IFLA Section on Science and Technology Libraries Standing Committee

Minutes of meetings held at the 64th IFLA General Conference, Amsterdam

Attendees

• Ms. N. Anderson, USA
• Ms. D. Ebro, USA
• Mr. M. Kesselman, USA
• Ms. D. McCool, USA
• Ms. M. Nordlander, Sweden
• Mr. D. Price (Secretary), UK
• Mr. P. Raccah, France
• Ms. H. Schwarz, Germany
• Ms. M. Stockmarr, Denmark
• Mr. D. Stoica, Romania,
• Ms. P. Yocum (Chair), USA
• Mr. A. Zemskov, Russia

Observer:

• Ms. I. Zemskov, Russia (SC I)
• Alexander Sorokin (SC II)

SC I Saturday, 15 August 1998, 11:00 - 13:50, Rembrandt Room, Novotel

1. Welcome and introductions

Patricia Yocum opened the meeting and welcomed those attending, then members introduced themselves briefly.

2. Approval of 1997 minutes

The minutes of SC meetings in Copenhagen had been distributed electronically and paper copies were available in Amsterdam. They were approved.

3. Approval of 1996-97 Annual Report

This is with S. Koskiala, previous Chair. When received, it will be circulated and mounted on IFLANET. It was noted that its deadline had been missed but that it should still be made available for historical reasons.

4. Approval of financial statements

A financial report for September 1997 - July 31 1998 was presented and discussed. P. Yocum will check to see if there is a more economical type of bank account. Saur should be thanked for providing copies of IFLA Journal for a generous price. It was agreed to use the term "expenses" instead of "ascribed debits" in future.

The balance on 31 July 1998 was $2,183.16. $1,450 was committed to the Needs Assessment Project. Spending or committing the remaining $733.16 by Nov 1st would be necessary in order to receive the full IFLA administrative stipend.

5. Report from the Coordinating Board of Division II (Special Libraries) (P.Yocum)

• The division is this year sponsoring its first Open Session for a long time. The theme is "What's special about special Libraries" and members are urged to attend.
• The PB (Professional Board) is concerned by the quality of conferences. Last year's "Evaluation" exercise is to be repeated by the Danish Royal School of Librarianship. In addition, there will be evaluations of both SI (Simultaneous Interpretation) and Poster Sessions.

  It was proposed that we should issue evaluation forms at Bangkok's open session using STL-SC (the Standing Committee's listserv) to develop it.

  In addition, at this year's open session we should a) collect names and addresses of attendees, b) issue a simple evaluation form requesting anonymous comments and suggestions of future topics.

• PB had raised the issue of workshops having become too like open sessions. This SC drew attention to several aspects. Linking the workshop to a library tour is a good format. There is a need to cater for languages other than English. It is desirable to have present people to translate informally in several of the major languages. Sufficient information should be given out beforehand to reach target groups successfully. This could include questions already framed for the workshop.
• Copenhagen was successful financially and Amsterdam is also expected to be. However, Bangkok and Jerusalem are not. The cost of registration for Bangkok is $350 before 15 March 1999, otherwise $425.

  Project money was expected to stay as it is; administrative stipends were expected to be increased.

• Figures for current membership of IFLA and of our Division's Sections were listed (see Appendix). Sections had been asked to explain certain categories of members. "Corresponding members" are members who cannot afford to participate in conferences abroad. "Special advisors" are certain past members.
• The Editors of our divisional journal, Inspel, are now inviting original contributions. A motion was passed to commend strongly H.-C. Hobohm on his achievement in raising the quality and value of the Journal.

The CB heard reports from each of the six Sections which gave the impression that our Section's performance may be "above middle". Art Libraries stood out and had managed to secure sponsorship for SC members to meet for two days of planning in Spring 1998.

6. Planning reports on Section Programs in Amsterdam

1. Open Session, Changing the Culture of Libraries: The Impact of Electronics, Tuesday 18 August 8:30-10:50 (Philippe Raccah). None of the papers had been received in time for inclusion in the booklet, but two were on IFLANET. The Session would be promoted in IFLA Express. P.Raccah was thanked for his work. Speakers and their topics are as follows:
   • Christine Baldwin (SuperJournal - UK), Electronic journal publishing: meeting user needs.
   • Jéróme Kalfon (Bibliothèque Universitaire Rene Descartes - Paris, France), Les non specialistes a la recherche d'information specialisée dans la domaine de la santé.
   • Soren Find (Information Services, Technical Knowledge Center & Library of Denmark), Changing the Culture - Job Design, Work Processes and Qualifications in the Hybrid Library.
   • François Dupuigrenet Desroussiles (ENSSIB, Villeurbanne, France), La place du document electronique dans la formation des bibliothecaires Français.
2. Translating Open Sessions into the four official IFLA languages. It was disappointing that our Open Session had not been selected for SI. It may have been due to an administrative error arising from the fact we are joint sponsors with BioMed. French and German translations of the Sci-Tech papers received were with IFLA.
3. Study tour to the Technical University of Delft. Thursday 20 August 10:00-15:00 (Marianne Nordlander). There had been an administrative problem registering the program despite doing so very early. Nevertheless, sufficient numbers have registered and it was considered best not to promote it further to avoid disappointment in case of over subscription. M. Nordlander was thanked for organizing the program.

7. Planning report on Section programs in Bangkok. Conference theme: Libraries as Gateways to an Enlightened World, 20-28 August 1999

Open Session (Donna McCool). D. McCool had circulated a list of possible topics on the STL-SC email list, which she had revised in the light of comments made and tabled at this meeting. After a lively discussion it was decided that she should prepare a statement and schedule for SC II, including issues on developing countries.

8. Planning for Jerusalem 2000

This is in hand.

9. Planning for Boston 2001

This is in hand.

10. Project Reports

1. Manual for Co-operation of Sci-Tech Libraries (Martin Kesselam). M. Kesselman reported that this had developed into a website with address http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~martyk/ and he invited comments from members before its completion this Autumn when it would be posted to IFLA. There would be no further costs. He had made a presentation about it to the American Society for Information Science in November 1997.
2. Needs Assessment of Sci-Tech Libraries in Less-Developed and Developing Countries (Nancy Anderson, Martin Kesselman). Work had been hindered by communication problem. It was proposed that a Focus Group should be organized in Bangkok which might need funding. A structured schedule was requested, along with a project budget.

11. Section Publications

1. Newsletter. The Fall 1997 issue, edited by P. Yocum with contributions by N. Anderson had been circulated and posted on IFLANET. They were thanked for their efforts.
2. Listserv. The Section's email distribution list, STL-SC, had been running successfully for two years. It is being used primarily for communication among members, though anyone can join. At this time, it was not considered necessary to change or extend its function.
3. IFLANET. Section papers were successfully being mounted on IFLANET.
4. Information Liaison. IFLA had recommended the establishment of the new role of Information Coordinators for sections in order to distribute the workload. However, communication was proving to be the greatest challenge. There was to be a meeting of Information Coordinators and IFLANET representatives on Sunday 16^th August, 13:00-14:50.

SC II Friday 21 August 1998, 10:00 - 11:50, Room S, RAI

13. Follow-up reports on Section programs in Amsterdam

1. Study Tour (M. Nordlander). 47 people had signed up and 37 had attended. The format had comprised a tour of the new library of the Technical University at Delft and a workshop. It was considered to have been very successful: informative and a good package. M. Nordlander was thanked for having organized it. With respect to the problem getting it recorded in the program, she felt it was critical to speak to the right people in IFLA, e.g. Carol Henry. It was generally felt this sort of format is good and the term "Study Tour", very useful. The issue of payment for transportation was raised and IFLA's policy on sponsorship.
2. Open Session (P. Raccah). Three good papers were delivered. The fourth was not, due to illness of the speaker, F. Desroussiles. The main problems were that one paper had been short (though possibly good) and there had been too much time spent on discussion after the first paper. Also, language had been a problem: both French and English versions of the papers were needed; it was disappointing that no English papers were available on IFLANET although two had been submitted well on time. French and German versions (prepared by SC members P. Raccah and H. Schwarz) of these papers were available. Attendance had been c. 50 - as decided in SC I, names and email addresses had been collected which, with those from the workshop, could be used for circulating information about the next Open Session and the Section Newsletter (or notification of its availability). A simple evaluation form had been issued but so far there had only been one firm response. It was resolved that advice should in future be issued to speakers asking that presentations should have both visual content and humour. P. Raccah was thanked for his contributions to this session.

7. Planning report on Section programs in Bangkok. Conference theme: Libraries as Gateways to an Enlightened World, 20-28 August 1999 (Cont. from SC I)

1. Open Session (Donna McCool). The topic would be based on the questions "who will keep paying and how?" and would encompass library outreach in the digital age. Proposed speakers included someone to set issues, someone to provide a regional overview, someone representing the foundation and someone from Thailand. Effort would be made to devise a good title.
2. Workshop/Study Tour (Helga Schwarz). The topic would centre on education for users, perhaps incorporating the issue of continuing education. It would be full-day and a location with a good Internet connection would be sought. Financial support would be needed for lunch and transportation. Assuming these conditions are met the Workshop will be co-sponsored with the User Education Roundtable. The SC, in the person of Helga Schwarz, will be responsible for logistics while User Education will responsible for arranging speakers for instruction part of the day.

11. Information Liaison (Cont. from SC I)

P. Yocum and D. Price had attended the meeting of Information Coordinators and IFLANET representatives on Sunday 16^th August. Standards and guidelines for the preparation of documents on IFLANET had been discussed. IFLANET Administration strongly encourages all IFLA units to place their documents on the central IFLANET site rather than on "satellite" sites, but it had been acknowledged that there can be good reasons for doing so. Based on information gathered during the year and at the IFLA conference our Section restructured the role of Information Coordinator and made it a continuing responsibility of the section secretary, as is the common practice of other sections, with effect from the new activity year.

12. Nominations for Committee membership 1999-2003

Members whose terms were expiring in 1999:

• Oona Yang Dilebanye (Botswana)
• Alun Jenkins (UK)
• Marty Kesselman (USA)
• Wolfgang Neubauer (Germany)
• David Price (UK)
• Mette Stockmarr (Denmark)
• Dan Stoica (Romania)
• Andrei Zemskov (Russia)

There would be a call for nominations in January 1999 and the deadline would be February.

10. Project reports. Needs Assessment (Cont. from SC I)

During the week, N. Anderson had resigned as Principal Investigator. The Section has 60 days to tell the Chair of the CB if it wants to return the money.

A possible program of action would be

1. To draft a questionnaire (with input from A.L.P.) for consideration by a focus group in Bangkok.
2. This would enable adjustment of the survey instrument before sending it out.
3. Analysis.

P. Raccah will contact the "Social Responsibilities" discussion group. D.McCool would help design the survey, though not run it. M. Kesselman would coordinate with Core Programs. An outline proposal will be sent out by 1^st October.

As time was short, other Agenda items were left over or dealt with swiftly.

14. Reports on activities of related groups

1. ICSU Press Workshop, "Economics, real costs and benefits of electronic publishing in science - a technical study", Oxford, 31 March - 2 April 1998 (David Price). The Program and Proceedings can be accessed at http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/icsu/
2. IATUL (M. Norlander). IATUL News is published 4 times per year (http://educate.lib.chalmers.se/IATUL/n1.html). Proceedings of the 1998 Conference in South Africa can be consulted on the web at http://www.up.ac.za/asservices/ais/iatul98/conf98.htm and the 1999 Conference will be held in Crete.

15. Proposals for new projects

It was decided that proposals should go for preliminary discussion to the listerv, STL-SC.

16. Announcements

Sci-Tech staffing at the IFLA conference information booth. P. Yocum and D. Price staffed the booth for the allotted period. Several delegates displayed interest in the Section.

17. Old Business

Medium Term Programme 1998-2001 (P. Yocum). It is satisfactory but more attention will be given to the Scope Statement. Encouraging progress is being made on many of the proposed activities.

1.12.1998

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