries new to the Scheme do not automatically inform us of their acceptance of the Vouchers, and many names are probably missing from our list which remains accessible on IFLANET.
The administrative work involved in the Scheme has been absorbed into the day-to-day work of the Office, but we continue to look at ways in which the Scheme can be improved, when time and resources allow. The Scheme now has brochures available in English, French, German, Russian, Italian and Spanish and looks set to remain an effective way to pay for postal ILL requests. We have now begun to explore ways in which the Voucher Scheme can be transferred to an electronic system, to help overcome the same payment difficulties for requests which are made in a variety of electronic ways.
With this in mind, we recently announced a trial arrangement whereby the Library of Congress will accept IFLA Vouchers in the usual way, but will have the value of the Vouchers reimbursed in the form of OCLC credits, rather than by means of a postal cheque. This arrangement, established after discussions between OCLC, the Library of Congress and IFLA represents a small step in our efforts to introduce an "electronic voucher scheme".
World Directory of Union Catalogues
This is a project which has been very slow to get going, but is at last showing some signs of results. A joint project with the IFLA Sections on Serial Publications, Bibliography, Document Delivery and Interlending and with the ISBN and ISSN International Centres, it aims to compile a worldwide directory of national and international union catalogues. The results will be accessible on IFLANET, and will provide direct links to any catalogue which is available on the WWW. Full access information will be provided for union catalogues published in other formats, and the Directory itself will be available in hard copy for those without Internet access.
A half-day workshop will be dedicated to the subject of union catalogues during the 1998 IFLA Conference in Amsterdam.
IFLA Twinning Project
With the help of generous funding from outside sources, an international twinning database is being developed and maintained by the Office. The system acts as a kind of dating agency aiming to match libraries as closely as possible, based on the benefits they are seeking from the partnership and the benefits they can offer to the partner. The IFLA UAP Office is the first established focal point to which all libraries can turn when seeking twinning partners.
Initially set up in October 1996, questionnaires have been sent to a large number of different types of libraries who have expressed an interest in the concept of twinning. Due to the diversity in the libraries, matching them with a suitable partner has not always been possible but as the database expands this difficulty should be overcome. Staffing levels and lack of resources have proved to be further obstacles but an additional amount of funding has recently been awarded by UNESCO.
MURIEL
The MURIEL (Multimedia Education System for Librarians Introducing Remote Interactive Processing of Electronic Documents) Project finally came to a satisfactory conclusion at the end of October. Although partly overtaken by technological developments, the project highlighted many important issues in building an interactive distance learning training module. The European Commission gave the project a final stamp of approval at its final review.
COPEARMS
The IFLA UAP Office on behalf of the COPEARMS (Coordinating Project for Electronic Authors= Right Management System) held two Special Interest Group Meetings. One as part of EVA Florence to promote interoperability of ERMS (Electronic Rights Management Systems), the second as part of the IFFRO AGM in Athens where information about current state of the art ERMS development was discussed and the COPEARMS Services were promoted. The COPEARMS services, which includes advice on technical, business, legal and security issues, are to be offered on a commercial basis during the final year of the project.
The IFLA UAP office arranged an international conference on ERMS issues. Unfortunately, due to a large number of similar events being held, the conference did not attract the number of delegates required to make it a success and was therefore cancelled. It was later decided that a conference might not be the best way to promote the project and interoperability issues and resources should be diverted into upgrading the Web site based at
http://www.ifla.org/copearms
IMPRIMATUR
The COPEARMS Project will continue to work closely with the IMPRIMATUR (Intellectual Multimedia Property Rights Model and Terminology for Universal Reference) project which is also co-financed by the European Commission. The IFLA Office for UAP is part of the COPEARMS /IMPRIMATUR Joint Liaison Committee, and is also involved in the IMPRIMATUR project as the British Library Copyright Office.
A major international conference was held at the end of October in Amsterdam to discuss the variety of rights, limitations and exceptions to copyright legislation and the effect on these of data in electronic formats. Delegates attended from all areas of business (publishing, broadcasting, libraries, author groups, performing, record industry, etc.) in an attempt to reach some agreement over the degree to which rights and exceptions should be retained in the electronic environment. Although it would be optimistic to say that consensus was reached, the stimulating discussions were undoubtedly a step forward. The conference took the form of a keynote speech, followed by the dispersal of delegates into workshop groups, a format which ensured a stimulating discussion.
The proceedings were recorded and printed copies are available from Sarah Keates at the UAP Office. An electronic version can be accessed from the IMPRIMATUR web-site:
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The IFLA UAP Office held a very successful Special Interest Group meeting at IFLA "97. The meeting gave IFLA members the chance to discuss the future of the library in the electronic world and to have their views on how rights should be managed fed back into the IMPRIMATUR consensus building process.
SEDODEL
Under the British Library Copyright Office banner, the IFLA UAP staff has been involved in setting up a project that will increase the availability and accessibility of information for blind and partially sighted people. SEDODEL (Secure Document Delivery for Blind and Partially Sighted People) will combine ERMS with access technology to create a secure environment for the transmission of electronic documents which can be converted to a useable format. The project will receive funding from the European Commission and will begin in April 1998.
Conferences and Meetings
Conferences
A major event in the year was the conference on the Role of Libraries in Economic Development held in Ljubljana in cooperation with the Central Technical Library and with the support of the Slovenian Government, the Soros Foundation, the British Council and others. There will be a follow-up to this meeting in North America in 1998 and hopefully another in Eastern Europe in 1999. The 5th Interlending & Document Supply International Conference held in Århus, Denmark, was declared a huge success last August, and the Office was involved both with the organization and with presentation of several papers. The conference proceeding are now in production. Participation in conferences of different kinds is still seen as a major part of the UAP work. This year staff have made presentations at a number of meetings including the Role of Libraries in Economic Development (Ljubljana); Digital Library Conference (London); Under One UmbrelLA (Manchester); Ethics of Electronic Information in the 21st Century (Memphis, USA); Spanish Library Association Conference (Barcelona); Electronic Libraries Conference (Cologne); and the Electronic Imaging Group meeting in Wellingborough (UK).
The Office had a heavy programme during the Copenhagen Conference and participated in the Workshop on Document Delivery, the Open Forum, the work of the Standing Committee for Document Delivery and Interlending, the Coordinating Board for Division V and maintained a constant presence during the many poster sessions. The work of the Publishers Liaison Committee also produced very considerable discussion and pointers for future developments in this important area.
Conference Planning
Considerable effort was devoted during the year to organizing the conference on the Role of Libraries in Economic Growth which was held in Ljubljana in April and the 5th Interlending & Document Supply International Conference held in Århus in August. Planning for further events including a further Conference on Libraries and Economic Renewal in Victoria, British Columbia and the 6th Interlending & Document Supply International Conference in Pretoria in 1999 is already well in hand.
Representation
The Share the Vision project, to improve public library services for visually impaired people in the UK, is also linked to project TESTLAB which aims to design a workstation for visually impaired people. Funded by the European Union, it also has plans for a National Union Catalogue of Alternative Formats and a Pilot Interlending Project (PIP) for these materials. Such a catalogue has already been established in the UK. The Office is now officially represented on the TESTLAB Expert Users Group.
The Office has continues to play an active role in the "Opportunities in Europe Group", a group of library and information professionals seeking to participate in the development of library and information services throughout Europe. Pauline Connolly is Secretary of the Group and Judy Watkins is Treasurer.
The Office is still a member of the Information for Development Coordinating Committee (IDCC).
Representation still continues on various copyright committees, particularly in the UK, and a careful watch is kept on legal trends which may limit availability and access.
The General Conference in Copenhagen agreed to establish an IFLA Committee on Copyright and other Legal Matters (CLM) for which the Secretariat will be provided by the UAP Programme. A Committee has been established and work continues to build up a team of specialists who will support the work of the Committee in various areas (both geographically and by topic).
Publications
The UAP Newsletter can be received electronically. Contact the general address at the end of this report. It is also published twice a year in paper form.
Several new titles were published by the Office during 1997. They are:
- Charging for Document Delivery and Interlending - Papers from the IFLA Workshop on Charging, held during the IFLA Conference, August 1996. Edited by Sara Gould
- Copyright in Libraries: Global Concerns, Local Solutions - Papers from a Pre-Conference Seminar held in Tianjin, and those presented at a Conference session of the Section on Document Delivery and Interlending, August 1996. Edited by Judy Watkins
- The Role of Libraries in Economic Development - Papers from the Conference held in Ljubljana, April 1997. Edited by Judy Watkins and Pauline Connolly
National Libraries of the World: An Address List is updated regularly and is available free of charge. It can be accessed through the Programme's Web site at the National Library of Canada
A complete list of publications is available from the Office on request.
The Office has also continued to be represented on the Editorial Board, and to publish semi-annual reviews and bibliographies in Interlending and Document Supply. It has also continued to compile the Miscellany section of the journal. This contract funds one of the part-time posts in the Office.
Staff have also contributed a number of articles to professional journals in many countries on UAP, copyright law, electronic management systems, payment mechanisms and document delivery generally.
Personnel and Communications
Sarah Keates is now established on a 50% basis and is primarily responsible for IFLA matters generally. Judy Watkins is now responsible for much of the Office's work on EC electronic copyright projects and Pauline Connolly is working in both areas. Sara Gould has spent much of her time on COPYSMART but is now concentrating on the Voucher Scheme, Twinning, Union Catalogues and writing reviews and preparing bibliographies. Louise Huddlestone has settled in as Office Administrator. Graham Cornish is Director of the UAP Programme and Head of IFLA Office for International Lending; Sarah Keates, Judy Watkins, Sara Gould, Pauline Connolly are Research Officers.
The Office is fully linked to the Internet system. All staff can be reached on a general e-mail address: IFLA@bl.uk and individual members of the team can be reached by using the formula: firstname.lastname@bl.uk. The General Office telephone number is +(44-1937) 546255 (which is also the number for Judy Watkins). Other numbers are: 546123 (Graham Cornish); 546465 (Louise Huddlestone); 546124 (Sarah Keates) and 546254 (Sara Gould and Pauline Connolly).
The UAP Office has a home page on the WWW at
http://www.ifla.org/VI/2/uap.htm
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