Newsletter of the IFLA Round Table on Library History

No. 13
Winter 2000
ISSN: 1088-1271

Pamela Spence Richards, 1940-1999

Taking full advantage of her language gifts and her frequent summer travel in Europe, Pam progressively researched the role of information first in the period of the Second World War and then in the Cold War, making colleagues of many kindred spirits in Western and Eastern Europe. Her published work on these topics was coupled with the boundless spirit she imparted to colleagues, young and old, in her associations. Her recent tenure as chair of the IFLA Round Table on Library History-a position to which I succeeded-was a crowning recognition of her role in the international profession. The conferences, "The History of Reading and Libraries in the United States and Russia," (Vologda, Russia, June 1996) and "Books, Libraries, Reading and Publishing in the Cold War" (Paris, June 1998) drew together a spectrum of scholars from West and East in a fruitful exchange of ideas and intellectual dialogue. I am grateful that they will be preserved in the pages of Libraries & Culture.

These experiences will be long remembered by Pam's colleagues, especially those who worked with her on the programs. Without minimizing her scholarly contributions, I also want to acknowledge the joie de vivre, sense of style, and enthusiastic encouragement that she brought to every venture that she touched. She brought unique luster and respect to the study of library history and to her profession. Alas, I cannot envision her baton passing to another. But her memory will inspire us all for a very long time.

Donald G. Davis, Jr.
Graduate School of Library & Information Science
University of Texas at Austin

Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Committee held on Saturday 21 August 1999, Bangkok at 3.00 p.m.

Present: Don Davis USA, John Cole USA, Mikhail Afanasiev Russian Federation, Cheng Huanwen China and Magnus Torstensson Sweden. Observer: Fr. Angel Aparicio Philippines.

Apologies for absence: Pamela Richards USA (Chair), Paul Sturges UK (Secretary/ Treasurer), Stephen Massil UK, Martine Poulain France, Jorgen Svane-Mikkelsen Denmark, Paul Schneiders Neatherlands and Peter Vodosek Germany.

1. The minutes of the meeting on 15 August 1998 in Amsterdam were agreed.
2. Thanks were expressed to Pamela Richards for the good program she made for Amsterdam and to those who had papers in the open session there.
3. The open session for the Bangkok conference has been prepared with a mix of Asian and general themes with papers by Suwakhon Siriwongworawat (National Library of Thailand, Bangkok), Vicente S. Hernandez (Sangandaan Cultural Centre, Makati City, Philippines) and Don Davis (Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Texas at Austin, USA)
4. Two Newsletter, nr 11 and 12, have been edited by the Secretary since the EC meeting in Amsterdam.
5. The financial report will be presented in RTLH´s Newsletter 13 Fall 1999.
6. The Jerusalem Conference in 2000:
   Stephen Massil works on a program for the open session with contributions on the book and library history of the three great religions of the book (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). The RTLH will also be associated with a workshop on Judaica and Hebraica, similar to the one which was successful in Amsterdam in 1998.
7. Planning continues concerning the seminar Libraries in times of utopian thoughts and social protest - the libraries of the late 1960-ies and 1970-ties. The seminar will take place in Borås, Sweden in late May/early June 2001. The seminar will be sponsored by the IFLA-section Library Theory and Research. The main responsibility for the seminar will be taken by Magnus Torstensson.
8. The Boston Conference in 2001:
   A workshop on The History of Library Management is planned. It will be managed by Don Davis and Magnus Torstensson in cooperation with library historians in the USA. Papers are planned on Justin Winsor and Melvin Dewey. Besides there will be papers on library management during the 20th century. For the open session three papers are planned on important libraries in the Boston region viz. Harvard College/ University Library, Boston Athenaeums and Boston Public Library. Don Davis works on the program.
9. The Glasgow Conference 2002:
   The Library History Group of the Library Association works on the RTLH program.
10. Election of Officers for 1999-2001:
    Neither the Chair Pamela Richards nor the Secretary/Treasurer Paul Sturges stood for reelection. Don Davis, was elected as Chair and Magnus Torstensson, Swedish School of Library and Information Studies in Borås, as Secretary/ Treasurer
11. Each participant at the meeting made a comment on national projects and developments in library history in their own country. Mikhail Afanasiev and Cheng Huanwen will report from Russian Federation and in China respectively in coming editions of the Newsletter
12. John Cole gave information about the bicentennial conference of the Library of Congress to be held in Washington 23-26 October 2000.
13. Information was given about the conference From People´s University to People´s Library - a celebration of 150 years of the public library in Britain to be held in Croydon 3-4 April 2000.
14. Don Davis closed the meeting and he and Magnus Torstensson thanked those gathered for the shown reliance.

Borås, Sweden 1st October 1999
Magnus Torstensson
Secretary

The Minutes can also be found on the IFLANET:
http://www.ifla.org/VII/rt8/min/bangkok.htm

Financial Report 1998/99

The second and final tranche of project funding for the World History of Librarianship has been drawn during 1998-99 and transferred to Pamela Richards for the employment of an assistant. The project account has effectively been closed by this transfer (of £ 1180 sterling) which also included a small surplus from the 1997-98 tranche.

Future finances will be available in the form of the usual subvention from IFLA HQ (sum to be announced) and there is an opportunity to obtain payment from W.S. Maney for the use of the Newsletter Mailing list to publicize Library History. It should be noted that this is not realistic until the database has been edited. It is also important that the Round Table distributes the publicity material itself (preferably in the Newsletter mailing), to protect the confidentiality of the database content.

Paul Sturges
Secretary/Treasurer
IFLA Round Table on Library History
22.7.99

Call for Papers

Libraries in times of utopian thoughts and social protests - the libraries of the late 1960-ies and the 1970-ies

A conference organized by The Round Table on Library History and The Section Library Theory and Research within IFLA.

The conference will take place 27-29 May 2001 at the Swedish School of Library and Information Studies, University College of Borås.

The times that the theme of the conference covers were a period of societal unrest. Students and workers were protesting. New, more ambitious goals for cultural policy were formulated or the protests were supressed. What happened in the libraries during that process? It is interesting to learn how different kinds of libraries were affected and how the situation differed among the countries of the world.

Papers will be refereed by a committee of the organizing IFLA Round Table and Section.

Abstracts (maximum of 300 words by 1st November 2000) and enquiries to
Magnus Torstensson,
Swedish School of Library and Information Studies,
University College of Borås,
S-501 90 BORÅS, Sweden.
Tel +46-33164063,
Fax +46-33164005
E-mail Magnus.Torstensson@hb.se

Borås, a town with 95 000 inhabitants, is situated 65 kilometers from Göteborg. Göteborg Airport is situated between Göteborg and Borås and the airportbus to Borås takes 35 minutes.

Medium Term Programme 2000-2003

Scope Statement

Goals, 2000-2003 - Action Plans, 2000-2001

Actions
Edit for publication in English and French the 1998 conference proceedings Reading and Publishing during the Cold War.
Be a cooperate partner in the organizing of the Library of Congress Bicentennial Symposium, Library History Seminar X, National Libraries of the World: Interpreting the Past, Shaping the Future October 2000 in Washington,
Organize a conference on the history of libraries during the sixties and seventies in 2001in Sweden in cooperation with the section Library Theory and Research.
Develop and maintain a RT website and homepage on IFLAnet.
Sponsor the first world history of librarianship, to be published in 2000.

Goal 2
Provide an international forum for the discussion of library history.

Actions
Present an open forum at the 2000 IFLA Jerusalem conference on the History of books and libraries of the three great religions of the book, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Organize a workshop on historical threads of Judaica and Hebraica librarianship at the 2000 IFLA Jerusalem conference.
Organize an open forum at the 2001 IFLA conference in Boston on the three great historic libraries in Boston, Harvard College/ University Library, Boston Athenaeum and Boston Public Library.
Organize a workshop at the 2001 conference in Boston on the history of library administration.
Publish opinion and discussion columns in the RTLH-Newsletter.

Goal 3
Co-ordinate and provide information on library historians and research in progress in various countries.

Actions
Publish short summaries of research in the Newsletter.
Publish bibliographies of current library history publications in the Newsletter.
Maintain electronic data base with names and addresses of library historians and amateurs of library history world-wide

The Medium Term Program can also be found on the IFLANET:
http://www.ifla.org/VII/rt8/annual/med2003.htm

Round Table on Library History - 66th IFLA General Conference, Jerusalem 2000

Round Table on Library History Open Forum on 66th General Conference Jerusalem 14 August 2000

Professor Stefan Reif at Cambridge University Library, UK, will give a paper on Judaism; the Cairo Genizah.The two other speakers on the Open Forum will be announced in next Newsletter May 2000.

Full Day Workshop arranged by Round Table on Library History on the 66th General Conference Jerusalem 15 August 2000

1. Like Brands Plucked from the Fire Vilnius Hebraica, A Cooperative Project,
   
2. Accessing Collections Description Classification, Indexing,
   
3. Special Interest Collections and
   
4. Bibliographic Milestones
   

A full program with all papers will be given in next Newsletter May 2000.

New literature: Stephen W. Massil,
A Huguenot Miscellany: Huguenot Archives and Libraries, and the Huguenot Librarians, compiled in honour of Charles Marmoy´s 90th Birthday, August 1999. - London: The Huguenot Library, 1999. -i,28,xvi p., illus., ports., plates.

Round Table on Library History - 65th IFLA General Conference, Bangkok 1999

Round Table on Library History Open Forum at IFLA 65 General Conference Bangkok 25 August 1999

The first paper, History of the National Library of Thailand, was writtem by Suwakhon Siriwongworawat, National Library of Thailand, Bangkok, Thailand. It was given by Siriporn Chiruppapa from the same Library. The papar is not on the IFLA-net. It is however enclosed to members of RTLH Executive Committee. Other readers of this Newletter can get it on request from the editor of the Newsletter, Magnus Torstensson.

The second paper, Trends in Philippine Library History, was given by Vicente S. Hernández, Sangandaan Cultural Center, Makati City, Philippines

Abstract:
This paper divides Philippine library history into three periods, establishing a relationship between historical events and library trends. During the Spanish period, modern library trends were introduced through the establishment of the Sociedad Económica in 1780, but did not influence Philippine library culture until the later part of the 19th century. In the 20th century, the United States introduced innovations in sciences and practice, but the foundation of Philippine librarianship was largely due to the enthusiasm of a few American librarians and Filipino scholars. After the devastation of World War II, the newly established Philippine Republic helped strengthen academic and cultural institutions in the country. Today's Philippine librarianship is nurtured in library schools and consolidated through association and cooperative effort.

The full paper can be found on the IFLANET:
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla65/papers/039-138e.htm

The third paper : An Odyssey in Scholarly Library History: JLH / L&C at 35 was given by Donald G. Davis, Jr. Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas, USA

Abstract:
Founded in 1966, at Florida State University by Louis Shores, the quarterly Journal of Library History moved to the University of Texas at Austin in 1976 and continues to be published by University of Texas Press. It was renamed Libraries & Culture in 1988. While there has been some continuity in the Florida and Texas years, during the former period the journal seemed linked more to the library profession, whereas during the Texas years it has been linked more to the literary humanities and the history professions. A catalyst for promotion of its focus it presently strives to be "an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance of collections of recorded knowledge-their creation, organization, preservation, and utilization-in the context of cultural and social history, unlimited as to time and place." The history of this unique journal is intertwined with the evolution of library history in the last third of the twentieth century.

The full papar can be found on the IFLANET:
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla65/papers/088-138e.htm

From People´s Univerity to People´s Library: A Celebration of 150 Years of the Public Liberary in Britain

Enquiries about the conference to:

Alistair Black

Two Regional Conferences on Library History in Russia

The other library history sections demonstrated more attention to the role of the individuals in library development as the section "History of Library Collections" with its five papers and the section devoted to the history of the National Library of Russia with its ten papers.

The conference demonstrated very clearly the aspiration of investigation in Russia, this time in St. Petersburg, to get rid of the influence of anonymous soviet library history "with legalities".

As for the conference in Brjansk- the city , situated in the South-West of Russia, which had the title "Library and bibliophile history of the Brjansk region", that wasn´t only one of the regional conferences, but practically the first attempt to reconstruct the process of the regional library development, in this case from the 15th century. It was also an attempt to find the main "blind spots" of the regional library history and to analyse them from the point of view of the strategic development of libraries of a region of Russia. The attempt seemed to be very successful, because the organizers united the colleagues from different libraries in the region with such from other institutions such as archives and museums. They had also invited colleagues from Moscow and St. Petersburg, who presented papers about about the tendencies of library hsitory in Russia and in the world at large.

Among the main speakers there were also guests from the neighbouring regions in Byelorussia, Gomel, and the Ukraine, Chernigov. The solution to cooperate with colleagues from other states seems to be especially important, because the borders of the Brjansk region have changed and that not only during the 20th century.

Boris Volodin
National Library of Russia
St. Petersburg

Secretary's Report 1998-9

During the year, two issues of the RTLH Newsletters (Nos. 11 and 12 have been published. However, it should be noted that the database of members is now in urgent need of editing for mistakes and details that are out of date.

Planning for future meetings was moved forward somewhat less completely than the Secretary had hoped, despite the invaluable assistance of Stephen Massil. A draft proposal has been for a workshop to be held in co-operation with the Association of Jewish Libraries (USA), Judaica Librarians´Group (Israel) and the Hebraica Libraries Group (UK), on Historical Threads of Judaica and Hebraica Librarianship. Preparations for an open session in Jerusalem on libraries and books connected with the three religions of the book are incomplete. Professor Stefan Reif of Cambridge University has agreed to present a paper on the Cairo Genizah, but Christian and Muslim speakers have not been obtained. No plan has so far been mde for the Boston IFLA in 2001.

The Round Table´s one current project, the World History of Librarianship, has been moved forward by Pamela Richards (reported in the RTLH News-letter). As can be seen from the Financial Report project founding has now been exhausted, bur further expense had not been anticipated.

The medium term plan (plan for 1998-2001) is one year into its term and progress will need reviewing now when new officers are selected.

Speaking personally, it has been a pleasure to hold office in the Round Table again and to support Pamela Richards in her heroic efforts on behalf of the Round Table. I will certainly give the necessary support to your new officers in any way that I am able.

Paul Sturge
Secretary/Treasurer
IFLA Round Table on Library History
22.7.99

200 years with popular/public libraries in Sweden

In 1799 the first parish library proper was founded in Sweden. It is counted as the oldest precursor of the public libraries. During the 19th century popular libraries were founded by the Church of Sweden, the municipalities, liberal philanthropists, and people within the popular movements viz. the revivalist, the temperance and the labour movements. In the early twentieth century the anglo-american public library ideas were introduced into Sweden whereupon we gradually developed our popular libraries into public libraries with a start in the bigger cities.

This development was mirrored through speeches by 15 researchers and practicians within the field. The oldest speaker Bengt Hjelmquist, 96 years old, was for almost three decades in charge of the state authority for public libraries in Sweden. The discussions also included current questions which got a very interesting response from participants of the four generations involved.

Magnus Torstensson, SSLIS, Borås

66th IFLA Council and General Conference

Conference Theme

The enormous potential for international co-operation in the exchange and utilisation of information which today's technology offers, and tomorrow's technology promises, presents a unique opportunity to library and information professionals. The growing demand for bibliographic exchange, multicultural Internet resources, research unhampered by geographic or linguistic limitations, and cross-cultural networking, both in the sense of online technology and offline partnerships, is a challenge to libraries which should be welcomed and which must be addressed.

The Global Information Infrastructure which is developing and which will surely be in place early in the 21st century, will require information professionals with a sense of obligation, both to their national needs and to the larger goals of the international community, to digitise, navigate, distribute and preserve all the world's knowledge for all the world's people.

Subtopics

• Exchange of electronic bibliographic data
• Cross-cultural networking partnerships
• The multicultural Internet
• Management of information: "librarianship" for the 21st century
• The on-site library in the era of the virtual library
• Educating the professional for the Global Information Infrastructure
• Research in a global environment
• The study of reading in the digital society
• Preservation of the past for the future

For more information see IFLANET
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/66the.htm

Officers of the IFLA Round Table on Library History 1999-2001

Secretary/Treasurer/Information Coordinator:
Magnus Torstensson