Section of National Libraries

Annual Report - September 1997 to August 1998

Scope Statement of section

Goals

1. Identify the range and nature of tasks of a national library allowing for differing historical, political, economic, cultural and other circumstances.

2. Serve as a forum to share and learn from the experience of the practical problems of national libraries.

3. Promote research in fields of interests to national libraries, and the exchange of ideas and information, in co-operation with the Conference of Directors of National Libraries.

4. Further the Core Programmes of IFLA.

Membership

Officers

Secretary
Mrs Marcelle Beaudiquez

Information coordination
The secretary of the section

Meetings

Projects

Publications

Conference Programmes

Strategic management in National Libraries has been of considerable interest to the national library community for a number of years. In 1996, the National Library of New Zealand distributed a questionnaire on strategic management to eleven National Libraries. The final report was distributed in August 1997, and the key findings were discussed briefly at last year's Standing Committee meeting. It was agreed that this work should continue focusing on those aspects of strategic management which the National Libraries participating in the survey identified as being high priority. The open session of the Amsterdam Conference discussed three of these areas.

1. "Core competencies"
   The National Library of Canada was giving a presentation on its work in this area in identifying core competencies required by staff for the next five to the years.
   Speaker:
   Ms Gwynneth Evans, Director General for National and International Programs at the National Library of Canada.

2. "Clients needs in the 21st Century"
   The National Library of Singapore, was giving a presentation on this topic and addressing Singapore's developments relating to their library 2000 initiative;
   Speaker
   Dr Christopher Chia, Chief Executive of the National Library Board of Singapore since September 1995.

3. "Measuring results of programs"
   The National Library of Scotland, has made a presentation measuring the results of programs, in particular Scotland's experience in performance indicators and how they relate to their Citizen's Charter.
   Speaker
   Mr Jan MacGowan, Director of the Library since 1990, and currently President of the Scottish Library Association.

The theme of the workshop was "Legal deposit of electronic publications". Though different in their aims and activities according to countries, national libraries have something in common: legal deposit and they are all thinking to date to the management of deposit for electronic publications both on line and off line. Two years ago, a working group of the CDNL prepared a report on legal deposit of electronic publications. To date, the situation has changed, though changes are not so quick than expected. Two main points raise:

• Publishers are destabilised by the development of electronic publishing;

• National libraries have, at least, the responsibility of guarantying long term access to these publications.

The necessity for libraries and publishers to work together as soon as possible is obvious. At this moment, relationship are getting better : for example, through CDNL and CoBRA they are partners of the NEDLIB project.

Concerning legal deposit, the voluntary system has some limits; some sort of law seems necessary which indicates what has to be deposit and which allows libraries to decide of the use which is done of the electronic product on site (access, reproduction ...).

1. "Deposit of Electronic Works under US Copyright Law : Requirements, Issues and Practical experience"
   Speaker:
   Marybeth Peters, USA, US Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress.

2. "The problem with web-archiving : "experience from the Cultural Heritage Project in Sweden"
   Speakers:
   Tomas Lidman, Director and Johan Mannerheim, Head of the Information Technology Department, Royal Library of Sweden.

3. "Handling Electronic Publications ; Practices and Projects"
   Speaker:
   Johan Steenbakkers, Director of Information Technology and Facility Management, Royal Library of Netherlands

4. "Developping national collections of electronic publications : issues to be considered and recommendations for future collaborative actions"
   Speaker:
   Jan Fullerton, deputy director general, National Library of Australia

The paper seeks to identify areas of common interest where national libraries can work together to progress the issues surrounding the management of electronic publications and offers the WEB site of the National Library of Australia to host information about the realisation of National Libraries in that field.

Relationship with other Bodies

Other Events

Action Plan 1998 - 1999

1. Focusing on the development and implementation of strategic plans and business plans for national libraries,

2. Commercial and money-earning activities of national libraries, including charges for services and publications, and co-operation with commercial bodies.

3. Development of guidelines for the exploitation and preservation of the national imprint for the benefit of the user (a revision of the Guidelines for Legal Deposit).

4. Continuing review of the aims and functions of national libraries.

5. Fostering international and regional national library co-operation, e. g., on the acquisition of foreign imprint.

6. Survey and make recommendations on national libraries and their relationship to major collections of unpublished manuscripts and archives.

7. Assessment of the roles of the national library in national programs of library and information research and development.

8. Examination of the national library as the national bibliographic agency (definition and responsibilities, co-ordination of nation-wide and regional recording of library materials, co-ordination of bibliographic projects, terms of the availability of records, etc.).

9. Provision of national reference services and their relationship to specialised reference collections.

10. The national collection, preservation and exploitation of audio-visual and electronic media, the involvement of national libraries, and the possible need for changes in legal deposit provisions.

Author
Mrs Marcelle Beaudiquez, secretary of the section

Date
8th February 1999