Bibliography Section

Minutes of Standing Committee meetings
August 2003, Berlin, Germany

Attending: Guiti Arian, Marcelle Beaudiquez (observer), Barbara Bell (observer), Francoise Bourdon (observer), John Byrum (observer), Ms. Choudhry (observer), D. Whitney Coe, Alan Danskin, Michael Gorman (observer), Tuula Haapamaki, Randi Digit Hansen, Talbott Huey (Secretary), Hiroko Ishiwatari (representing Yukio Yokoyama), Unni Knutsen, Natalya Lelikova (observer), Sophie Malens, Francisca Movilla, Tomislav Murati, Bohdana Stoklasova (Chair), Alexandra Teplitskaya, Regina Varniene, Kirsten Waneck, Beacher Wiggins, Yelena Zhabko, Maja Zumer.

1. Introductions were made and farewells given to retiring members and former members.
2. Elections were held for the Section officers. Bohdana Stoklasova was re-elected Chair and Talbott Huey Secretary, by acclamation. Alan Danskin volunteered to replace retiring Kirsten Waneck as Information Coordinator.
3. The minutes of the last meeting and the further agenda for this meeting were approved, members having examined the documents online.
4. Bohdana reported on the financial status of the Section, which was satisfactory. She expects reimbursement from Divisional funds for printing of the division brochure.
5. Talbott reported on the Coordinating Board meeting of the previous day:

A. All were reminded of the Division Open Forum to be held Monday, August 4.

B. IFLA has adopted the rule that section members who fail to appear at two consecutive meetings without a good excuse will be regarded as having resigned.

C. IFLA is beginning a comprehensive review of all section activities, with formal steps (i.e., a self-evaluation) beginning in 2005, and with final assessment in 2007. Each section will be in effect justifying its existence in this process. The strategic plan adopted this year for 2003-2005 will become a major basis for assessment, so care must be taken to make the plan realistic and successful.

D. Incoming IFLA president Kay Raseroka will be holding what last year was referred to as a "brainstorming" session again on Wednesday, August 6. Division officers should make every effort to attend.

E. For 2004 and after, the rules regarding section programmes are changed, in an effort to make the conference shorter. Each section will be allotted only one two-hour programme—not to be described as either "workshop" or "open session." Sections may combine programmes with another section’s to provide a four-hour session. This may affect our plans for the Buenos Aires conference.

F. Every effort is to be made to provide a "local" flavor in 2004 sessions; that is, recruitment of speakers from the Latin American & Caribbean area is encouraged, speakers are to be encouraged to speak in Spanish, etc.

G. A reminder that section strategic plans should be in the form of goals, with associated actions, with all linked specifically to the priorities published by the professional Committee—as we have done up to now.

H. Fernanda Campos reported that the move of UNIMARC to the National Library of Portugal, begun this year, was going well.

I. The three sections of Division IV reported on the programmes they had planned for the current conference.

J. Gunilla Jonsson suggested that the Bibliography Section in conjunction with the other two sections develop a session for 2004 focusing on cooperation between publishers in Latin America and bibliographic agencies. [This was in the end not adopted by our section].

K. A brief description of the new arrangement accepted by the Governing Board known as IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS) was given. It stipulates that a number of IFLA activities would now be sponsored by a designated national library, as on the model of UNIMARC/NLP. The list currently includes (programme and cooperating agency):

ISBD—Deutsche Bibliothek

FRBR—British Library and the Cataloguing Section

FRANAR –British Library and Division IV

UNIMARC—National Library of Portugal

MARC 2100--Library of Congress

Z39.50, etc. –Library of Congress.

Further similar arrangements are being planned. There was considerable concern by Board members that some IFLA programmes might be compromised by the new arrangement. Chair Ia McIlwaine agreed to ask Winston Tabb, head of the Professional Committee, to explain ICABS further at a later meeting.

On hearing this news in SC I several members also expressed concern. Unni Knutsen asked that this be explained further at the Division Open Forum, and Bohdana agreed to request this of Ia.

6. Bohdana suggested that as there seemed to be so much news and discussion at the meeting, it would be best to postpone her summary of the Section’s activities in the past year to the Division Open Forum, and it was so agreed. She and Maja Zumer then described the Section’s planned activities in Berlin; namely, an Open Session on electronic bibliographies, and participation in the Division’s Workshop on subject gateways.
7. After a short break, Bohdana called for ideas about new projects for Buenos Aires and Oslo. Beacher Wiggins briefly recalled the Library of Congress CIP survey, distributed material on it, and said he planned to report on the results at Buenos Aires. This survey focuses on the usefulness of CIP, which raises the more general question of "marketing" cataloguing or bibliographic control to publishers. Alan Danskin pointed out we should be gathering hard information on the value of national bibliographies to publishers. Further discussion of how to relate this to Section programmes was postponed.

Discussion turned to planning for Oslo. The Coordinating Board meeting had suggested an integrated divisional effort to present a programme on "guidelines;" i.e., explicit advice for NBAs on initiating and/or improving national bibliographies, cataloguing, and classification/indexing. Bohdana noted that it was difficult to make recommendations to a wide range of nations, which all had different resources, problems, and needs, but reiterated how valuable the experience of others had been to Czech efforts. She then suggested that a large, long-term divisional working group was needed to produce action and that this group might need to meet between conferences. Bohdana planned to apply for both meeting and project funds. Regina Varniene said her experience was that too many strange formats and other practices were to be found in national bibliographies, and we must mandate format, descriptors, etc. Bohdana replied that we could not force anyone to comply with our recommendations, but we could at least make them available. Discussion followed on what the guidelines really were and how they should be implemented. Unni summed up by defining guidelines as best practices and stressing the need for the active working group already mentioned. Bohdana said a fresh survey of cataloguing rules and other guidelines was needed. Whitney Coe reminded that such information should be kept basic and published widely. Alan recommended a clear statement of objectives from division and all sections, to be worked out after the conference. Marcelle saw the recent regional Meeting of Experts on revising cataloguing principles as a model, and suggested future such meetings should involve the Bibliography Section. John Byrum also saw wider participation as valuable.

8. At this point Bohdana moved the discussion to a review of our strategic plan.

The first item was the mission statement, and a number of modifications were suggested, without immediate consensus. It was agreed that Bohdana, Talbott, and Alan would meet during the conference to produce a new draft for later approval.

Unni proposed we adopt a new Goal 1, or primary goal, simply and explicitly to promote the establishment of national bibliographies worldwide. Thus the old Goal 1, Take appropriate action to encourage implementation of the recommendations of the ICNBS, would be Goal 2, with the addition of the phrase and continue to develop and promote further recommendations and guidelines based on ICNBS recommendations. But meeting time ran out before this could be discussed.

The meeting adjourned at 11:20 AM.

Attending: the above, plus Claudia Werner and Agneta Holmenmark, and minus Kirsten Waneck.

1. Bohdana called for an evaluation of the Section and Division programmes presented last week. There was general feeling that both had gone well. Technical support for sessions was praised. Maja Zumer mentioned the perennial problem of too many sessions going at the same time, but it was clear this situation will not improve in the future. Beacher said a free hour or day was needed. Guiti Aryan spoke up for publishing the power point presentations as good outlines of the talks. IFLA currently prohibits this, but Bohdana promised to ask for reconsideration of the question. Other observations:

• this year the availability of papers on the Web was better. Early mounting is important
• most interesting at the conference was the experience of other librarians; strengthening this empirical aspect of our work will help colleagues just beginning
• more attention should be given to the problems of the developing countries, as for example in Barbara Bell’s earlier work
• our committee should visit the national bibliographic agency in Buenos Aires next year.

1. In this context Talbott reported on his attendance at meetings of the Asia & Oceania Section and the Latin American & Caribbean Section. The former group were involved mostly in developing public libraries and various training programmes, with little connection to the work of the Bibliography Section. In the Latin American meeting, Talbott suggested various ways they could cooperate with our programmes for 2004, including joint sponsorship. One member was directed to keep in touch with us. [She later contacted us]. [A later conversation with an attendee at the Africa Section meeting indicated that their interests were similar to Asia’s.]
2. Talbott also reported on the President’s brainstorming session of Wednesday. A report was prepared for Division IV, since the meeting was organized by division.
3. Discussion turned to planning for the Buenos Aires meeting. Unni suggested our best course would be to cooperate with the Latin American Section not on publisher-library relations but on the basic problems of producing a national bibliography. She had talked with Barbara Bell, and noted that eight nations in that area did not have national bibliographies, and that nine had timeliness problems. In other words, the pressing question was simply how to establish and produce a national bibliography, and we were in a position to help. A short discussion led to consensus that a programme dealing with best practices would be developed. A working group of Unni, Randi Hansen, Francisca Movilla, and Talbott was formed. Beacher volunteered the assistance of the Library of Congress office in Rio de Janeiro. Bohdana suggested a special effort to extract material related to Latin America from the LC CIP survey. She also felt it might be best for our Section to use its two-hour slot for our own presentation, and join with the other division sections only in Oslo. A title for the programme would be chosen later.
4. For the Oslo conference in 2005, Bohdana proposed to integrate with other sections (including Information Technology) for a concerted effort to work on guidelines for national bibliographies. Maja suggested a core working group in our section which would join as necessary with other similar groups, aiming to produce a useful document in two or perhaps more years. Bohdana said the first priority should be to deal with national bibliographies in print, and only later give attention to electronic publishing. This would involve a multiyear working group, preparing to present what’s ready at a given time. She would plan to set up a new electronic conferencing facility for this large core group. Maja clarified that the first task is to identify needs, then move on to questions of functionality, and then to guidelines. She felt there should be a separate working group for the question of electronic resources in national bibliographies, and a "support group" to accumulate information, compile a bibliography, compile standards, and identify advanced practice. Bohdana disagreed, saying one group would have to be involved in both kinds of activity in any case, and called for volunteers for this "umbrella" group. Those responding: Maja (who would provide liaison with IT and electronic matters), Bohdana (who would be liaison with Cataloguing), Unni, Alan Danskin, Tuula Haapamaki, Sophie Mazens, Beacher Wiggins, and Whitney Coe. After some further discussion Bohdana summed up : the group would start from the general, dealing with "guidelines for beginners," produce something for Oslo, then move on. She will post on the Web what’s been done and what needs to be done.
5. Moving on to consider the strategic plan again, Bohdana suggested that the Mission statement developed by Alan, Talbott and herself be tentatively accepted for now, with further discussion by e-mail.
   In addressing the proposed new Goal 1, Beacher felt it was too general, and really part of the mission statement. Talbott disagreed, listing several specific actions which could serve as the implementation of the goal. No decision was reached as the meeting time elapsed.
6. Bohdana called for more suggestions for Section activities. Unni suggested there should be an editorial committee for the Section newsletter, to make it more active, and our web page should be more inviting. Bohdana agreed to discuss this with Sophie Felfoldi. Bohdana went on to underline our opportunity to work further in a regional or area context, as we’ve planned for Buenos Aires, after 2005, when we will be meeting in Asia and Africa. As meeting time ran out, members were invited to continue to recommend actions, but keep to a deadline of September 1, so the strategic plan can be prepared in September.
7. Unni called for more contributors to the European Bibliography on Slavic and East European Studies, since a number of countries have not yet contributed, and reported that she would be the Division IV liaison for the Oslo conference.
8. The meeting adjourned at 10 AM.

Respectfully submitted,

Talbott Huey, Secretary