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

Bangkok, Saturday, 21 August 1999

Standing committee members present:

Poul Erlandsen (Denmark),Una Gourlay (USA), Lone Hansen (Denmark), Beth Hanson (USA), Mary Jackson (USA), David Kohl (USA), Agneta Lindh (Sweden), Celine Menil (France), James Neal (USA), Uwe Schwersky (Germany), Penelope Street (UK), Pentti Vattulainen (Finland), Christopher Wright (USA), Graham Cornish and Sara Gould (IFLA/UAP Office), Annsofie Oscarsson (convener of the Discussion Group on Reference Work).

Guests:

Edward Robinson (Oxford University), Kwami Avafia (University of Namibia), H.K. Kaul and Sangeeta Kaul (Delhi Library Network)

Introductions, approval of agenda and minutes from Amsterdam conference.

The chair welcomed the members of the committee and guests. After general introductions and a special welcome to new committee members Penelope Street and Beth Hanson, the committee approved the agenda for the Bangkok conference and the minutes from the Amsterdam conference, both of which were previously published in the Newsletter.

Report of the chair (Agneta Lindh).

The chair reported on two events that had occurred between conferences and on the first meeting of the Division V Coordinating Board :

The Section has contributed US$1,000 to the 6th International Conference on Interlending & Document Supply to be held in October in Pretoria. The funds, which were originally allocated for two document delivery projects in Africa, are to be used to support the attendance at the conference of librarians from developing countries in Africa.
The chair and secretary have produced a brochure on the section that was requested by IFLA headquarters and can be used for recruiting new members of the section. At the chair's request, translations will be prepared by Uwe Schwersky (German), Celine Ménil (French), and Elena Eronina (Russian).
The Coordinating Board spent considerable time discussing how to advance its proposal from Amsterdam that the IFLA Rules of Procedure be changed to allow a candidate for membership on a standing committee to be placed on the ballot with only one nomination. (The current rules require two nominations for institutional nominations, which, Graham Cornish pointed out, can be especially difficult for small countries.)
The Chair also passed around color copies of the Section's IFLANet website, and the committee offered special thanks to the Information Coordinator, Carol Smale, Director of Resource-Sharing Services at the National Library of Canada, for her excellent work in keeping the website both current and visually pleasing.

Interim Financial Report (Chris Wright).

As shown in the interim financial report that was printed in the newsletter, all project funds have been distributed, including $292 each for ISO ILL Protocols and Email Guidelines, plus $1,000 to ILDS Pretoria. Bank charges, miscellaneous delivery charges, and funds to round up the ILDS contribution have been taken out of administrative expenses, leaving a balance of $655.72 in that account. The Secretary requested and received permission to charge against administrative expenses the costs of photocopying and registration for the section's program on Document Delivery in South East Asia. The interim financial report was accepted as printed.

Election of Officers for 2000-2001.

The current Chair (Lindh) and Secretary (Wright) withdrew from the room and the Standing Committee took up the question of succession. It was decided that the current chair/secretary team would be asked to continue in office for another two years, even though that meant that a completely new slate of officers would be required in 2002. In order to create a succession plan that would introduce a new officer to the mysteries of IFLA procedure during the tenure of the current team, it was agreed to elect a separate Financial Officer who would be an officer-in-waiting. The motions were as follows:

Motion to decouple the office of secretary and treasurer. Moved by Neal, seconded by Kohl, unanimously approved.
Motion to re-elect Lindh as chair, Wright as Secretary, and to elect Jackson as Financial Officer. Moved by Neal, seconded by Gourlay, unanimously approved.

Report from the IFLA Office for International Lending (Sara Gould)

Email Guidelines:: The draft document "IFLA Guidelines for Sending IL Requests by Email" has been posted for discussion on IFLANet and a final version is expected within months. The goal of the guidelines is to provide a framework for standardizing free-form email loan/copy requests so they include data that matches the ISO standards for electronic transfer of interlibrary loan requests.
Discussion:: Guidelines as proposed are an excellent model for librarians in institutions where requests are being composed on email systems without the ability to download bibliographic data. Uwe Schwersky suggested that, especially for institutions that do not have a system to create ILL requests automatically but send them as regular email text, a model order form in ASCII format be included on the website so users could download it. Mary Jackson proposed this form be in a structured email format that could be accepted by fully automated systems.
Decision:: Explore possibility of expanding Guidelines concept to include a web-available form that can be used in limited-technology situations to create standardized email requests that can be accepted by fully automated systems. (Jackson, Schwersky, Gould)
Response Codes:: The recommendations for a set of response codes that are not "reliant on natural language" has been posted for discussion on IFLANet.
Discussion:: Some committee members suggested a grouping of letters and numbers might be more easily used but Graham Cornish reminded the group that in a truly international setting only arabic numbers are common across all languages.
Decision:: Mary Jackson will work with the Office to ascertain that any final numbering scheme does not conflict with ISO Interlibrary Loan protocols.

ILL Statistics:

The committee agreed that the Office should cease attempting to collect statistics on international lending because the concept of a national lending center (through which all international requests were expected to flow) was no longer valid and there was no way to collect accurate statistics.

IFLA Forms:

The price of the multi-part forms has remained unchanged for many years. The British Library subsidizes the printing of the forms, of which approximately 300 packs are sold per year. Graham Cornish said the form is not copyrighted and any reproduction/translation of the form is encouraged so long as it retains the original format. The Office asked the committee whether it should raise the price of the form or otherwise change its sales practices.

Discussion:: Committee members were of varying opinions on the usefulness of continuing to print a multi-part paper form, and many cited examples of libraries simply photocopying the form.
Decision:: The committee agreed that the Office should continue producing the form so long as there is a demand for it and BL is willing to subsidize the printing. At the same time, the committee (David Kohl) suggested that the Office mount a master form on IFLANet that can be printed from the web by libraries that need a paper form and have this technical capacity.

IFLA Vouchers:

There are now 350 libraries in 50 countries listed as using or accepting IFLA vouchers. To date, 16,500 vouchers have been sold (and are presumably still in circulation). The number of orders has doubled in the last six months (120 orders), which is requiring a significant portion of one person's time, raising the question for the Office of how to reduce the overhead cost of a voucher scheme as use of vouchers expands. The development of an electronic voucher scheme has not progressed, mainly due to the press of other business in the Office. There has been a successful trial of bulk redemption and funds transfer between the Office, the Library of Congress, and OCLC that might serve as a first step; toward electronic vouchers.

Decision:: The committee agreed that an electronic voucher scheme is an important next step, and Agneta Lindh offered the committee's assistance in developing this scheme.

Special Mailing Rates for Books

The Standing Committee has been forwarded a letter sent to IFLA by Robert A. McNeil, head of the Hispanic Section of the Bodlean Library and chair of the SALALM Committee on Policy, Research and Investigation, expressing concern over high postal rates in Brazil for books and cultural materials. The letter conveys a resolution from SALALM proposing specifically to work with IFLA "and other bodies"on the Brazil problem. Although the Standing Committee felt this was an issue for acquisitions rather than document delivery, it stimulated a short discussion at the end of which the Office proposed to do some preliminary research to see if the Section might consider promulgating some general guidelines for determining the most cost-effective methods for sending documents between countries. If the initial investigation reveals a need, the Office will propose a project for funding.

Report on the ISO ILL Protocol Project (Mary Jackson)

The draft outline for an exchange of ILL requests based on the Protocol is available for posting on IFLANet. The intention is to demonstrate a exchange of messages between vendors at a workshop at the Boston/2001 conference.

Planning for Jerusalem/2000 Conference

Program on Copyright, Licensing and Trade Barriers
Committee members (Neal, Kohl, Cornish, Jackson) discussed various possibilities for a program that would address: new laws passed in response to the WIPO treaty; import/export restrictions, especially with regard to the flow of information in the Near East; and licensing as a barrier to access across national boundaries.
Program on Access to Information in Developing Countries (joint with University Libraries)
Lone Hansen and Niels Mark reported there is interest in University Libraries Section on a joint program to describe the successful conclusion of the Ghana project and to explain ways the project can be replicated in other situations.

Latest Revision: October 29, 1999