IN THIS DOCUMENT:

Reorganization and Management

Activities

Cooperation

Visits and Participation in Conferences and Meetings

Financial Statement and Fund Raising

Activities of Regional Centres

IFLA Core Programme for Preservation and Conservation (PAC)

Annual Report 1999

Reorganization and Management

International Focal Point

• Ania Zalenskaia was appointed in replacement of Virginie Kremp

Regional Centres

• Ramón Sánchez in Caracas was replaced by Aurelio Alvarez (November 99)
• Cliff Law in Canberra was replaced by Colin Webb (December 99)

Annual meeting of PAC Directors, Bangkok, August 24

Despite the efforts of IFLA HQ, National Library of Venezuela and IFLA PAC to support Ramon Sanchez participation, only three directors out of six were in attendance, the others being represented.

The following participated :

• Marie-Thérèse Varlamoff, Programme Director
• Ania Zalenskaia, Programme Officer
• Galina Kislovskaya, Director of Moscow Centre
• Ramón Sánchez, Director of Caracas Centre
• Jan Fullerton, Director of National Library of Australia representing Cliff Law, Director of Canberra Centre
• Debra McKern, representing Mark Roosa , Director of Washington Centre
• Takenori Horimoto, representing Ryuji Yonemura, Director of Tokyo Centre.

Observers :

• Ralph Manning, Chair of Division VI and former chair of the Section on Preservation and Conservation
• John McIlwaine, New Chair of the Section
• Hans Rütimann representing CLIR (Commission on Preservation and Access).

Though all missing PAC directors were efficiently represented it was difficult to discuss activities for the next twelve months and to try to assess the needs for more regional centres. Translations of basic manuals seem in progress: as they remain a major concern it was suggested to ask a student from Library School to implement a computerised inventory of books and articles that have been translated.

Each centre seems to have specific concerns ranging from traditional restoration to conservation, microfilming or digitisation, disaster preparedness or emergency planning. IPN is regularly published by the focal point and disseminated by the regional centres. A better co-operation is asked from regional centres which were invited to send articles and to prepare a whole issue on preservation activities in their region. Deacidification and the use of permanent paper remain a major concern for all centres. Canada, Germany and the Netherlands have asked for the revision of ISO standard 9706 whereas UNESCO survey on the use of permanent paper is in process.

Activities

Publications

International Preservation News

Three issues of IPN have been published :
• N° 18, January 1999
• N° 19, July 1999
• N° 20, December 1999

International Preservation Issues

• "IFLA Principles for the Care and Handling of Library Material" have been translated into Russian (July 1999) by the Moscow regional centre and into Polish (October 1999) by the University Library of Wroclaw. IFLA Principles orders sent to IFLA HQ brought some NLG 1,500 and about ten translations are in progress or already published (Japanese, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, French, Malaysian, Slovene, Italian).

• "IFLA/UNESCO Survey on Digitisation and Preservation" compiled and edited by Sara Gould and Richard Ebdon under the direction of Marie-Thérèse Varlamoff was published by UAP in August 99 as N° 2 of IPI (International Preservation Issues).

CD ROM (see § B5)

As a whole PAC publishing activities seem to meet the requirements from the international preservation community if we consider the increasing number of demands from people asking to be added to IPN mailing list.

JICPA (Joint IFLA/ICA Committee for Preservation in Africa)

• The annual meeting took place in Lomé, Togo. As the initial date changed twice, it was not possible for Ania Zalenskaia, the new Programme Officer, representing the director, to attend.

• Conservation workshops.
  Two workshops were organised thanks to the support of UNESCO:
  • Harare (Zimbabwe), January 25-29. Nine participants from the following countries (Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe) attended the workshop, in English, which was hosted by the National Archives of Zimbabwe.
  • Praia (Cape Verde), April 12-17. This workshop gathered twelve participants from Portuguese speaking countries (Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Saô Tomé e Principe, Cape Verde).
  So far it is hard to tell how much benefit is drawn for those workshops. As there is no real follow up it is difficult to check whether all trainees become trainers when they go back to their country and whether, because of strenuous economical situations, they can put into practice what they have been taught. It seems that those workshops are a way of raising awareness and of showing the right gestures and attitude but they are too short in length to be considered as a training course.

BLUE SHIELD

PAC spent a lot of time on Blue Shield activities, which can be divided as follows:
• ICBS (International Committee of the Blue Shield) meetings
  Five meetings took place in 1999. One of them was hosted by IFLA HQ in the Hague. IFLA proposed to host ICBS web site on the IFLANET. ICA proposed that George MacKenzie, Deputy Secretary General, acts as ICBS executive, which was most welcome by all participants.

• Revision of the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict. MTV and Sjoerd Koopman represented IFLA at the Diplomatic Conference that took place in March in the Hague and attended the signature of the 2nd Protocol to the Convention on May 17 in The Hague. This Protocol recognises the existence and the role of ICBS as an advisory body. UNESCO organised a conference for the ratification of the 2nd Protocol in Paris on November 18 and MTV attended as IFLA representative.

• Conference
  UNESCO organised a conference in Paris in September (23-24) on the theme of "Cultural Heritage at Risk" and MTV was asked to chair one of the sessions. This conference gathered some one hundred participants from forty countries.

• National Blue Shield Committees
  There have been various initiatives to develop national committees in the UK (on the initiative of Graham Cornish a meeting was held in London), in the Netherlands (on the initiative of Sjoerd Koopman) and in France. (see § F.2)

• Kosovo
  George MacKenzie wrote a draft action plan for Kosovo and Ross Shimmon decided, on behalf of IFLA, to support action in Kosovo and to participate up to an amount of NLG 7,000. Considering the difficult, if not desperate situation of countries at war and the numerous natural disasters that occurred during the past year, it is obvious that IFLA must still increase its presence within ICBS and campaign to promote the creation of national committees. All actions led in the context of ICBS remain useful in times of peace as preventive measures.

STANDARDISATION

MTV is a member of two AFNOR (French Standards Association) working groups:
• Requirements for the preservation of library materials when exhibited
• Assessment methods to determine the state of preservation of archives and library materials.

MTV participated to ten AFNOR meetings in 1999.

UNESCO CONTRACTS

• on digitised collections:
  • The survey on digitised collection in major cultural institutions was finally published (see § B.1.),
  • An inventory of the most important digitised collections of national regional or world wide interest has been set in the form of a freely accessible data base on the UNESCO web site. It will be updated regularly jointly by UNESCO and IFLA PAC.

• CD ROM on the safeguard of documentary heritage:
  Bilingual, English and French, largely illustrated, this CD ROM, based on the brochure "Preservation and Conservation Standards for Documents" by the Memory of the World Sub-Committee on Technology has been produced in collaboration with Astrid Brandt from the Mission on Research and Technology of the French Ministry of Culture. It will be distributed free of charge to library schools and preservation services in national libraries or main research libraries, particularly in developing countries.

CONFERENCES

PAC has actively been involved in the organisation of five conferences.
• Preservation Management: on PAC initiative it was held in co-operation with ECPA (European Commission on Preservation and Access) and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. It took place in The Hague, April 18-21 and gathered one hundred and thirty attendants from forty countries. MTV chaired one of the sessions.

• Collecting and Safeguarding the Oral Tradition. Khon Kaen, August 16-19
  It was the official pre-seminar of IFLA Conference in Thailand and gathered sixty eight participants from thirty six countries.

• Cultural Heritage at Risk : Paris, UNESCO, September 23-24
  this conference was organised by UNESCO with the collaboration of ICBS. One hundred participants from forty countries were present and MTV, as a member of the International Working Team for Cultural Heritage at Risk chaired one of the sessions.

• Symposium 2000
  Thirteen meetings were held to prepare this symposium which is to be a post seminar of the IFLA Jerusalem conference on "Managing the Preservation of Periodicals and Newspapers". The seminar will be hosted by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, August 21-24, 2000, and MTV is Chair of the organising committee. It is organised jointly by IFLA PAC, IFLA Section on Preservation and Conservation, IFLA Round Table on Newspapers and IFLA Section on Serial Publications.

• Prévention 2000
  This seminar is organised by the CNRS (French national Scientific Research Centre) with the collaboration of the French Committee for the Blue Shield. It will be held in Draguignan, Var (South of France) in November 2000. Three preparatory meetings have already been held.

Cooperation

With PAC regional centres

• Official opening of the Moscow Centre, June 28, by Sjoerd Koopman and MTV.
• Preservation Seminar in St. Petersburg, October 99. IFLA PAC was represented by Ania Zalenskaia, Programme Officer.
• Tenth anniversary of the PAC Centre in Tokyo. MTV was asked to deliver two papers and visited preservation labs in Tokyo, at the National Diet Library, and others in Kyoto.

Within IFLA

• UAP : UNESCO contract on digitised collections (see § B.5.)
• ALP : preservation workshops in the framework of JICPA. (see § B.2)
• UBCIM : on the inclusion of the logo of permanent paper in national bibliographies.
• UDT : updating information on PAC and mounting the contents of IFLA publications on the IFLANET.
• Section on Preservation and Conservation, Section on Serial Publications, Round Table on Newspapers : Preparation of "Symposium 2000". (see § B.6)

With NGOs :

• ICA (International Council of Archives)
  • *ICBS (International Committee of the Blue Shield) (see § B.3)
  • *JICPA (Joint IFL/ICA Committee for Preservation in Africa) (see § B.2)
• ICOM (International Council of Museums)
  • *ICBS
• ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites)
  • *ICBS
• CLIR (Council on Library and Information Resources)
  • *JICPA
  • * Publications (especially translations for Portuguese-speaking African colleagues)

  UNESCO

  • * Preservation workshops in Africa (see § B.2)
  • * CD ROM on the safeguard of documents heritage (see § B.5)
  • * Survey on the long-term preservation of digitised materials and inventory of digitised collections (see § B.5.)
  • * Revision of the 1954 Hague Convention on the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict (see § B.3.)
  • * Conference "Cultural Heritage at Risk (see § B.3.)

  Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication

  Mission de la Recherche et de la Technologie (Fance)
  • * CD ROM on the safeguard of documents heritage (see § B.5)

  ECPA

  (European Commission on Preservation and Access)
  • * Conference on Preservation management (see § B.6 )

  Koninklijke Bibliotheek

  The Hague
  • Conference on the preservation Management (see § B.6)

Visits and Participation in Conferences and Meetings

Place	Date	Object
Madrid	17-19/01	Mow Sub-Committee on Technology
The Hague	22-26/03	Meeting Core Programmes / Professional Board Diplomatic Conference on the Revision of the 1954 Hague Convention
The Hague	18-21/04	Managing Preservation Conference (MTV Chaired one of the sessions)
Seumur en Auxois / France	6/05	Standardisation meeting on exhibitions
The Hague Amsterdam	16-20/05	Signature of The Hague Convention 2nd ProtocolXXI Docuworld Conference (MTV delivers a paper on IFLA)
New York	3-4/06	2nd International Virtual Library Conference
Vienna	10-12/06	Memory of the World - Advisory Committee
Moscow	26-29/06	Opening of PAC Regional Centre
Khon Kaen	16-19/08	IFLA Pre-Seminar
Bangkok	21-28/08	IFLA Conference
Lyon	1-2/09	ICOM Conservation Committee Conference
Paris	23-24/09	Conference "Cultural Heritage at Risk" - UNESCO
Utrecht	20-23/10	Conference : Digitisation of European Cultural Heritage
St Petersburg	18-22/1	Preservation Seminar
Tokyo	6-12/11	10th anniversary of PAC Regional Centre
Paris	18/11	UNESCO ratification of 2nd protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention
Toulouse	25-26/11	Standardisation meeting on exhibition

Financial Statement and Fund Raising

Salaries, clerical, travel and publishing expenses are shared by IFLA and the BnF, on the basis of the contract between IFLA and the BnF. Specific activities and projects have to be funded, a task which is very much time consuming. In 1999 PAC was able to pursue most of its activities thanks to the UNESCO contracts that had been spread on a two-year scheme. But the continuation of activities like ICBS or JICPA will need extra efforts from IFLA HQ if no funds can be raised from external sources.

The sale of "IFLA Principles for the Care and Handling of Library Material" by IFLA HQ brought NLG 1,500 which will be used by PAC for translations.

Activities of Regional Centres

Raising Awareness

Raising awareness within national institutions where funds are not available to send professional abroad is of major importance. In this respect, the centre in Moscow is very active in organising daily consultations on different aspects of preservation within the region. Awareness raising also consists in lending video films on major preservation issues on request and in alerting the general public thanks to radio interviews.

The Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow also held six training seminars on preservation management

In November 99, the centre in Tokyo celebrated the 10th anniversary of the creation of its PAC centre by organising a symposium entitled "Networks in Asia: Preservation Co-operation Hereafter" in order to promote co-operation in Asia. The centre also held its annual forum on preservation "How to put out a fire? Fire extinguishing facilities in libraries and archives".

A staff member from the centre in Canberra organised a workshop on the technical aspects of audio preservation within the satellite meeting of the general conference of IFLA in Khon Kaen.

Coordination & Cooperation

The Centre in Moscow has been involved in the working out of a Russian National Preservation Programme. It is also a member of the national working committee on microfilming standards.

The Centre in Paris has hosted six meetings with ICOM, ICOMOS, ICA representatives in order to create a French national Blue Shield Committee so as to make Blue Shield recommendations applicable at the national level and help trigger more consciousness on disaster planning. Disaster planning and preparedness activities are rather developed in Anglo-Saxon institutions, but a lot of efforts have still to be put together in France.
The BnF is elaborating a sophisticated emergency plan for its various sites. Three working groups were constituted to reflect on reaction teams, volunteers, emergency equipment and places to store it, suppliers, etc… MTV attended the meetings, collected and provided documentation from other countries which proved to be useful. It is expected that once the BnF emergency plan is operational it serves as a model for other libraries or archives in the country.

In Caracas, the National Library of Venezuela is involved in the creation of national standards in the information field. A national standard for the production of permanent paper has been translated into Spanish and published.

Training

This is a type of activities that has fully integrated the policies of all PAC regional centres. Although it is sometimes difficult to work out whether it is a 100 % PAC activity or activities that are part of the overall educational and training programme of the library, the important thing to take into account is the professional support and sometimes follow up that are given from the PAC regional centres. Some centres, such as Caracas, regard training as part of their PAC label and use that label to get funding from international sources. Caracas gave a 210-hour basic course on the conservation of graphic documents to eight participants from Venezuela.

All centres "lent" some experts to assist professionals from other national institutions or from abroad to provide them with their technical expertise. The centres in Caracas and Moscow welcome national professionals and/or students in order to meet local demands and because they stand as the only institutions that gather professional expertise and technical equipment and facilities. On the other hand centres that cover larger or scattered territories such as Tokyo and Canberra, welcome international demands. That depends on the geographical and political background of the centres.

In the second half of 1999, The centre in Washington launched its preventive conservation internship and hosted two interns.

The centre in Paris was very active by co-ordinating two preservation workshops in Africa within the JICPA framework, one in English in Harare (Zimbabwe) and the other one in Portuguese in Cape Verde.

Publications

• IFLA Principles for the Care and Handling of Library Material have been translated and published into Russian by the centre in Moscow and in Japanese (not published yet) by the centre in Tokyo. The French translation is well underway by the centre in Paris and will be published by the end of July 2000.

• Distribution of IPN The PAC newsletter International Preservation News (IPN) is widely distributed by all centres (for instance, 500 addresses for Australia and Oceania alone, 600 for Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East).

  The centres in Caracas and Moscow continue to translate the relevant articles contained in IPN into Spanish and Russian. The centre in Canberra includes an insert with each issue in order to forward regional information.

• International Preservation Issues n° 2 (IPI) Number 2 of IPI was devoted to a "Survey of Digitisation and Preservation" undertaken within an IFLA/UNESCO contract. That issue was distributed widely by all centres (300 copies for Australia, 70 copies for Tokyo).

  The National Library of Venezuela is involved in a translation project financed by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through CLIR. These translations are published in Conservaplan. Issue n°14 of Conservaplan was distributed during the second half of the semester.

  The distribution of the CD ROM Photographs of Latin America and the Caribbean in the XIXth Century was completed. A few copies are still available in Caracas for further requests. Another 100 copies are at the disposal of those who are interested at the centre in Paris.

  The proceedings of the 9th Annual Symposium on Preservation organised by the centre in Tokyo have been published by the Japan Library Association last October.

PAC Regional Centres, The Internet and Digitisation

• Communication
  The PAC centre in Tokyo has a new web site in English dedicated to PAC activities http://www.ndl.go.jp/e/iflapac/index.html

  The PAC Centre is Moscow has also launched a PAC homepage in Russian. That brings to four centres (with the centres in Paris and Canberra) out of six that have developed online access to PAC activities within their regions.

• Research
  The Centre in Australia is forward looking as far as digitisation is concerned and has developed the PADI (Preserving Access to Digital information) web site created in 1997 with more powerful search capacities and a new discussion list.

  The Centre also takes part in an international digital archiving collaboration, together with the CEDARS project, the Digital Library Federation and the Research Libraries Group. They discuss digital archiving and preservation issues and devise ways of sharing information and developmental work.

  The Digital Preservation Research Agenda Working Group was formed out of an agreement between the National Library of Australia and the State and Territory Libraries. The agenda focuses largely on preservation metadata issues and on distributing information on approaches to transferring data from less stable to more stable carriers.

  PANDORA (Preserving and Accessing Network Documentary Resources of Australia) aims is to preserve Australian online publications for long-term access.

Projects

The Cellulose Acetate Preservation project is a new initiative to be run early in 2000. The aim is to collate information about ways of dealing with deteriorating cellulose acetate collection both within the National Library of Australia and nationally and to develop some recommendations for dealing with that material.

The centre in Canberra is also developing a pilot Preservation outreach program directly into the South Pacific and South East Asian region. In order to provide training service specific to the needs of libraries in the region and build close and positive links among the National Library of Australia and its neighbours.

A training manual in English is planned to be published and mounted on the Internet by the centre in Tokyo.

A new project was developed by the centre in Caracas and will be presented to the Venezuelan government in order to get funding for a second level annual training course in paper conservation.

Activities within the Network of the Regional Centres

Thanks to Amparo de Torres' perseverance (from the Library of Congress) a preservation awareness poster "Framework for the Preservation of Collections" has been translated into Spanish, printed within funding from a Japanese paper company and mailed to over 3.000 individuals and institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean. Dissemination was made in co-operation with the centre in Caracas. This is an unusual example of co-ordination among centres that should set an example for further common activities.

Closer links should be forged among the regional centres. One could think of some kind of "North- South" co-operation (USA and Latin America for instance). This is an issue that has been underlined by the centre in Tokyo that wishes to extend working activities with the help of its colleagues from Canberra. That is a topic that deserves further thinking.

 
Marie-Thérèse Varlamoff
Programme Director

Virginie Kremp
Programme Officer

Paris, March 1st, 2000