   
Section of National Libraries
Guidelines for Legislation for
National Library Services
CHAPTER 3
THE ENVIRONMENT OF NATIONAL LIBRARIES AND NATIONAL LIBRARY SERVICES
3.1 Introduction
NL/NLS are not immune to the influence of environmental factors affecting all libraries in many countries of the world. Guidelines which do not take into account the environment in which libraries function are unlikely to be of much practical use. Various high-level factors influence the development of library services and other similar institutions in a country as a whole. They include geographical and demographic factors such as climate, topography, distances, population density and composition; economic factors such the distribution of economic resources and their utilisation; cultures and languages. These factors have a pervasive but mainly indirect influence on libraries.
In this chapter four groups of factors which have a more direct impact on NL/NLS are
briefly discussed, namely those operating in the political and administrative environment, the legal environment, the technological environment, and the national infrastructure for library and information services. These factors provide broad parameters for determining which is the most appropriate model for the provision of library and information services nationally, and how the national system of library and information services should be structured.
3.2 The political and administrative environment
Under this heading the political and administrative institutions of the country need to be considered, for example:
- the form of government and degree of centralisation of legislative and executive
authority
- the levels of government (e.g. central or federal; provincial or state; region, district or metropolitan; and local)
- the powers and relative strengths and capacities of the respective levels of government
- the financial relationships between the central government and other tiers of government
- policies and practices in respect of institutional autonomy (e.g. legal provisions for parastatal or semi-state institutions)
- policies, practices and traditions in state sectors closely related to, or traditionally responsible for libraries (e.g. the ministries of education, culture or information)
- policies and practices in respect of privatisation of government functions.
This background is needed to permit well-considered decisions on issues that need to be dealt with when drafting legislation for NL/NLS. One such issue is the degree of institutional autonomy that the NL/NLS can exercise while at the same time remaining assured of a reliable flow of government funding. In a country which does not have a tradition of institutional autonomy, a NL/NLS which succeeds in escaping from the restrictive confines of its ministry may find that the price of autonomy is penury.
Another example of an issue which is influenced by the political and administrative environment is that of the governance and funding of public or community libraries affiliated to a national library service. Theoretically, it is desirable that community libraries be established and maintained through a partnership between the national library service and the local community, with the latter playing a significant role in the governance of their library and helping to fund, staff and house it. However, in countries where the local government structures are non-existent or poorly developed, this model could be doomed to failure.
3.3 The legal environment
As already suggested in the previous section, the legal framework of public administration in a country will largely determine which provisions of legislation for NL/NLS are feasible and which are not. For example, in a country with a federal constitution, is the federal legislature empowered to enact legislation in respect of libraries, or is this a matter in which the states have exclusive competence? If it is proposed to establish a statutory
board to control the NL/NLS, is it possible, in terms of the constitution, to give such a board executive powers? Will the legislation governing the financial relationships between the central government and other agencies allow the board to raise or dispose of funds or must all income generated by the NL/NLS be deposited in the coffers of the supervising ministry or the treasury?
In this section we deal briefly with legislation which is directly related to information and libraries. Here the most prominent legal topics are legal deposit and copyright.
3.3.1 Legal deposit
Legal deposit is defined by Lunn (1981:1) as "the requirement, enforceable by law, to deposit with one or more specified agencies copies of publications of all kinds reproduced in any medium or with any process for public distribution, lease or sale". Legal deposit legislation is important to national libraries because legal deposit can provide the basis for the collection and conservation of information materials published in the country, and further, for their bibliographic description and physical availability. It is therefore very relevant to the exercise of heritage-related functions. In addition, legal deposit
may assist the national library in compiling national publishing statistics. In cases where the national library is also the national agency administering international standard numbers such as ISBN (international standard book number) and ISSN (international standard serial number), the legal deposit and publication numbering activities usefully complement each other.
The question therefore arises whether legal deposit and the establishment of the NL/NLS should be dealt with in the same legislation. In some countries this is the case; in others the two matters are dealt with separately. Both are concerned with fairly complex matters and in a few cases this complexity has been taken as grounds for dealing with them one at a time, in separate laws. It has also been pointed out that legal deposit frequently benefits other libraries as well as the NL/NLS. On the other hand, in most cases the passing of legislation establishing the NL/NLS, or the amendment of such legislation to change its role and structure, will necessitate an amendment of existing legal deposit legislation.
Legal deposit legislation has been dealt with in a separate set of PGI guidelines: Lunn's (1981) Guidelines for legal deposit legislation (PGI-81/WS/23). For this reason legal deposit is not dealt with here in any detail. However, it is stressed that the national library should be one of the libraries (if not the sole library) with which legal deposited copies are deposited, and some linkages between legal deposit and NL/NLS legislation are indicated:
- type of material subjected to legal deposit (only printed material? government publications? audio-visual materials? electronic materials? material published abroad but produced or distributed in the country? - these decisions have implications for the scope of the national library's role in the collection of the national heritage, a concept that needs to be reviewed from time to time in the light of the emergence of new media)
- institutions with which material should be deposited (in many countries several institutions receive such material; in some countries audiovisual materials are deposited with institutions other than the national library, such as a national film and sound archive - these decisions have implications for the role of the national library in the collection of the national heritage)
- number of copies deposited with each institution (if the national library has conservation as well as document supply functions, it would be appropriate for it to receive at least two copies - one for conservation and one for availability to users)
- obligations of the recipient libraries in respect of the deposited materials (is the national library legally obliged to list every item received in the national bibliography? must all items received be made freely available to the public? free of charge? must all items received be retained in perpetuity? - such conditions, if enshrined in the legal deposit law, could hamper the work of the national library)
3.3.2 Intellectual property rights
In some countries legal deposit is dealt with in copyright legislation. There are historical links between the two topics, but nowadays they are mostly dealt with in separate laws. Copyright has been defined as "the exclusive right to reproduce and 'disseminate' a literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic work in any material form and to perform the work in public" (Wersig and Neveling 1976:80). Copyright and a country's adherence to relevant international conventions affects NL/NLS in the same way that it affects other libraries in the sense that restrictions are placed on copies that may be made for library users (in-house, or at a distance). Copyright may also place restrictions on copies that may be made for purposes of preservation or conservation (e.g. photocopying of missing issues of a periodical in order to complete a set, photocopying or microfilming of fragile items to protect the original from excessive use).
Material received on legal deposit remains subject to copyright; this becomes a more acute and complex question when the material in question is audiovisual or electronic.
A more complex issue is that of moral rights to intellectual and artistic creations. The term "moral right" refers to the author's non-pecuniary interest in his work - the right to withhold it from the public, and the right to its integrity and inviolability (The ABC of copyright 1981:22). Such rights may be infringed by popularisations of such works, the rearrangement or transfer thereof to other media (for example a classic children's book turned into a cartoon series), or abuse of excerpts thereof (for example the use of quotations taken out of context to prove points contrary to an author's beliefs, or the use of themes from classic musical compositions in radio advertisements). As custodians of manuscripts or early editions of such works, national libraries can expect to be confronted with moral dilemmas. In addition, large-scale digitisation of the national heritage, in which private sector companies may assist, will raise the question of how to prevent the abuse of national treasures.
3.3.3 Related legal questions
Other legislation relating to the library and information sector in the broadest sense may impinge on, or be affected by legislation for NL/NLS. Some examples are legislation concerning:
- other libraries, statutory bodies, and parastatals (such as research institutions) with responsibilities relating to information
- freedom of information (access to government information)
- government publications depositories
- censorship
- privacy
- registration of newspapers
- telecommunications
- electronic data interchange
- customs and excise
Other legislation affecting employers, parastatal or government agencies, factories etc. (for example legislation concerning training and certification, labour relations, occupational health and safety, public safety, accounting and auditing) will of course affect the NL/NLS as well. Cognizance must also be taken of international conventions and international treaties in the above-mentioned fields.
3.4 The technological environment
Current developments in computing, telecommunications and optical storage technologies are radically affecting the nature of publishing, library collections, access to information, networking and resource sharing. These developments do not leave NL/NLS untouched (Welsh 1988; Line 1995).
3.4.1 The technologies
In his report The role of national libraries in the new information environment (PGI-91/WS/4) (Cornish 1991) lists a number of technological developments which affect the role of the national libraries. They include CD-ROM, online databases, fax, electronic mail, scanning and electronic publishing. The technologies affect libraries in various
ways, some more directly than others. Often it is not so much the basic technologies that impact on libraries as the bundling of technologies in new applications. Important examples are:
- bibliographic network utilities
- the Internet
- electronic document supply
- Electronic table of contents (ETOC) databases
- CAS-IAS (current awareness service-individual article supply)
3.4.2 Changing expectations, attitudes and values
But the changes are not merely technological. In his PGI report, summarised and augmented in a subsequent article Cornish (1992) describes the "new information environment" in which national libraries have to operate, and its impact on the roles of national libraries. Cornish characterises the new information environment as "a combination of technical advancement and cultural attitudes": technology is changing economic and social attitudes to information, the emphasis is shifting from documents to information, and there is a climate of expectation that information can be delivered. Telecommunications technology (networking, e-mail etc.) has created expectations of more rapid delivery of more current information. The growth of audiovisual publishing and the increasing use of such materials in education creates an expectation among users that these materials will be available. Growth of intellectual activity and changes in economic patterns have increased awareness of the importance of intellectual property. Cornish also remarks on an increase in resistance among publishers to legal deposit. Increasingly, commercialisation is making itself felt within national libraries as funding declines and pressure for income generation grows. The attitudes and expectations of the general public in respect of intellectual property, copyright, freedom of information, and charging for library and information services are also evolving and need to be taken into account.
3.4.3 Some implications for NL/NLS
New information technologies are likely to impact on the role and functions of NL/NLS in many ways. Here only a few examples can be given.
National (and increasingly, international) bibliographic network utilities with their ever-growing databases of bibliographic records and holdings, provide online the sort of information for which union catalogues used to be consulted. Increasingly they make it unnecessary for NL/NLS to compile union catalogues, although in developing countries the NL/NLS may still play a useful, if peripheral, role by adding records and holdings to the database on behalf of libraries which do not yet have access to the network. The role of the NL/NLS in interlending (international as well as national) also shrinks as an increasing proportion of the interlending traffic is conducted over the network. Similarly, since the networks provide online access to various large databases, the role of the NL/NLS in providing access to bibliographic tools, also diminishes. The question arises whether these functions still need to be listed among the functions of the NL/NLS. If they are, it should not be implied that the NL/NLS necessarily has to carry out these functions itself.
Since network utilities, even those which started out as agencies controlled by NL/NLS, libraries, tend to evolve into not-for-profit and ultimately for-profit companies, the question arises as to the ownership of network databases and payment for their use.
A related question is how legislation for NL/NLS should be formulated to give the NL/NLS enough freedom of movement to privatise its networking activities, and to develop partnerships and other contractual relationships with private sector companies. A NL/NLS which, due to restrictive legislation, lacks sufficient autonomy to respond rapidly and imaginatively to the initiatives of players in its sector, is at a grave disadvantage in the increasingly competitive information market.
The entry into the field of private companies which compile international CD-ROM and online databases of books in print may constitute significant competition for the national bibliographies of smaller countries which publish mainly in major languages such as English. In a sense, these firms may "cream off" that part of the country's book production
which is of sufficient interest nationally and internationally to ensure an adequate subscription base for the national bibliography. If subscriptions are cancelled, the commercial viability of the national bibliography (which in most cases is not published on a full cost-recovery basis anyway) is reduced.
The growth of desktop publishing raises problems concerning the acquisition of materials published not in predetermined print runs but on demand. Are they publications in terms
of the legal deposit legislation? How can legal deposit be enforced? If deposited, should they be listed in the national bibliography, preserved, and made available?
Electronic publishing gives rise to difficult questions concerning the acquisition and treatment of electronic publications. If such materials are not collected, a significant part of the national scholarly and scientific output may be lost. But the collection of electronic publications presents problems relating to the status, integrity and permanence of their texts. Such publications can be of two broad types: static electronic publications, for example CD-ROMs, are distributed as discrete entities and generally speaking their contents can no longer be altered by their producers once they have left their premises. On the other hand, dynamic electronic publications, such as online databases or electronic journals, are not distributed as discrete entities. Here distribution takes the form of a subscription or contractual arrangement permitting access, and the producer or publisher can at any time change the contents of the database by updating, adding or deleting records. Should such publications be "collected" by downloading the entire database at regular intervals, thereby in effect taking cross-sectional samples? Or are the requirements of legal deposit satisfied by the provision of access to the database? What happens then if the publisher goes out of business or the database is discontinued?
The temptation is great to postpone consideration of the legal implications of electronic publishing, especially in developing countries where electronic publishing has not yet taken off. However, electronic publishing is difficult to monitor and its volume may be greater than estimated. A national library which ignores audiovisual and electronic publications is neglecting its responsibility for the collection and preservation of the national heritage of information materials. With the passing of time this omission will become increasingly serious and difficult to remedy.
Finally, it must be borne in mind that copyright holders do not relinquish their rights when materials are deposited in terms of legal deposit legislation. When books or other printed materials are deposited, there are few if any restrictions on the in-house use and lending of the materials. Even the copying thereof is difficult to monitor. This situation becomes more difficult in the case of audiovisual materials, and more complex still in the case of electronic publications: under what conditions and by whom can electronic publications delivered to the national library under legal deposit be accessed without infringing copyright laws and the legitimate rights of authors and publishers?
3.5 The library and information services environment
This group of factors is concerned with the country's existing library and information services: the distribution and characteristics of existing institutions, resources (including collections, technology and human resources), tradition and systems of library cooperation, infrastructure for library services, policy-making bodies (if any) and their functions, and existing (implicit or explicit) policies.
3.5.1 The national infrastructure for library and information services
Under this heading it is necessary to consider the resources and role-players, as well as the relationships between institutions and agencies within the country. Where does the NL/NLS feature? Is it a major player in fact, only in name, or not at all? An institution neglected for decades, perhaps since its inception, cannot suddenly be transformed into the "apex of the national library system" by a new piece of legislation. There are unfortunately examples of national libraries in developing countries which, underfunded and understaffed, stagnate in the shadow of better resourced university libraries and scientific documentation centres, with little hope of exercising the impressive functions listed in their legislation.
When legislation is drafted for a NL/NLS, an inventory should be drawn up of the national infrastructure for library and information services, which could include the following components:
- other libraries designated as national and/or legal deposit libraries
- other major libraries (e.g. university libraries)
- provincial/regional public library services
- information dissemination agencies (e.g. small business development, health information, agricultural extension agencies)
- the national archives
- the national documentation centre
- specialised information/documentation centres
- library consortia or cooperatives
- bibliographic utilities
- other information networks
- a national council for library and information services
- establishments engaged in training library and information workers
- professional associations of library and information workers
- national literacy promotion bodies
- national cultural and community development bodies
- major commercial organisations with interests in the information market
- book trade associations (e.g. associations of publishers and booksellers)
For a checklists of information institutions, categories of resources and categories of users, see Montviloff (1990:141-142).
The NL/NLS should be positioned in relation to these players and play a role which is complementary to theirs. It is better for a NL/NLS to have a limited but realistic set of functions than have an impressive set of functions which it cannot exercise. The resources and expertise of the NL/NLS itself should be an important factor in determining its role in the country's library and information sector.
3.5.2 Relationship between legislation and national library and information policy
An important question that arises in this context is whether the formulation of a national information policy should not precede the drafting of legislation for NL/NLS. In his National information policies: a handbook on the formulation, approval, implementation and operation of a national policy on information (PGI-90/WS/11), Montviloff (1990) has stated that
A national policy [on information] is required to ensure the harmonious implementation and operation of information resources, services and systems e.g.
timely access to relevant information to varying needs of users throughout the society, coordination and compatibility of the overall national information system, better complementarity and compatibility between the various legislations concerning the provision of information, better responsiveness to the implications of new information developments and more effective participation in regional information systems and networks. (p.11)
Clearly, therefore, a national information policy should form the basis for all library and information development planning. Since legislation is intended to provide a legal
basis for planned structures, legislation for NL/NLS should follow from a national policy.
However, in some countries at least it has proved difficult to establish a national information policy without there being some formal structure, such as a national library and information services council, to formulate, promote and coordinate the implementation of the policy. Such a structure of course requires legislation. In addition, there are countries which lack national information policies but do have NL/NLS and the concomitant legislation. Such legislation is essential, and while the national information policy should not be overlooked, the absence of one should not be seen as an absolute impediment to legislation for NL/NLS.
3.5.3 The international dimension
The global economy is characterised by the flow of information between nations. However, internationalisation of the information sector is not an unmixed blessing, since it is accompanied by commercialisation and commodification of information, which may lead to an ever greater division between information rich and information poor countries.
Ideally the NL/NLS, as the centre or focal point of a country's library and information services, should also serve as a national node in international networks. It should play a leading role in regional (supra-national) and international cooperative schemes. This should be recognised in the legislation which establishes the NL/NLS. To facilitate this role the legislation should empower the NL/NLS to conduct relations with foreign and international bodies without having to channel all communication through its supervising ministry or through the ministry of foreign affairs.
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