Women's Issues Section

Minutes on the meeting held at 68th IFLA General Conference and Council, 2002 Glasgow, Scotland

Minutes of the last meeting of the Executive Committee of the Round Table on Women's Issues (RTWI) held on Saturday, 17 August, room Castle 2 at the Moat House (SECC)

Present: Leena Siitonen, Chairperson, Spain; Barbara Ford, USA; Bernadette Upite Kamwele, Democratic Republic of Congo; Marie Louise Groenland, Netherlands. Apologies: Monica Ertel, Secretary-Treasurer, USA; Kalpana Dasgupta, EC Member, India; Thelma H. Tate, Newsletter Co-Editor, USA.

I Welcome and Introductions

Leena welcomed the participants with good news: The Round Table has become a Section! This new official status in the Federation opens more and better opportunities to the group such as partial funding by IFLA but it also brings the new obligation of having members to pay a fee. Monica Ertel, the Secretary-Treasurer, was not present because she was moving her house; Thelma H. Tate, the Newsletter Co-Editor, had not yet returned from her trip to South Africa. Marie Louise Groenland offered to keep the Minutes which was gratefully accepted.

II The Agenda was accepted.

III The Minutes of the meetings held in Boston 2001 had been e-mailed to members and were also on the IFLANET. Since no comments had been received, the Minutes were accepted as such.

IV Leena reported that the application for the Section status, which was agreed upon in 2001 by RT members, had been accepted by the Coordinating Board (CB). Not all Round Tables applying for the Section status had become sections, which means that the Executive Board of RTWI had made a good case.

V On behalf of Monica, the Secretary-Treasurer, Leena said that funding for the Round Table had always been a problem. Ends would not have been met lest for the constant support by Rutgers University for Thelma, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign for Beth Stafford Vaughan, the Newsletter Co-Editor, by other institutions, and for the personal contributions of members of the Executive Committee and their families. It is expected that funding will become better under the new status.

1. As for the Newsletter "Women and Librarianship" of the Round Table, the issues published on IFLANET were not easily to locate. If you click "Activities & Services" and the Women's issues (No 41) http://www.ifla.org/VII/s41/swi.htm then you will get to the page which is the Homepage of the Section. Everything is there (including the newsletter) at one place. Thelma and Beth, the Newsletter Co-Editors, have urged members to send copies or formard the e-mail version to colleagues who might be interested in becoming members.
2. Ther was a new brochure of the new Section on Women's Issues in English distributed at the Conference. A Spanish translation has already been made, especially in view of the IFLA 2004 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Leena would very much like to have a German translation ready for Berlin 2003. Marie Louise offered to do the translation and will need some time to get it edited by a native German speaker.

VII Changing the status from Round Table into Section

1. Procedures for making this change had been discussed by the Coordinating Board (CB). The next round for nominating new members for the Section's Standing Committee (SC) would be in October 2002. However, the CB has decided, as the time period was considered too short, that the officers of the former RT will be ad interim SC until the Conference in Berlin 2003, where the Section can select new officers.
2. Recruiting new members. How to get the new Section to grow?

• Leena has asked several new sections to promote this Section.
• There will be a pre-conference Satellite Meeting organised in Berlin jointly sponsored by the Section on Public Libraries and the new Section on Library and Information Science Journals. The proposal has been already approved by the CB. The suggested theme is "Globalization: Empowering Women through Information. The Impact of Information Availability and Use in Society on Women."
• Barbara suggested forming a working group to define a strategy and a work plan on how to recruit members, how to find candidates for election of new officers, etc.

3. Publicity and Publications

• Leena will submit a short article, to be published in IFLA Express, in order to announce the new Section and the Satellite Meeting in Berlin.
• She would like to send a letter to the associations' offices and ask them to spread the message, but will they do so? Barbara suggested to make a good and concise press release and send it to the editors of professional journals, mainly through the Section on Library and Information Science Journals.
• Papers of the RT will be published by K.G. Saur Publishers in a monograph series.
• Marie Louise suggested asking delegates in the Open Meeting on 19 August and on other appropriate occasions, at the IFLA Bopoth, to send addresses of mailing lists for librarians in their respective countries to the Secretary for publicity.
• A Poster Session during the Berlin Conference could be a great means for finding and getting new members and for talking to delegates about women's issues in librarianship.

VIII Programs in Glasgow and Berlin and in the future

1. Two speakers for the Open Program on Monday 19 August are unable to attend the Conference. Substitutes, preferably from their respective countries must be found to present their papers.
2. All participants present in the Open Program and members of SC will be asked to make suggestions for a theme of Open Program in Berlin 2003. The Conference theme is "Access Point Library. Media Information Culture." Subthemes are 1. "Transforming Media." 2. "Strengthening Information Content." 3. "Guaranteeing Human Culture Values." As these themes were considered somewhat unclear, it was clarified that in the German text they expressed the intention of the organizers more clearly.
3. Due to the minimal group of participants, future conferences and the possible spring meeting of the SC were left for later communication.

IX Leena expressed thanks to all present: to Barbara for many excellent suggestions, to Marie Louise for keeping the minutes and for giving practical advise, and to Bernadette for promising to become actively involved in promoting the Section in African associations.

X The meeting adjourned at 17:25 hours.

Respectfully submitted,
The Hague, Netherlands, September 2002

Marie Louise Groenland