Newsletter of the Section on Document Delivery and Interlending

January 1999

A Note from the Chair and Secretary:

First, a word of welcome to the four new members of the Standing Committee: Poul Erlandsen of Denmark, Beth Hanson of USA, Suzanne Santiago of France, and Penelope Street of the UK. We received notice of their election in early April and will include a biographical sketch of each in the pre-Bangkok newsletter.

We are pleased to announce that we have secured three speakers for the section's open program in Bangkok, which is titled "An Outsiders' Guide to Document Delivery in SE Asia." The speakers are: Dr. Paul Poon, director of the library at City University in Hong Kong, Dr. Raja Abdullah Yacob, dean of the library and information science school at the MARA Institute of Technology in Kuala Lumpur, and Ms. Boontharee Phoonchai, head of reference at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. All three of them come to us through the advice and assistance of Bob Stueart, emeritus dean of the library school at Simmons College in Boston, USA. A tentative schedule of events at the Bangkok Conference is reproduced in this newsletter.

In late January the secretary/treasurer transferred US$1,000 to the sponsors of the 6th International Conference on Interlending and Document Supply to be used as "start up" money for the conference and, as registration fees accumulate, to support the attendance of one or more librarians from developing countries. A copy of the correspondence regarding this contribution, and the thanks from the conference sponsors, is included in this newsletter, along with an abridged conference program.

Also included is a document written by Sara Gould of the IFLA Office of Interlending proposing a new IFLA voucher scheme for use with electronically transmitted document requests. The proposal has not received very wide attention and Sara would appreciate more discussion, especially comments from members of this committee.

Finally, there is a short explanation of a UNESCO-funded project to create a worldwide directory of digitized collections. The initial survey for this project is being conducted by IFLA and is described by Richard Ebdon of the IFLA UAP Office.

We should apologize for the lateness of this newsletter. Called the January issue, it is intended to provide current news of importance to section members, plus the obligatory post-conference documentation. But there was little news to print until March and the Minutes of the Amsterdam Conference, the Annual Report, and the UAP Newsletter were already available on the web. Now we have new members, a conference schedule, program speakers, and other items of interest. It's still the January issue, just published in April.

We hope you enjoy this newsletter.

Recent News from Members

Carol Smale provided the following reports from the National Library of Canada:

International Z39.50 Profile

The National Library of Canada is coordinating the activities of an international working group to develop an international profile for using Z39.50 to search and retrieve information from Z39.50-enabled library catalogues. A profile is an agreement among implementors which outlines common definitions and choices within the options presented by a standard. This profile will identify a common set of search terms which should be supported by all catalogues and will profile the holdings information which should be sent by the server when requested. International adoption of this profile will greatly facilitate searching across disparate catalogues and the identification of location and holdings information for interlibrary loan.

Canadian Library Gateway

The National Library of Canada (NLC) is developing a Canadian Library Gateway to assist users of the National Library's Website<<http://www.nlc-bnc.ca>> in finding Canadian library information and online catalogues. The Gateway is intended to be the premier place to find Canadian library information. The Gateway evolved from a variety of already-existing Website services provided by the Library but located in separate Web pages. In bundling these services together, the Library is creating a one-stop shop for other libraries, researchers and Web surfers in Canada and around the world. Included in the Gateway will be links to:

• Canadian library catalogues accessible using Web, Telnet, and Z39.50 protocols;
• Canadian library Websites and home pages;
• Canadian interlibrary loan policies and associated information as found in the NLC publication Symbols and Interlibrary Loan Policies in Canada;
• Directory information on Canadian library Z39.50 servers;
• Canadian national union catalogues, including NLC's new virtual Canadian union catalogue (vCuc), a Web gateway to Canadian library catalogues offering Z39.50 access;
• Library descriptions held within the Directory of Special Collections of Research Value in Canadian Libraries <<http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/colle ctionsp/>>
• Other library Websites, union catalogues, and gateways, both Canadian and international.

The Canadian Library Gateway inauguration is planned for early summer 1999.

Uwe Schwersky writes that he will give a speech about the IFLA voucher scheme at the National German meeting of librarians (Deutscher Bibliothekartag) in Freiburg on Thursday, 25th of May. Uwe says he is working with Sara Gould on the presentation and she has supplied him with leaflets.

Lone Hansen writes that she was in Ghana the last week of January with Ruth Kondrup and promises to provide a short report on the project for the pre-conference newsletter. She says she has otherwise been quite busy with rewriting the Danish library legislation. Niels Mark, though unable to join Lone and Ruth in Ghana, reported separately that the project "was now in good progress."

Pentti Vattulainen writes that he is chairing a Finnish National Interlending Conference on May 17 and 18 that will include presentations by two Standing Committee members, Chris Wright and Poul Erlandsen. Chris will consider the topic "Will I have a Job in the New Millenium?" and Poul will discuss his impressions of American efforts to create a virtual library.

Una Gourlay wrote in January from her new home in Singapore that her life was still on hold because her husband's company was in the middle of a buy-out and she didn't know if they would continue there or not. She also reported that their belongings had not yet arrived and they were "VERY TIRED of the stuff we brought in our suitcases (4 months ago!). Despite all that, we are enjoying Singapore very much." Then she wrote in April: "Jim has just (a week ago) accepted a new position which will keep him in Singapore for the foreseeable future. So I can say at last that I plan to be in Bangkok!"

Preliminary Schedule of Standing Committee Meetings and Programs
IFLA General Conference, Bangkok, Thailand

Friday, August 20 - Friday, August 27, 1999

Saturday:

Standing Committee I (9:00-11:50), Regional Caucuses (late)

Sunday morning:

Discussion Group on Reference Work

Tuesday or Wednesday morning:

Open Program: An Outsiders' Guide to Document Delivery in SE Asia

Thursday:

Full-day workshop on The Current State of Document Delivery in SE Asia

Friday morning:

Standing Committee II

Discussion Paper: A Trial Voucher Scheme for Email Requests
By Sara Gould, IFLA Office of International Lending

1. Background

The IFLA Voucher Scheme was introduced in January 1995 as a postal payment system for ILL transactions. The Scheme has been extremely successful, with over 300 libraries now participating, and with over $100,000 worth of vouchers having been sold.

The Scheme has achieved its aim to:

• reduce the number of small value financial transactions taking place between libraries in different countries
• reduce the cost of making ILL payments to libraries in other countries
• provide an easy payment system for international ILL

The key features of the Scheme to achieve this are:

• re-usable vouchers with unlimited validity (in terms of both date and number of uses)
• bulk purchase and redemption of Vouchers
• low-level security based on unique serial numbering of vouchers
• minimal administration, so that vouchers can be sent and accepted by any library without prior authority or approval

2. The new challenge

The Voucher Scheme was devised to pay for requests sent by post. The plastic vouchers must be physically sent from Library A to Library B before the financial payment is complete. This is not a problem when the ILL request itself is sent by post, but more and more requests are being sent by electronic means, and the use of plastic payment vouchers is not appropriate in these cases. One of the benefits of the postal system is that payment can often be settled at the same time as the request is processed, without the delay of producing invoices and waiting for cheques to be paid and credited to an account. If plastic vouchers are used to settle an electronic request, a separate payment process is re-introduced, making the use of vouchers less effective than it might be.

Many electronic processes for sending ILL requests have an in-built or related payment system. For example, OCLC has IFM (ILL Fee Management) for those who wish to use it, BLDSC customers hold a deposit account, or are billed in bulk specifically for BLDSC requests. However no payment system exists to allow easy payment of requests sent by email, and it is this area for which we hope to develop an automated payment system.

What is required is a generic payment system which can be used by any library for any ILL requests sent by email. The system should have all the benefits of the Voucher Scheme, but should be an electronic system, where payment for the transaction is made in conjunction with, or soon after, the transmission of the request.

3. The discussion

Discussion of this idea was started in Aarhus in August 1997 during a fruitful 'brain-storming' session. A further discussion was held in Amsterdam in August 1998, after which it was agreed that a pilot system should be set up in which an "Email Voucher Scheme" would be tested out.

4. The Proposal

The "Email Voucher Scheme" will aim to offer a payment system with the same benefits of the postal Voucher Scheme, which would be used with "regular" email requests. Regular means requests not made through an existing proprietary system such as OCLC, BLDSC ARTtel, DBI-Link etc, but through the use of normal email. Research suggests that regular email requests are often paid for using traditional invoice-cheque payments, which are exactly the type of low-value financial transactions the Voucher Scheme was designed to eliminate.

After recent discussions, the following points appear to be a basic requirement for e-vouchers (or virtual vouchers) to be successful:

• the virtual vouchers would be separate and different from postal vouchers (ie the two would not be interchangeable) ????virtual vouchers would have unique serial numbering by which transactions and the flow of vouchers would be controlled
• virtual vouchers would be re-usable. After some discussion this appears to be a basic requirement. A simpler scheme would be to offer virtual vouchers for single use only, but this would eliminate the main aim of the Scheme which is to reduce the number of single financial transactions. Libraries would be able to purchase the vouchers in bulk or redeem them in bulk, but such a system would still require every library to make a financial transaction at some stage for each ILL request, and in many ways would not be an improvement over existing systems.

5. How would it work - flow of virtual vouchers between libraries

Having purchased a supply of virtual vouchers from IFLA UAP (see Paragraph 6 below), Library A sends an email ILL request to Library B, and adds one e-voucher to the request. There is no requirement to inform IFLA UAP that the e-voucher has been sent.

Library B satisfies the request and retains the e-voucher. How the library does this would be up to them - stores them in an email folder or archive, or makes a paper list of e-voucher numbers in their possession. As with the plastic vouchers, responsibility for their safekeeping rests with the holding library. There is no requirement to send confirmation of receipt to library A (although some acknowledgement may be sent out with the requested item). Library B informs IFLA UAP (by email) of the transfer of the e-voucher from A to B. The onus of informing IFLA UAP of the transfer falls to Library B because it is in their interest to do so: they are now the owners of the e-voucher.

Library B may then re-use the e-voucher with any other library. Again when the e-voucher is transferred from Library B to Library C, Library C must inform IFLA UAP.

IFLA UAP maintains a file of e-vouchers, with information on which library owns which e-voucher at any one time. The file requires no regular action, but is used as a checklist when e-vouchers are returned, or in case of dispute over ownership of e-vouchers.

6. Purchasing and redeeming e-vouchers

The initial purchase and final redemption of e-vouchers would be very similar to the process for postal vouchers. Purchase would be by cheque or bank transfer; refunds would be paid by cheque or as credits to one of the library's ILL accounts eg OCLC IFM or BLDSC.

The 'batch' of e-vouchers would be sent by email, with some sort of confirmation process required.

7. Format of the e-vouchers

E-vouchers would simply take the form of a unique serial number for each voucher. Full and half vouchers would be available, as is the case for postal vouchers. Possible example for serial numbers:

EVFxxxxxx for full e-vouchers
EVHxxxxxx for half e-vouchers

It would be possible to include a code in the serial numbers to indicate for example the country of the purchasing library or indeed a unique code for each library. What benefit would this offer?

8. Security issues

The proposed system offers practically no security against fraudulent or mistaken use of false serial numbers between libraries. If Library A provides Library B with an incorrect serial number, this would not be detected by Library B, and would probably not be detected by IFLA UAP when Library B notified them of the transaction. This point needs further research: manual checking of every serial number transaction notified to IFLA UAP would be impossible. Further investigation is required to determine whether an automated way in which a check can be made is feasible.

At first this lack of security seems too great a risk. However, BLDSC provide customers with automated request form numbers in much the same way. Customers are provided with a batch of request numbers which are then used to make BLDSC requests. Each number is unique, and certainly until recently, no checks were made to ensure numbers were not used more than once. Comments are invited in particular on this potential issue of security of e-vouchers.

9. Technical issues

At this point little research has been carried out into the technical feasibility of the proposed scheme. Just as the postal scheme works with minimal administration, so the virtual voucher scheme needs to be a low-cost, easy to use scheme, otherwise the benefits would be outweighed by the cost and time required to use it. On the other hand, the scheme must be secure, with minimal risk.

Discussion will be carried out with technical staff (at BL, Iflanet) to explore the best balance between what is technically possible for non-technical UAP staff with minimal resources, and the need for the system to be as secure and simple to use as possible.

10. Next steps

Your comments are invited on the above proposal. Please send all comments to me at:

Workshop Report: Document Supply in Developing Countries

The Section on Document Delivery and Interlending has over the years discussed interlending problems in the developing countries and how to improve the situation. On the basis of these discussions the then chairman of the section, Niels Mark, initiated a pilot project concerning i.a. electronic document delivery. A more detailed description of the concept and the project itself is to be found in IFLA Danida Newsletter, Vol. 1, August 1998.The Section has been following the development of the project closely, and the IFLA '97 meeting in Copenhagen staged an interesting poster session about it.

By August 1998 part of the project, financed by Danida and dealing with the establishment of electronic document delivery in a number of research libraries in Ghana, had reached the half-way stage, and IFLA Section on Document Delivery and Interlending therefore took the opportunity of holding a workshop on the scheme at IFLA's meeting in Amsterdam this year. The workshop attracted more than 30 participants and a lively and fruitful debate took place. Many different problems were looked into, and economically feasible technical solutions were examined carefully.

For the benefit of those interested parties who were unable to attend the workshop, UAP decided to publish this report which is based on the hand-outs from that meeting. The report, available from the IFLA Office for UAP and International Lending (see above) includes the workshop programme and list of participants, with e-mail addresses when available.

Worldwide survey of digitised collections in major cultural institutions:
an IFLA PAC/UAP joint project
By Richard Ebdon, IFLA Office for UAP

The IFLA Core Programmes for Preservation and Conservation (PAC) and Universal Availability of Publications (UAP) are working together, on behalf of UNESCO, to undertake a survey of digitisation programmes in major cultural institutions, in order to establish a 'virtual library' of digitised collections worldwide. Many national libraries and other institutions are now undertaking or planning digitisation programmes for some or all of their major cultural collections, whether this before preservation purposes or to increase access to the documents.

However, a comprehensive worldwide listing of digitised library collections does not yet exist, and it is the task of this IFLA project to identify digitised collections of national importance worldwide. The project is being funded by UNESCO and has links to its Memory of the World programme since it will also attempt to identify collections which are of world significance and therefore suitable for inclusion in the Memory of the World register. The dual aims of Memory of the World - the preservation of documents and collections, and the improvement in access to them - coincide with the aims of the two core programmes of IFLA which are jointly undertaking the project: Preservation and Conservation (PAC) and Universal Availability of Publications (UAP).

The Directory of digitised documents will take the form of a freely accessible database on the UNESCO website. The project began in 1998 with the distribution of questionnaires to national libraries to gather information on their digitisation programmes. The database will consist of a searchable listing of all the collections, together with clickable links to take the user directly to the website of the digitised collection. Individual items within a collection will not be listed, but it is assumed that detailed information about the contents of each collection will be available from the collection website.

Information is also being collected on the preservation issues surrounding the digitisation of materials. Digital preservation is perhaps one of the most neglected areas in the electronic library arena, with large volumes of data already lost because of lack of knowledge about long-term digital preservation issues. The project will aim to offer some information on how the issue of preservation is being handled by each of the libraries listed.

Further information can be found on the web pages of the IFLA PAC and UAP Core Programmes at http://www.ifla.org/VI/4/pac.h tm or http://www.ifla.org/VI/2/uap.h tm. Information about UNESCO's Memory of the World programme can be found at http://www.unesco .org/webworld/mdm/index.html.

For details of how to ensure that your digitisation project is included in the Directory, please send an email to Richard Ebdon at IFLA UAP, richard.ebdon@bl.uk

PLEASE NOTE: INDIVIDUAL SLOTS MAY STILL CHANGE BEFORE THE CONFERENCE OWING TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES.

Sunday 24 October 1999

14:00-17:00 Registration and information - Holiday Inn Pretoria

18:00 Welcome reception at Die Werf. Enjoy true South African hospitality in a country setting. (Dress: smart casual.)

Monday 25 October 1999

07:00 Registration/Information desk

09:00 Welcome and introduction

09:30 Keynote addresses

10:30 Refreshments

11:00 First plenary session: The global flow of information

• The changing role of the traditional players in the new information age: the future of document delivery services - Malcolm Smith
• Meeting the challenges of international interlending and document supply: learning from the Global Resources Project - Mary E. Jackson
• Interviews from around the globe: realities and visions of document delivery and interlending - Jane Smith

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Second plenary session: Empowering through information and communication technology

• Empowering the academic user: does electronic document delivery work? - Anne Morris
• Using international standards to expedite document delivery - John Eilts
• The electronic preprint's role in document delivery - Gregory Youngen
• Document delivery services in East Africa - Eric Ndegwa

17:30 Visit to Pretoria Community Library, Sammy Marks Square. The Pretoria Community Library and Information Service has a network of one main and 22 decentralised community libraries, a travelling library with 10 service points and a depot library service with 48 service points. It has 80 000 registered members, issues about five million books and handles 300 000 information requests per year.

18:30 Mayoral reception, Sammy Marks Square

Tuesday 26 October 1999

08:00 Registration/Information desk

08:30 Third plenary session: Empowering clients through electronic access

• A model for library support of distance education in the US - Jean L. Cooper
• Interlending and document supply: experiences from the University of Zimbabwe Medical Library - Hammer Bamhare
• Ownership versus access: let's break the status quo once and for all! - Louis Houle
• Bringing learners and information closer together - Todd Mundle
• The impact of national currency devaluation, cash budget system and information technology on interlending and document supply in the University of Malawi - Diston S. Chiweza

12:15 Lunch

13:15 Demonstrations and opening of exhibitions

15:15 Sightseeing trip to Union Buildings

19:30 Conference dinner, Holiday Inn Pretoria. Enjoy old friends and discover new ones. (Dress: black tie/traditional.)

Wednesday 27 October 1999

08:00 Registration/Information desk

08:30 Parallel session A: Interlending Workshop
Improving interlending and document supply in developing countries

08:30 Parallel session B: Innovative and special applications

• Digitizing UMI's microfilm Early English books collections - Jeff R. Moyer & Austin J. McLean
• Towards an access library: the experiences of the National Technical Information Centre and Library, Hungary - Peter Szanto
• Specialist information providers and their role in meeting the challenge of a global information society - Nigel Lees
• Measuring the impact of document delivery/interlending on economic development: a Canadian model - Naomi Krym
• Impact of technology and globalization on the evolution of the ISO Protocol - Barbara Shuh

12:15 Lunch

13:15 Parallel session C: OCLC Workshop

13:15 Parallel session D: Evolution of national systems

• Interlending case study in Sweden: rapid change in libraries - Gudrun Oettinger
• Access for New Zealanders to the world of information: the National Library of New Zealand's strategies - Elaine Hall
• From interlending to electronic access: turmoil and trauma in South Africa - Peter Lor
• The myths of free flow of global information - Ramli Abdul Samad

17:00 Visit to Unisa Library. Through its system of distance teaching Unisa caters for approximately 120 000 students both inside and outside the borders of South Africa. The Unisa Library is one of the primary support services of the university, with an extensive collection of approximately 1,8 million books, periodicals, audiovisual and microform material. In 1998, the Library circulated a total of 630 000 items. In terms of interlibrary loans, the Library supplied 33 000 items to other libraries and obtained 10 000 items from other libraries.

18:00 Reception at Unisa

Thursday 28 October 1999

08:00 Registration/Information desk

08:30 Fourth plenary session: Cooperative ventures

• The Danish-financed IFLA Project on Interlending and Document Delivery in Ghana - Niels Mark
• Document delivery between Finland and Karelia - Pentti Vattulainen
• Headlong plunge: a pilot documentary project from the Library at the UK Institute of Development Studies - Maureen Mahoney
• A bibliographic network for Zambia - Gertrude Chelemu

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Fifth plenary session: close of conference

• Summary of conference - Graham Cornish, IFLA UAP Office
• Future trends and theme of next conference - Discussion panellists
• The final word - Prof. John Willemse, Unisa Library

Friday 29 October 1999

08:30 Excursions - included in conference fee. Delegates and their companions may choose ONE:

• Visit to the University of Pretoria Library. The largest residential university in South Africa, with more than 26 000 students. The academic library is decentralised and consists of nine separate library service units serving the individual faculties. There are 16 300 registered users of the academic information service, and in 1998 the service handled more than 75 000 interlending requests in the country and abroad.
• The Southern African Book Exchange, the State Library. A book redistribution project handled at national library level. Obsolete and little-used material is supplied to the Book Exchange where it is sorted and made available to libraries, school media centres and information centres.

12:00 Afternoon free

For a copy of the registration form, please contact Richard.Ebdon@mail.bl.uk, or use the online form on the ILDS web site, <<http://www.ifla.org/ilds/index.htm>>.

Extract of email exchange between the South Africa Organizing Committee and the Standing Committee regarding the Committee's contribution to the conference.

On January 11, 1999, Chris Wright wrote:



To: Ms. Barbara Kellerman, Secretary to the South Africa Organizing

Committee



I am pleased to confirm the ... IFLA Standing Committee on Document

Delivery and Interlending has allocated approximately US$900 as

project money for ILDS Pretoria.  At Dr. Lor's request, this money is

intended to assist the organizing committee with start-up costs until

registration fees are available, and then should be used at the

committee's discretion to support the attendance of one or more

attendees from a developing country....





On January 22, 1999, John Willemse wrote:



Dear Chris



Barbara Kellerman forwarded your email with the good news about the

IFLA financial support for the ILDS conference to me.  Thank you, it

ismuch needed and very much appreciated.



The arrangements are progressing well and we will do our best to make

the conference a success.



Best wishes



John Willemse, Executive Director

Department of Library Services

University of South Africa





On January 20 1999  Chris Wright wrote:



Dear Ms. Kellerman:



I am pleased to report that, on the authority of Marjorie Bloss, Chair

of the IFLA Division on Collections & Services, and Agneta Lindh,

Chair of the Standing Committee on Document Delivery and Interlending,

I have wired the sum of US $1,000 today to the ILDS Conference account

at First National Bank, Pretoria Branch.



On February 2, 1999, Barbara Kellerman wrote:



Dear Chris



I have just been to the bank to ask for a statement of our conference

account. The US$1000 were received on 21 January 1999. Thanks very

much once again.



Kind regards.

Barbara Kellermann

Annual Report (September 1997 to August 1998)
IFLA Section on Document Supply and Interlending
Division V, code 15

Scope of the Section:

The nature and purpose of the Section is to represent libraries and library institutes and associations that are responsible for and interested in making publicly available information, in all formats, more accessible throughout the world. The Section works closely with the IFLA Office of International Lending and appropriate core programmes to achieve its objectives and goals.

Membership:

172 institutions and associations around the world (January 1998)

Officers:

Chairman

Secretary

Information Coordinator

(From August 1998)

Meetings:

The Chairman and the Secretary met once in between the conferences in Washington DC in March on the occasion of the Chairman's visit to USA. During the Amsterdam conference the Standing Committee gathered twice. The first meeting was held on Saturday, 15 August 1998 and the second meeting on Friday, 21 August 1998. Both meetings were well attended, i.e. 14 respectively 17 persons including guests.

The minutes are available on the IFLANET and will be published in the Section's "Newsletter" (Feb. 1999).

Projects:

The purpose of INTL 2/93 (Interlending and Document Delivery in Developing Countries) was to help develop interlending capabilities in Ghana and Kenya in cooperation with Danish and Norwegian library sponsors. This project has been succesfully concluded and ongoing responsibility for the two efforts has been been assumed by their Nordic sponsors. At the time of the IFLA conference in Amsterdam a small balance of IFLA funds remained. The Standing Committee decided to ask for permission to reallocate this money to provide "seed money" for the 6th International Conference on Interlending and Document Supply, scheduled for Pretoria RSA in 1999. It was the committee's belief that the contribution of NLG 1521 for use by the conference organizers to provide publicity and initial organization would be in the spirit in which the funds were originally appropriated, i.e. to support interlending in Africa. A well attended workshop was organized in connection with the IFLA Conference in Amsterdam, August '98.

The second project "Expediting the Implementation of the ISO ILL Protocol" continues, and a concluding workshop with three vendors is planned for a later conference. A status report was presented at the first SC Meeting in Amsterdam. It will be published in the Newsletter.

The report from the project "ILL Response Codes" was postponed until next year.

Publications:

Newsletter (February and July 1998) ISSN 1016-281X

Resource Sharing Possibilities and Barriers. Proceedings of the Fifth Interlending and Document Supply International Conference. Ed. by Dave Johnson and Sara Gould. 1998 ISBN 0 9532349 15

Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan Operations in North American Research & College Libraries. Mary E. Jackson, May 1998. ISBN 0-918006-34-1 122pp. $45

Trial Project in Ghana. IFLA / DANIDA Newsletter. Vol. 1:1, August 1998. ISSN 1398-6147.

Loan Stars: ILL comes of age. Jackson, Mary E., Library Journal. Vol. 123:2 (1998) pp. 44-47.

Conference Programme

During the Amsterdam Conference the Section was involved in three sessions:

1. Open forum - Electronic Publishing and the Transformation of Document Delivery and Interlending. Over 150 persons attended the programme which was chaired by Agneta Lindh. Papers were given by:

• JAMES H. NEAL (Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.) Electronic publishing: current state and future trends.
• LARS BJOERNSHAUGE (Technical Knowledge Center of Denmark) From document delivery and interlending to document access and interlibrary collection.
• REIMER ECK (Head of User Services at Niedersächsiche Staats- und Universitätbibliothek in Göttingen) Three years of new end-user oriented RAP-DOC services in Germany. Changes and Challenges.

2. Workshop - Document Delivery and Interlending in Developing Countries - attended by 30 persons and chaired by Lone Hansen (Danish National Library Authority, Copenhagen, Denmark). Papers were given by:

• NIELS MARK (State and University Library, Arhus, Denmark) From idea to IFLA project.
• RUTH KONDRUP (State and University Library, Arhus, Denmark) From start to now - and what is next?
• KNUD ERIK SKOUBY (Centre for Tele-Information, University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark) The technical situation - challenge and solution.
• S.N. AMANQUAH (Balme Library, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana) What has been happening in Ghana?

After the presentations followed a discussion led by Lone Hansen.)

3. Workshop joint with Serial Publications and Interlending and the UAP Core Programme - Union Catalogues in Today's Libraries - attended by 48 persons.

• HARTMUT WALRAVENS (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany) Zeitschriftendatenbank (ZDB), the German National Serials Database
• SUZANNE WARD (UNIverse Project Officer, The British Library Document Supply Centre, Boston Spa,UK) The UNIverse project - a European demonstration which adds value to the virtual union catalogue.
• CARROL LUNAU (National & International Programs, National Library of Canada, Ottawa, Canada) The Virtual Canadian Union Catalogue Project (vCuc): Using Z39.50 to emulate a centralized union catalogue.
• JOHN GODBER (Royal National Institute for the Blind ,UK) Consummating the Union - Making a Union Catalogue of Accessible Formats Work
• SARA GOULD (IFLA Office for UAP and International Lending, c/o The British Library, Boston Spa, UK) The IFLA World Directory of National Union Catalogues

Relationships with Other Bodies

The section continues to cooperate closely with the Office for International Lending and the UAP Core Programme. The programme Director, Graham P. Cornish, was actively involved in several of the section's project.

The Section has also close links with the other Sections of Division V and the Section on Information Technology as well as the UDT and ALP-Core Programmes.

Author

Section on Interlending and Document Supply
Financial Report -- September 30, 1998

Signature of Treasurer of Section/RT Christopher Wright

Minutes of the First Standing Committee Meeting
Section on Document Delivery and Interlending
Amsterdam, Saturday, August 15, 1998

Standing committee members present:

Elena Eronina (Russia), Lone Hansen (Denmark), David Kohl (USA), Agneta Lindh (Sweden), Celine Menil (France), James Neal (USA), Else Nielsen (Norway), Uwe Schwersky (Germany), Pentti Vattulainen (Finland), Christopher Wright (USA), Graham Cornish (IFLA/UAP Office), Annsofie Oscarsson (convener of the Discussion Group on Reference Work). Regrets were received from Mary Jackson (USA) and Una Gourlay (USA).

Guests:

Peter Lor (South Africa - representing organizers of the 1999 ILDS Conference in Pretoria) Mounir Khalil (USA- City College of New York)

1. Introductions, approval of agenda and minutes from Beijing conference.

The chair welcomed the members of the committee and guests. After general introductions the committee reviewed and approved the agenda for the Amsterdam conference and the minutes from the Beijing conference, both of which were previously published in the Newsletter. The chair announced that Judith Greenaway, member from Australia, had resigned.

2. Discussion of a section list serve.

After some discussion it was decided that a mail list maintained by the secretary would serve the same purpose as a list serve for communicating simultaneously with all members of the committee. The secretary agreed to send an updated list to all committee members periodically.

3. Report of the chair (Agneta Lindh).

The chair's report, and subsequent discussion among S/C members, dealt primarily with business discussed at the Friday meeting of the Division Coordinating Board.

Membership.

Our Section, with 176 members, continues to be the largest section in the Division on Collections and Services. However, there is concern among all sections that relatively few members are supporting their staff to participate in standing committees, to the point that some committees do not have enough members to maintain section business.

Discussion: The members of the S/C agreed that a concerted effort should be made to encourage organizations to nominate candidates for committee membership, especially from areas of the world that are not currently represented on the S/C.

Decision: The chair and secretary will ask IFLA Headquarters for a printout of the current section membership and, using this list, they will ask members of the S/C to recruit new members from organizations where they may have contacts. This must be done soon because nominations must be accepted by member organizations/institutions during the fall or winter and submitted to IFLA Headquarters by March 1.

Speaker stipends and travel.

The C/B discussion began with the request, from IFLA Headquarters, for sections to communicate with speakers regarding the requirements for submitting papers in advance. This discussion evolved into a discussion of speakers in general, and ultimately into questions about IFLA's rules regarding the payment of travel costs and stipend for speakers. Several sections expressed irritation at the current IFLA practice of requiring guest speakers at workshops and programs to pay one-day registration fees (usually paid by the sponsoring section out of IFLA funds).

Discussion: Members agreed that trying to establish an equitable procedure for determining which speaker could receive financial support and which could not would be a perilous undertaking. However, it was agreed that guest speakers should not pay registration fees and it was counter-productive to require sections to pay back to IFLA this registration fee. In the case of this conference, the section would have to pay for two speakers, one from Germany (a last-minute agreement) and one from Ghana (traveling on a Danida grant).

Decision: The chair and secretary will press this point through the C/B.

Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE).

The chair reported that IFLA has established a two-year project headed by two staff supported by the Danish ministry of culture, the city of Copenhagen, and the Danish librarians' union. The project is not an IFLA core program but operates under IFLA auspices. The chair is personally acquainted with both staff members. The C/B members discussed the possibility of sponsoring a division program in Bangkok or Jerusalem on "collection management across cultural borders."

Discussion: While document delivery has not been considered specifically in freedom-of-information debates, the committee members suggested that this might be a topic of interest to the FAIFE staff. This led to a discussion of the section taking part in a program in Bangkok or Jerusalem dealing with the ability of ILL/DD staff to request and receive culturally sensitive materials across ethnic or religious boundaries.

Decision: The chair will contact the FAIFE staff and explore possibilities for a section or division program in Jerusalem. Continue discussion at S/C II.

4. Financial report (Chris Wright)

1. Funds for the section's two projects have been disbursed as shown in the Interim Financial Report published in the Newsletter: $285.00 to the Association of Research Libraries for the project Expediting ISO Protocols and $332.00 to the IFLA/UAP Office for the project ILL Response Codes.
2. The secretary requested and received approval for a section policy allowing the deduction of bank charges from administrative funds rather than project allotments, so that project sponsors would receive the full value of the funds appropriated.
3. The C/B has approved the transfer of surplus funds from the project Document Supply in Developing Countries to the ILDS Conference in Pretoria. The secretary received permission (subsequently approved by the C/B) to increase this sum from $949.67 to a full $1,000 by transferring money from administrative funds. This money will be transferred (with a letter of intent) to the Pretoria conference organizers when an account is established. (See item 9 below.)
4. The chair has paid from personal funds the registration fee of NLG 250 for Reimer Eck, a guest speaker on the Wednesday program. This sum, plus bank charges, will be reimbursed from administrative funds.
5. After deductions, the balance remaining in the section's administrative funds will be approximately $542. This amount will be "topped up" by IFLA in January 1999 to the equivalent of NLG 1600 (approximately $800). This is the total administrative funds allotted annually to sections with 151-200 members.

The interim financial report was accepted (with the correction of an error in a column heading which should read "Balance 6/30/98").

5. Bangkok Conference

The chair reported that Marjorie Bloss, chair of the C/B, had advised sections that IFLA expected the Bangkok conference to be attended by a larger than usual proportion of one-time attendees who would be less familiar with technical terminology and less fluent in English than audiences at Copenhagen or Amsterdam. For this reason, and because 1999 is an election year which reduces the time available for programs and workshops, IFLA has recommended restraint in planning speaking events.

With this in mind, the S/C decided to postpone its program/workshop demonstrating the use of the ILL protocols. The secretary subsequently communicated by email with Mary Jackson, the ILL protocol project sponsor, who agreed that waiting until Jerusalem or even Boston would be preferable, both from the point of view of the audience and of vendors who could demonstrate use of protocols.

The committee then discussed the possibility of a program that would provide examples of outstanding document delivery services in Southeast Asia. Graham Cornish suggested that a program of this type might capitalize on the UAP Office's experience in presenting a workshop in Bangkok in 1995 titled "From Palm Leaves to PCs: Library Development in South East Asia." Mr. Cornish said he had recently been in contact with a Thai librarian (?) who was developing a document delivery serviced and he offered to assist with names of likely speakers. Peter Lor noted that the National Library of Australia and the National Diet Library have both established links to Southeast Asian libraries with the intention of developing a document supply business. The secretary offered to explore contacts known to the Library of Congress' Jakarta office, also.

Decision: Continue planning discussion at S/C II on Friday.

6. IFLA Office for International Lending/UAP

Graham Cornish reported briefly on a number of projects, all of which are described extensively in the section's July newsletter. Of specific concern to the committee, he reported:

• IFLA Vouchers - to date $99,766 worth of vouchers have been sold (11,400 whole vouchers and 3,550 half vouchers). In the past year approximately 900 have been redeemed, leading to the possibility (suggested in a separate discussion) that the market for vouchers is now saturated and net lenders are beginning to accumulate a surplus.
• Response Codes - A staff member has been recruited from the British Library's Document Supply Center to work on compiling a set of symbols to represent ILL responses irrespective of language. The project is expected to be completed by Bangkok..

7. Section's Projects

ILL/DD in Developing Countries - Lone Hansen reported that the Thursday morning workshop would include speakers on the technical and practical aspects of establishing ILL/DD services to a collection of libraries in Ghana. The project, which has not yet expanded beyond its initial connection at Balme University in Accra, is expected to use short-wave radio transmissions to link PC servers at 6 university libraries. A second Developing Countries project, sponsored by Norwegian organizations, has been unable to overcome technical problems in Kenya and has "gone down." A letter from the Norwegian sponsors has been received by the committee and will reprinted in the post-conference Newsletter.

Interlibrary Loan Protocols - Mary Jackson was unable to attend the conference due to illness and has submitted a report which will be reprinted in the post-conference Newsletter.

8. Discussion Group on Reference Work

Annsofie Oscarsson, the convener of this discussion group, which operates under the sponsorship of the committee, reported that the group would meet on Sunday to explore different ways in which reference work is located organizationally within libraries, and the different types of work that are addressed by reference staff, including helping clients in person, by telephone, or by a variety of correspondence methods.

9. 6th International ILDS Conference, Pretoria

Peter Lor, State Librarian for South Africa, provided a brief update on plans for the conference. The State Library is providing the secretariat for the conference organizers, who have held four organizational meeting so far. The conference theme is "Empowering Society Through the Global Flow of Information." A sub-theme is to address the question whether technology is bringing societies together or widening the gap between us. So far the organizers have received only seven responses to the initial call for papers and a second call will be sent out shortly. A conference website linked to the IFLA website will be established in November. Cost for conference attendees from outside Africa will be 5% higher than the ILDS Aarhus fee (in US dollars). Costs for African attendees will be less and will be denominated in Rand.

The committee has allocated approximately $1,000 for use by the conference organizers to cover early startup costs (deposits for equipment, etc) and (after registration fees are available) to support the attendance of one or more African delegates to the conference.

10. Other Business

International Guidelines for Email Document Requests.

Uwe Schwersky proposed that the committee ask the IFLA Office of International Lending to develop guidelines for email requests similar to those developed several years ago for fax requests. Graham Cornish agreed to accept the task as a "small project" if the committee could appropriate NLG 600 from Division project funds.

Decision: The Chair will request NLG 600 for this project from the C/B on Friday. (This sum was approved by the C/B on Friday pending final action by the P/B.)

Information Coordinator

The chair noted that Una Gourlay has resigned her position as Information Coordinator because she has moved to Singapore and is temporarily out of touch with the committee's activities. Based on discussions at the C/B, the secretary suggested this task could be performed by someone in "observer" status such as Carol Smale, who works at the national Library of Canada and could easily work with Louise Lantaigne, the IFLANet coordinator at NLC.

Decision: The secretary will contact Carol Smale by email to propose her service as Information Coordinator. (Ms. Smale accepted the assignment with the approval of the Canadian national librarian during the conference.)

Minutes of the Second Standing Committee Meeting
Section on Document Delivery and Interlending
Amsterdam, Friday, August 21, 1998

Standing committee members present:

Elena Eronina (Russia), Lone Hansen (Denmark), David Kohl (USA), Agneta Lindh (Sweden), Celine Mesnil (France), James Neal (USA), Uwe Schwersky (Germany), Pentti Vattulainen (Finland), Christopher Wright (USA), Graham Cornish (IFLA/UAP Office), Annsofie Oscarsson (as convener of the Discussion Group on Reference Work)

Guests:

Marjorie Bloss (Chair of Division V Coordinating Board).
Rose Goodier (UK - Manchester/Forum for Interlending)
Catherine Omont (France - BNF/coordination periodiques)
Poul Erlandsen (Denmark - Danmarks Paedogogiske Bibliotek/ILL)
Claudia Parmeggiani (Italy - Rome/istituto centrale per il catalogo unico)
Karla Brandt (USA - Florida/Ecology Reference Service)

1. Bangkok conference planning.

Palm Leaves to PCs II - The committee agreed that it should sponsor an open program to showcase examples of document delivery or lending services in Southeast Asia that were subject to emulation by others. The program should consist of an overview/introduction and four case studies. These studies should provide a focus and not be a collection of unrelated descriptions. Jim Neal suggested that Bob Stewart at the Asia Institute of Technology in Bangkok might be a good overview speaker.

Decision: Lone Hansen has agreed to direct the planning and chair the session. She will be assisted by Graham Cornish and Chris Wright, plus other members of the committee.

Training Workshop - The Office of International Lending intends to conduct a workshop on document delivery as part of its basic mission. Jim Neal suggested that they consider including a unit on cost analysis using the techniques developed by Mary Jackson for the Association of Research Libraries.

Reports - The committee's activities should include a forum for reports on the Ghana project (which may have some practical application to Bangkok conference attendees), ILL protocols (which should be approaching the practical stage), and conclusions from ILDS Pretoria.

2. Jerusalem conference planning.

The chair proposed to follow up with the FAIFE staff on the possibility of a section or division program on cultural, economic and technological barriers to the exchange of information, a program we have (without disrespect) nicknamed "Liaisons Dangereux". Dave Kohl asked the chair to convey the committee's intention that this program be sensitive to cultural differences and not focus on negative experience.

3. Review of Amsterdam conference.

All the programs were a success. Over 150 persons (standing-room only) attended the Electronic Publishing program chaired by Agneta Lindh and featuring James Neal as the first speaker. The workshop on ILL in Developing Countries, chaired by Lone Hansen, was a definite success with over 30 participants who took part in a spirited discussion with the three speakers and among themselves. The Union Catalog workshop was attended by 48 participants who heard a variety of speakers address both technical and organizational aspects of the new generation of union (or virtual) catalogs. Graham Cornish later reported that his office had compiled a list of 163 union catalogs from 60 countries and posted it on the office's website.

4. Licensing agreements.

Jim Neal urged the committee to monitor IFLA's information policy statements on licensing as they effect document delivery. Marjory Bloss said there will be an inaugural session on a Discussion Group on Licensing at the Bangkok conference and the S/C should take responsibility for representing document delivery interests on this group.

Decision: Jim Neal and Dave Kohl will monitor developments on licensing and make certain the S/C is represented on the discussion group.

5. Upcoming activities of Office of International Lending/UAP.

Graham Cornish provided a brief update on projected activities of his office. Included in these are the following :

1. Supporting the 6th International ILDS Conference in Pretoria.
2. Planning for a possible international conference on national repository libraries in Finland, including a revision to the model policy for national repositories.
3. Providing liaison to the IFLA Committee on Copyright and Other Legal Matters.
4. Developing a directory of electronic contents pages.
5. Developing plans for an international conference on collecting and exploiting materials in indigenous languages.
6. Exploring ways to create an electronic version of IFLA vouchers. Sara Gould is working on a pilot with several voucher scheme participants. Possible topic for Bangkok update.

6. Report on Discussion Group on Reference Work.

Annsophie Oscarsson reported that 40 participants attended the Sunday meeting of the discussion group. The participants discussed the importance of defining reference work itself, the fact that reference staff are becoming a hub in the library for linking patrons and subject specialists, and the problems of dealing with physical and virtual patrons and using different reference interview techniques. Next year's meeting will address: the virtual reference desk, new services and contents, and the reference culture.

The committee, joined by C/B Chair Marjorie Bloss, discussed the future of the discussion group. Ms. Bloss pointed out that IFLA does not have a satisfactory way to map the transition from a discussion group to a section, but prohibits the life of a discussion group beyond four years. Lone Hansen observed that it was time for IFLA to reconsider its rules in the light of changes in the structure of library work (for instance, creating more focus on reference work in general).

Decision: On a motion by Jim Neal, the S/C approved the continued sponsorship of the Discussion Group on Reference Work for a second two-year term if IFLA has not resolved these organizational problems by Bangkok.

7. Report on Task Force on OPAC Displays

Annsophie Oscarsson, as an ex officio member of the S/C, accepted the assignment of representing the section on this task force. The group reviewed a consultant's draft report on display guidelines and offered suggestions. Ms. Oscarsson pointed out that the report focused on the display of bibliographic data without taking into account the screens used by the patron to perform the search. The consultant's work will be further reviewed in Bangkok.

Decision: Ms. Oscarsson agreed to continue representing the committee on the Task Force through the Bangkok conference.

8. Section Brochure

The chair pointed out that the Section's brochure was greatly in need of updating.

Decision: The secretary will prepare a draft text for the brochure modeled on the brochure for the Section on Acquisitions and Collection Development and circulate to other committee members by email.

9. Other business.

There being no other business, the chair congratulated the members on a successful conference and adjourned the meeting until Bangkok.