1. Acquisition and Collection Development Bibliography

2. Report from Chris Wright, Chairman of Division V (Collections and Services)

1. Improving the Quality of Conference Papers

1. IFLA must improve the quality and appeal of its conferences if it is to compete with other organizations for participants. People are already asking about the content of the Glasgow conference. On the other hand, developments in information science move too rapidly to lock in speakers and topics too far in advance.
   
2. There is a perception that an IFLA conference is a "closed shop" that does not welcome outside speakers. One symbol of this is the requirement that speakers pay registration, even guest speakers from outside the association. Johnson proposed a more formalized "call for papers," but experience has shown that this generally produces uninspiring submissions.
   
3. Conference planners have great difficulty recruiting speakers who are on the cutting edge of information science because IFLA conferences are not considered a major venue for promoting ideas to a broad audience. Improving the professional content of IFLA conferences would make them more desirable for both speakers and participants.
   
4. The focus on written, refereed conference papers may be out-dated and overly academic. There is less and less likelihood that the really thought-provoking speaker will present any formal paper, but instead will talk from notes.
   
5. Not having written papers in advance means not having papers available in printed form at the conference (already a declining service), but also no possibility of translation. Is this important to today's conference participant? Would an A-V product suffice for post-conference sale to attendees?

2. Creating a New Relationship Between the Association's Goals and Its "Core Activities"

The National Libraries Section sponsored a two-hour program on 15 August that sought to air these issues, but it was at a time when many other activities were scheduled (including our own divisional program

Most of the program consisted of detailed and informative presentations on the financial and organisational situation of the current Core Programs. Ralph Manning, chair of the PB, discussed the new draft "Professional Priorities" document, which is intended to provide a context for evaluating and supporting "Core Activities" in the future. Following the presentations there was an extended discussion from the floor. Two points were made that I thought were worth passing on:

1. Graham Cornish, director of the UAP Core Program Office, made an short but compelling statement on the association's need for an ongoing core program staff, whatever it is called or however it is supported. Core Program Offices are essentially "research teams" for the association and provide critical support and continuity for sections that have no permanent secretariats, he pointed out. Without the Core Program Offices the goals of many sections would be unachievable.
   
2. Peter Lor, South African State Librarian, suggested that support for core programs/activities could be rather easily expanded. Institutions could elect to support one or more core activity by indicating willingness to be billed as part of their IFLA contribution. The result, he said, would be a greater sense of shared ownership and also more awareness of these programs. Contribution to a program could entitle the supporter to sit on a Council of Core Activities that could influence the direction of these programs.

I thought these two statements set a constructive tone for future decisions. Graham's summation was a useful reminder of the value of continuity and Peter's inventive approach showed that a financial crisis can be used to create stronger support in the long run.

Chris Wright Chair, IFLA Division 5 September 2000

3. Notes of the first Publishers Relations Advisory Committee (PRAC) meeting, Jerusalem, August 14th, 2000, by Ann Okerson (A&CD Standing Committee)

Ross Shimmon, ross.shimm@ifla.org, Secretary-General of IFLA
Ingrid Parent, IFLA Executive Board, ingrid.parent@nlc-bnc.ca
Claudia Lux, IFLA Executive Board, lux@zlb.de
Graham Cornish, UAP Core Program, graham.cornish@bl.uk
Ann Okerson, IFLA Section on Acquisition and Collection Development, ann.okerson@yale.edu
Francoise Pelle, pelle@issn.org
Hartmut Walravens, IFLA Section on Serial Publications, walravens@sbb.spk.berlin.de
Chris Wright, Section on Document Delivery and Interlending, cwri@loc.gov

I. Background

In March of 2000, an IFLA/Publisher steering group met in order to identify possible opportunities to work together on agendas of common interest. The IFLA representatives to this discussion were: Ingrid Parent, Ross Shimmon, Claudia Lux, and Sandy Norman. The publisher representatives were: Benoit Muller (IPA Secretary General), Lex Lefevbre (STM Secretary General), Herman Spruijt (IPA Executive Committee), and Ted Nardin (AAP/PSP, from McGraw Hill). Subsequent to that meeting, the IFLA representatives agreed to form an advisory committee with membership from appropriate IFLA standing committees. Based on its experience and relevant perspectives, this IFLA advisory group (PRAC) would recommend to the IFLA group the topics with greatest potential for mutual success and progress. Such recommendations need to be ready in time for the next joint meeting, in December of 2000.

II. Discussion Topics. This initial meeting of PRAC discussed several issues:

1. What is the best way to deal with the publishing community? A couple of PRAC members suggested that IFLA tends not to work "indirectly" or from the "top down" as this process proposes to do. The IFLA Executive Board members present at the meeting said that the PRAC advisory structure aims to get the dialog going. How it will evolve and how broader communications should be structured will become clearer over time.
2. Who will chair PRAC? Graham Cornish volunteered to do so and Ann Okerson offered to take minutes.
3. What is the process for developing such an agenda, especially as there is no budget. The IFLA Executive representatives said that the PRAC will normally meet during IFLA, but that if special circumstances warranted it, of course there could be a budget to meet those circumstances.

III. Issues: What are the issues that PRAC wishes to propose to the IFLA Executive for carrying to discussions with the IPA/STM/AAP? This was the heart of the discussion, and two documents informed that discussion.

1. The first was a fax from Benoit Muller to Ross Shimmon, dated August 7th. In it, Mr. Muller responded to the in-person discussions held with IFLA and identified certain topics as attractive to the IPA group. The topics proposed included:

   o Printed materials and the electronic environment, an apparently general topic that covers interlibrary lending and copyright.
   o Metadata;DOI and URN.
   o Legal deposit for electronic publications.
   o Licensing agreements, again itemizing interlibrary lending.
   o Territoriality, which seems to include buying around as well as the blurring of country boundaries in an electronic environment.
   o Freedom of expression.
   

2. The second input came from Graham Cornish's listing of key topics that had been identified by the former PLC and these included:

   o Training and awareness raising
   o Electronic publishing
   o Pricing, price structures, currency, library funding, and related matters
   o Scholarly communications in a changing environment
   o Geographical imbalance of publishing and bibliographical control
   o Archiving and preservation, particularly electronic preservation
   o Legal Deposit
   o Various aspects of emerging standards
   o National Book Policy and conditions for the book sector (including laws inimical to publishing, censorship, and the like)

3. Doing the Triage - what criteria should we use to select the numerous good ideas down to a small handful, for manageability's sake?

It was emphasized that CLM is the committee that handles legal - and contentious - issues, while PRAC should identify matters that will lead to cooperation and problem solving. Therefore the PRAC will not recommend topics such as legal deposit, licensing, or censorship. Contentious matters such as interlibrary lending were not considered to move us toward cooperation, at least not in the early stages of these executive discussions. It was agreed that emerging guidelines being developed regarding legal deposit should be shared with the IPA. Also, since the publishers are concerned about piracy, the newly approved IFLA copyright statement should be shared with the publisher representatives.

Some of the topics were thought to be overbroad for discussion, or they were not clear to the PRAC. These included scholarly communications and territoriality. Freedom of expression and perhaps the "national book policy" matter should be referred to FAIFE, in whose purview they lie.

The PRAC agreed initially to focus on issues with a shorter-term chance of engagement and possible success, while at the same time to think about longer-term issues, i.e., to work on both levels. The goal is to represent the interests of the library community.

IV. Choice of topics for the next IFLA/IPA discussion.

1. Standards. The group agreed with the IPA fax that the DOI (IDF Foundation) is an key topic. Also, other standards initiatives such as the URN, ONIX, and the e-book standard (there may be others as well) are of fundamental importance for both the publisher and the library communities. Many of these standards are publisher or bookseller driven and the impact on libraries may not be appreciated or well thought out. Librarians can contribute a great deal to these international standards efforts, where they are not already so doing; for example, members of the group believe that IFLA needs a voice on the IDF.

   Francoise Pelle agreed to develop a brief advisory draft regarding the view of librarians about the DOI and to share it with the attendees of this meeting by mid-October.

2. E-Preservation. There was also a unanimous agreement that electronic archiving and preservation is a topic dear to the hearts of publishers and librarians alike, and that there exists an emerging sentiment that the two groups (and likely others) will need to work together to address this matter. Otherwise, society's confidence in the ability of electronic resources to last over time will continue to be low - and the costs associated with an ongoing, dual format information world will, over time, be staggering.

   Ann Okerson agreed to develop a brief advisory draft regarding some of the steps that are being taken mutually to address electronic preservation and to share it with the attendees of this meeting by mid-October.

4. Minutes of the Standing Committee Meeting held at the 2000 IFLA Conference

Attendance

Committee members attending were:
T. Afanasieva (Russia), T. Bakker (Netherlands), D. Biblarz (USA), N. Davenport (USA), C. Friström (Sweden), J. Hewitt (USA), Lee Sook-hyeun (Korea), A. Okerson (USA), M. Oliván Plazaola (Spain), L. Rustviken (Norway), M-J. Tarin (France), J. Vickery (UK - Secretary), and S. Yontan (France - Chair).

Observers included: Y. Yamaji (Japan, observing, for M. Nasu), P. Vattulainen (Finland), Zvi Muskal (USA), L. Sipe (USA) and J. Gelfand (USA).

Apologies were received from: A. Brovkin (Ukraine), M. Distad (Canada), D. Farkas (USA), R. Griebel (Germany), M. Nasu (Japan), A. Romanov (Russia), and A. Virtanen (Finland).

1. General Introductions

2. Adoption of the Agenda

3. Adoption of the Minutes from the 1999 Standing Committee Meeting at Bangkok

4. Jerusalem Conference

At the second meeting Nancy Davenport reported that there had been two excellent presentations; the third paper had not been presented, as the author was not present at the conference, but given the Chinese author's unknown command of English this was not a major disappointment. Nancy's decision not to read the paper was endorsed by the Committee. Technical support in the main auditorium had been good. Although there were 125 people in the audience, few questions were asked of the speakers.

Sara Yontan concluded that organisers should make sure that speakers understood their responsibilities, both to attend and to provide copies of their papers on time.

4.2
Section Workshop
At the first meeting Joe Hewitt reminded the Committee that the Workshop on Collection Development in the Digital Age: Organisational Challenges would start at 2.00pm. not 1.00pm as given in the programme. At the second meeting he reported that although Yasar Tonta's paper had not been exactly on the stated topic, all three papers had been well received and had sparked a number of questions from the 90-strong audience.

A technical problem noted by the Committee was that the Powerpoint presentations were not posted on IFLANET. As it was too expensive to provide paper copies for everyone present, people were unable to read the slides at their leisure.

4.3
Repository Libraries Discussion Group
At the first meeting Pentti Vattulainen outlined the background to the setting up of this Discussion Group, which is formally under the auspices of the Document Delivery and Interlending Section. At the second meeting he reported that the room had been too small to accommodate all those interested, and that there had been insufficient time to present all the papers and country reports. Nevertheless, there was a real interest in this theme, and the papers would be posted on IFLANET.

It was agreed that the Discussion Group should continue next year under the Document Delivery and Interlending Section Section, but should eventually be sponsored by the Acquisition and Collection Development Section.

4.4
Licensing Discussion Group
At the first meeting DG convenor Ann Okerson outlined the event, which would be on the theme of national site licence agreements. At the second meeting Ann reported that the meeting had generated much interest. Again, the room was too small and noisy for the 80 participants to be comfortable, but useful information was conveyed and there were several good contributions from the floor. Although there were no formal papers, Ann agreed to write a summary report.

Sara Yontan would write to IFLA HQ formally requesting continuation of the Discussion Group on Licensing for another two years.

Ann Okerson also reported that the Statement of Principles on Licensing from the Committee on Legal and Other Matters was being revised once more, for presentation to the Executive Board in autumn 2000.

4.5
Publishers Relations Advisory Committee
At the first meeting Ann Okerson described this revival of the Publishers Liaison Committee, and said that she would attend the closed meeting as the A&CD representative. At the second meeting Ann reported that PRAC's role was to advise a high-level working group of senior IFLA officials and publishers: it was not clear whether the minutes of this group would be generally available. Only non-contentious issues were to be allowed, so metadata and archiving were on the agenda, but not licensing or legal deposit. The A&CD Standing Committee considered this an unnecessarily cautious and restrictive approach. Ann Okerson agreed to write a summary for the next Newsletter.

4.6
Divisional Programme
At the first meeting Sara Yontan said that no papers had yet been seen for the Divisional Programme on Israel: Documenting a Culture. At the second meeting Sara reported that the event had gone well, although one speaker had not presented a formal paper. Around 60 people had been present.

4.7
Other events
The Chair and Secretary both attended the inaugural meeting of the Digital Libraries Discussion Group, which was vastly over-subscribed and so move to a larger room and broken down into four sub-groups. Jim Vickery and Sara Yontan took part in the sub-group on collections issues, which raised many questions which were applicable to all formats. It was generally agreed that the remit of the DG was too broad, as it encompassed a large proportion of the topics discussed at the conference. The IFLA position paper on digital libraries is awaited with interest.

4.8
IFLA booth
Dora Biblarz and Liv Rustviken agreed to represent A&CD Section at the IFLA booth. At the second meeting Liv reported that some contacts had been made, but as usual it had been fairly quiet and no new members had joined.

4.9
General assessment
At the second meeting the Committee agreed that, despite the regrettable absence of the Arab nations, the conference had been successful, with a generally high level of papers. The two main negative features were the noise pollution from adjacent meetings in partitioned rooms, and the totally inadequate Internet facilities.

5. Report on the First Meeting of the Co-ordinating Board

5.1
Jim Vickery reported on some key points from the first CB meeting:

• The Professional Board had produced a paper setting out IFLA's professional priorities. This will be issued later in the year, and should be useful in providing a context for activities and MTPs.
• The Professional Board was seeking to improve the quality of conference papers, but an initial discussion paper was generally regarded as too inflexible in its recommendations.
• Sections were being encouraged to collaborate more, on both projects and conference sessions.
• Existing Discussion Groups can be renewed on application from the sponsoring Section, but it is likely that DGs and Round Tables will become either Sections or Special Interest Groups in future. SIGs are a new category, which are still under discussion.

6. Report of the Financial Officer

6.1
Sara Yontan as Financial Officer presented the following report. All figures are in French Francs.

REVENUES
Balance: 31 December 1999
Administrative funds	760.66
Project funds	2,233.44
Total	2,994.10
Revenues: 1 January 2000 to date
Transfers from IFLA HQ (Admin)	3,379.82
TOTAL REVENUES (Balance plus revenue)
Administrative funds	4,140.51
Project funds	2,233.44
EXPENSES
1 January 2000 - 8 August 2000
Administrative funds	841.50
Project funds	0.00
BALANCE
Administrative funds	3,299.10
Project funds	2,233.44
Total	5,532.54

6.2
Sara Yontan explained that the 2,233.44FF (previously $360) project money for the Collection Development Guidelines had remained unspent, and there had been no administrative expenditure so far in 2000, other than 841.5FF for photocopying of brochures. Sara said that unspent money can be returned to HQ, and re-claimed if necessary. IFLA HQ is to become much more demanding when allocating project money in future.

There were no questions from Committee members, and the financial report was approved as submitted.

7. Activities of the Standing Committee

7.1 Projects and Publications

7.1.1
Guidelines for Creating a Collection Development Policy
Dora Biblarz reminded the Committee that she had produced a text, and asked whether more detail was needed. The Committee agreed that section D should be expanded, and a model template included. The booklet should include the text in all IFLA languages, but still be under 16 pages. Dora would liaise with Trix Bakker and Marie-Joëlle Tarin on the final version of the text, which should be ready by the end of 2000 in order to use the existing project money.

7.1.2
Section brochures
Sara Yontan showed examples of the translated brochures, and pointed out that A&CD was apparently the only Section with a brochure in Russian. Jim Vickery would investigate the possibility of posting the brochures on the A&CD pages on IFLANET, suitable for downloading. Dissemination of the brochures was discussed: it was thought that they could be sent out with appropriate Newsletters, with most of the remainder deposited at IFLA HQ. Dora Biblarz noted that the brochure of the Marketing Section included all languages in the one document.

A new version of the English-language brochure will probably be produced in 2001/2002, reflecting the new MTP Goals.

7.1.3
Handbook for the International Exchange of Publications
The Committee agreed that there was a need for a new version of the Handbook, taking electronic developments into account. Sara Yontan had produced an outline based on work at the Bibliothèque nationale de France: the publication would comprise a discursive introduction and a directory of exchange centres - the directory could be updated on IFLANET. A group of interested parties would be convened to take the work forward.

During the conference Sara spoke with IFLA and Saur, who were keen for the work to go ahead; Sara and Jim Vickery also discussed the next steps with Sjoerd Koopman, IFLA's Professional Co-ordinator. Publication date was provisionally set for 2002. The Saur book would be published in English and French editions; a shorter Russian version could also be produced as an IFLA publication.

Yasushi Yamaji reported that there had not been time at the Committee of Directors of National Libraries meeting to discuss the Handbook.

7.1.4
Acquisition bibliography
Tatiana Afanasieva reported that there were now 1,200 entries on IFLANET, but that the project would have to stop this year for personnel reasons at her library. No other volunteers were forthcoming to continue the bibliography, although Trix Bakker suggested a technical model in which all members could contribute entries to a central database. It was agreed that this idea should be explored further.

The Committee considered that author and subject indexes were needed, to make the bibliography more usable. Jim Vickery agreed to investigate the possibility of creating a single alphabetical sequence, with the help of IFLANET. Christina Friström offered to devise a subject scheme of 10-20 headings, subdivide the entries by language, and allocate them to appropriate Committee members for analysis.

7.1.5
Newsletter
Jim Vickery thanked members for their contributions to the last two Newsletters, and requested more short articles and news pieces for future issues.

7.1.6
Survey on serials pricing
The Committee agreed that this was still a possible project, although no-one was keen to initiate it. Sara Yontan had not approached Serials Section about co-operation.

7.2.
Actions from Bangkok
The Committee noted that all tasks from the Action List at Bangkok had been completed, except MTP 1.5 'Formulate a survey on pricing packages for print and electronic material' and MTP 1.6 'Prepare a checklist for acquiring digital resources'.

8. Medium Term Programme, 2002-2004

8.1
There was insufficient time at the meetings to examine and update the existing MTP. The Chairman said that the aim was to produce a good draft of the new MTP by mid-2001, for final discussion and ratification at the Boston Conference; the number and sequence of the Goals should be looked at first. Sara Yontan would circulate a list of suggested changes, and Standing Committee members would send comments on Goals and Actions to the Chairman by email.

9. Future Conferences

9.1 Boston, 2001
After discussion, the Committee agreed to hold an Open Programme at Boston, organised by Ann Okerson, on Measuring and evaluating the use of electronic collections. As this would involve statistical evaluation tools, it was suggested that systems vendors could be involved in some way. Also, the Programme could be a joint event with the Education & Training, Statistics, or Information Technology Sections.

The Committee also agreed to hold a Workshop on Exchange agreements: do they have a future in the digital age? It would be organised by Sara Yontan, with assistance from Tatiana Afanasieva or other Russian members, Masaki Nasu and Pentti Vattulainen.

9.2 Glasgow, 2002
There was insufficient time to discuss proposals for the Glasgow conference, but the ideas listed in paragraph 9.3 of the Bangkok minutes were noted for future reference.

10. Any other business

10.1 Elections
The Secretary reminded the meeting that 2001 was an election year, and that at least four places would be available on the Committee. The four members who would be standing down after the Boston Conference, having completed their second term, were: Dora Biblarz (USA), Joe Hewitt (USA), Jim Vickery (UK) and Anneli Virtanen (Finland).

Eight members would complete their first term in 2001, so would need to seek re-election: Tatiana Afanasieva (Russia), Anatoly Brovkin (Ukraine), Merrill Distad (Canada), Christina Friström (Sweden), Rolf Griebel (Germany), Alexei Romanov (Russia), Liv Rustviken (Norway) and Sara Yontan (France).

Jim Vickery noted that his roles as Secretary, Newsletter Editor and Information Co-ordinator would need to be filled after August 2001. Anyone interested in taking on one of these duties should contact him or Sara Yontan before the Boston Conference. Furthermore Sara Yontan, who is completing her first term in August 2001as Chair and Financial Officer, announced that she may serve another two years or step down if other Standing Committee members were candidates.

5. Handbook on International exchange of publications: proposal for a new project - September 2000 Sara Yontan (Chair - A&CD Standing Committee)

Background:

The first edition of the Handbook was published in 1950 but it was only the second edition in 1956 that constituted the Handbook in the real sense, enriched by a practical guide and a significant directory. Since then there have been two updates, one in 1964 and another in 1978 (UNESCO). There has not been a fifth edition since.

A quarter of a century later, this mode of collection building continues to be practised by almost all major libraries. However during the last 25 years there have been drastic technological progress and very important changes in the politico-economic arena, all of great influence on the object and methods of the international exchange of publications. Hence a new handbook is necessary.

The IFLA Section on Acquisition and Collection Development, encouraged by Saur's proposal to publish an altogether new book on the subject, is happy to have Mme Catherine Gaziello's consent to undertake this project. Mme Gaziello has been recently appointed head of the Exchange Division of the Bibliothèque nationale de France which has significant traffic in national and international exchange of publications. She will be assisted by her senior staff, Monsieur Yves Thoraval and the current Chair of the Section involved, Sara Yontan Musnik. Other contributions will be welcome but Mme Gaziello remains the main supervisor of the project. An administrative person will be hired to help establish mailing lists, to mail the lists, to solicit responses and finally to assess results. This will be a two-year project.

There will be two major parts to the book: the first part will be "narrative" and the second will include a directory of centres (see the outline below) to be updated electronically on IFLANET, possibly as the information arrives and alternatively, every three years.

The original manuscript of the first part will be in French; the publication will be both in French and in English. For the Russian and/or Spanish versions, contacts will be made at a later stage.

The main method of providing input will be via a questionnaire which will be addressed by electronic and/or regular mail to various centres, ministries, libraries, etc.

The first few months will be devoted to drafting the questionnaire and establishing mailing lists, mailing out the questionnaire and soliciting replies. Contacts and information gained during this period will help organise a workshop during the Boston IFLA Conference. Conversely, information and contact made during this workshop will be added to the input of the book.

The beginning of the second year will be devoted to the completion the first part of the book ; the second part of the second year to its translation into English. The directory will be finalised at that stage too. Saur will receive a camera-ready-copy of both versions.

Preliminary Outline (approved by C. Gaziello, Y. Thoraval & S. Yontan)

Introduction
Part I
Context
The past
The new facts
Different sources of documents
Commercial publishing
Academic publishing
Official publishing
Grey literature
Organisations, methods, models
Legal deposit vs acquisition
National bibliographies
Shared responsibilities
ILL versus exchange
Partnership
Exchange centres
International organisations
National centres
Libraries and documentation centres
Bibliography
Index
Part II
Directory
List of countries (alphabetical) with all the relevant information on exchange centres.

(Note: the original French outline is available from Sara Yontan)

6. Elections to Standing Committee

2001 is an election year, so anyone wishing to stand for the term 2001-2005 should put his or her name forward promptly. Calls for nominations to IFLA Section Standing Committees were despatched in mid-October to all voting members of IFLA. The closing date for nominations is 5th February 2001. In cases where the number of nominations exceeds the number of places available, a postal ballot will be held after the closing date.

Only voting members who have paid their IFLA membership fees in full for 2000 are eligible to nominate and vote in any subsequent elections. Voting members may nominate and vote only for the Sections for which they are registered. Fuller details and nomination forms are obtainable on request from IFLA HQ.

The following list shows the present Standing Committee members and their terms of office:

IFLA Section on Acquisition and Collection Development Standing Committee	leaving date
	Earliest	Latest
1997-2001: first term
Tatiana Afanasieva, Russia	2001	2005
Anatolyi Brovkin, Ukraine	2001	2005
Merrill Distad, Canada	2001	2005
Christina Friström, Sweden	2001	2005
Rolf Griebel, Germany	2001	2005
Alexei Romanov, Russia	2001	2005
Liv Rustviken, Norway	2001	2005
Sara Yontan Musnik, France	2001	2005
1997-2001: second term
Dora Biblarz, USA	2001	2001
Joe Hewitt, USA	2001	2001
Jim Vickery, UK	2001	2001
Anneli Virtanen, Finland	2001	2001
1999-2003: first term
Trix Bakker, Netherlands	2003	2007
Nancy Davenport, USA	2003	2007
Doina Farkas, USA	2003	2007
Sook-Hyeun Lee, Korea	2003	2007
Montserrat Olivan Plazaola, Spain	2003	2007
1999-2003: second term
Masaki Nasu, Japan	2003	2003
Ann Okerson, USA/td>	2003	2003
Marie-Joëlle Tarin, France	2003	2003

Dora Biblarz, Joe Hewitt, Anneli Virtanen and Jim Vickery will be standing down next year, and the eight members whose first four-year term ends in 2001 will need to seek re-election if they wish to continue for a second term. So twelve names are required to reach the maximum of twenty for the Committee, to join the eight remaining members. Prospective members must be endorsed by either their national library association or by an affiliated IFLA institution in their country. [Note: this is a rule change - previously two endorsements were required] It is important to note that all Committee members are expected to play an active part in furthering the work of the Section, and to attend most IFLA conferences at no expense to IFLA.

Below is some useful information from the IFLA Handbook.

1. In the fall of each even numbered year, nominations are sought for members of Standing Committees of the IFLA Sections. Only institutions or associations that are members of specific IFLA Sections may submit names for those Sections. IFLA Headquarters initiates this process by sending the nomination forms to IFLA Association and Institutional Members. IFLA Headquarters also includes instructions for providing information about the nomination as well as the expectations that each nominee should meet.

2. Standing Committee members serve a four-year term and are eligible to serve for a second continuous four-year term on the same Standing Committee. Once elected, these Standing Committee members play an important role in shaping IFLA's professional agenda and activities. As wide a geographical distribution as possible on a Standing Committee is highly desirable.

3. The deadline of 1 March for submitting the names of nominations will be applied strictly. After that date, the situation for each Section will be analyzed. There is a limit of 20 members on each Standing Committee. When nominations exceed the number of available seats on a given Standing Committee, a postal ballot will be conducted.

4. A nominee does not have to be an IFLA Member, nor does s/he have to work for an institution with an IFLA membership to be nominated for a position on a Standing Committee. A nominee must receive the support of one IFLA Association or IFLA Institution in order for the nomination to be valid. IFLA encourages the widest possible participation in these nominations, both to open up its professional groups to the world's leading experts, but also to strengthen links to non-IFLA institutions as part of a membership development effort.

5. Once elected, a Standing Committee member's term begins with the IFLA Conference immediately following the appointment (in uneven numbered years). New IFLA appointees are eligible to vote for the SC officers and are strongly encouraged to attend this conference.

6. Standing Committee members are expected:

   • to be fluent in at least one of the official IFLA languages (English, French, German, Russian, Spanish);
   • to attend, at no expense to IFLA, at least 3 of the 4 annual conferences during their four year term if at all possible;
   • to contribute actively to ideas for projects and programme meetings;
   • to be prepared to join fully in the work of the Section (e.g. undertaking projects, organising workshops, preparing translations, etc.);
   • to observe strictly deadlines for reporting financial and other information about projects which they are undertaking with IFLA funding to the Financial Officer of the Section;
   • to be available to respond to requests from IFLA Headquarters for advice, representation at non-IFLA meetings, etc.;
   • to assist in the publication of a regular newsletter, a publicity leaflet, or disseminating information about Section activities;
   • to arrange for the translation of the newsletter, publicity leaflet, or papers for Conference programmes into as many of the IFLA languages as possible;
   • to help to broaden regional participation in the Section by encouraging new standing committee or corresponding members;
   • to assist in the allocation of responsibilities ("portfolios") to each individual member (e.g.editing the newsletter, broadening Section membership, organizing translations)."