Minutes of the First Standing Committee Meeting Section on Document Delivery and Interlending

Jerusalem, Saturday August 12, 2000

1. Attendees

Guests: Pauline Connolly (IFLA Office).

2. Call to Order

3. Chairman's Report

Our Section has two affiliated discussion groups. The newest, Repository and Storage Libraries Discussion Group (DG), is chaired by Pentti Vattulainen. Now two years old, the Reference Work Discussion Group is interested in transforming itself into a section. Having the floor to respond to that expression of interest, Chris Wright provided a brief update of IFLA activities. He noted that IFLA's proposed new structure does not include discussion groups or Round Tables, but Special Interest Groups (SIG) and Sections. He speculated that he could see Reference becoming a section and the Repository DG becoming a SIG. Chris also noted that the IFLA administrators are trying to move the organization into a more professional stance. There is concern that conference attendance might dwindle because of competition with other national and regional conferences. The new Membership Manager, Kelly Moore, will notify Section Chairs of new institutional members.

Agneta reminded members that almost half of the SC members are completing their terms next year. She encouraged us to recruit new members and noted that March 1st is the deadline for nominations.

Agneta thanked Uwe Schwersky for translating the Section's brochure into German. She also distributed a new edition of the English version and hoped that the Russian and French translations would be completed shortly.

She encouraged voting members or their representatives to attend the first Council meeting in order to vote on the proposed structural changes.

Members were reminded that the SC would staff the IFLA booth from 3:00 - 4:00 on Wednesday.

4. IFLA Activities

The Committee agreed that Annsofie Oscarsson should continue as convenor of the Reference Work DG until new the Procedures and Guidelines for Discussion Groups are adopted by the new IFLA Governing Board. Chris Wright will email Sjoerd Koopman about the SC's desire for Annsofie to continue in this role for the sake of continuity.

5. Financial Report

Communications - Carol Smale
Carol Smale reported that the IFLANET site has been upgraded and improved. She will attend the Information Coordinator's meeting later this week. Chris Wright thanked Carol for getting the site updated within two hours of when he sent her materials. It helps to be in the same organization as the IFLANET coordinator.

The SC agreed not to create a separate listserve for SC members because the email distribution is working satisfactorily.

The chairs of the two discussion groups will review their web sites and update as needed.

The Electronic Request form is not yet mounted on the UAP site. Sara had put that task on the back burner. Chris will follow up with Sara to see if we can undertake this in a two-step process:

1. Mount a printable image of the IFLA form on the Section and UAP websites and encourage users print that image.
2. Mount an actual email form that can be downloaded from the Section and UAP websites.

6. Plans for the Jerusalem Conference

Discussion Group on Repository & Storage Libraries: Pentti Vattulainen expressed his gratitude for the swift approval given the DG by the Professional Board and announced that already 13 members have joined the DG. The Repository DG will meet Sunday and the four papers will address terminology, the availability of materials, and participation in national collection management activities. Four country reports will also be given. Pentti noted he had difficulty in confirming some speaker's attendance because of the conference venue.

Discussion Group on Reference Work: Annsofie Oscarsson announced that the DG is scheduled to meet on Monday at 11:30 a.m. The intersection of the physical user and digital information will be addressed by Carol Hughes (US) and Anne Lipow (US). A Danish speaker will talk about evaluating web sites (an EC project) and two papers on special topics - Mexican art and EDC will be given.

7. IFLA UAP Update

The Voucher Scheme continues to be very popular. New and repeat orders have been processed for 550 libraries in 57 countries. The office has sold 26,000 full vouchers and 8,000 half-vouchers. About 1,000 vouchers have been redeemed. The major users are academic libraries, primarily in developed countries. The office noted there has been continued interest in an electronic voucher, but no progress has been made.

The 7th Interlending and Document Supply conference will be held in Ljubljana on Oct. 1-5, 2001. The very loose theme of providing access through cooperation is aimed at involving publishers, Reproductive Rights Organizations, storage libraries as well as ILL/DD managers. Sara encouraged members to email suggestions of issues we would like addressed by speakers. A meeting with the conference organizers is planned for fall.

UAP seminars continue to be given, the most recent in Argentina in Sept. 1999, and one attended by some politicians. In response to a question about the ILL/DD infrastructure in South America, Graham noted that librarians are keen to be active, but the mechanics are patchy. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile all have good national systems, but when they need international materials, they send requests to Spain and Portugal. The Colonial ties are stronger than we might think. Peru has a well-developed on-site reciprocal usage as a way of compensating for a postal system prone to theft.

Email guidelines have been mounted on the IFLANET, but haven't been published. Sara is waiting to write articles on the response codes and revised Document Delivery: Principles and Guidelines for Procedure.

The latest draft of the Response Codes was published in the Section's newsletter and advertised on various lists. Members discussed ways of promoting their usage. Celine Ménil has completed the French translation and UAP has received an offer to translate the Response Codes into Tamil. The consensus of the SC was that the list of Response Codes should be finalized and widely publicized.

UAP will co-sponsor a workshop on Library Twinning on Sunday morning. The Office's investment in the twinning database has not been justified by the results, so the project will be discontinued. It was difficult to match libraries and many of the matches failed during the very early stages.

The establishment of an electronic voucher scheme is still a goal, but the Office does not currently have the technical resources to undertake such an effort. BLDSC is monitoring IFLA's activities in this area because they have discontinued their paper form that served as de-facto currency between libraries in the U.K. Lone Hansen gave vouchers to the Ghana Project participants but unfortunately the vouchers were lost. She also reported on new Danish legislation that would permit libraries to charge, so electronic vouchers would be of interest in Denmark also.

Graham Cornish worried about the Office being left behind as electronic payments options multiply and mature. He concluded the UAP report by paying tribute to Sara and Pauline for their extra work during his LA Presidential year.

8. International Document Delivery: Principles and Guidelines for Procedure

9. Medium Term Plan

10. IFLA 2001 in Boston, MA, USA

11. Additional Reports and Adjournment

Agneta Lindh adjourned the meeting at 11:20 a.m. with wishes for a successful IFLA conference.