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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 47| October 2000


66th IFLA General Conference, Jerusalem

View of Jerusalem

View of Jerusalem near the Mount of Olives

Several National Library staff were among the few Australians attending the IFLA Conference in Jerusalem in August 2000, where attendance was much reduced on the previous year’s Bangkok Conference.

Jan Fullerton, Director-General, attended the annual meeting of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries as well as the IFLA Conference (see our separate news item on Jan’s election to the CDNL Chair). Amelia McKenzie, Chair of IFLA’s Regional Section for Asia and Oceania chaired a conference open session and business meetings of the Regional Section’s standing committee. Cliff Law, Director of the Coordination Support Branch gave a paper in the Preservation and Conservation Section’s open session entitled ‘PANDORA: towards a national collection of selected Australian online publications’. In addition, Nick Smith, Executive Officer of the Australian Digital Alliance and Copyright Advisor to the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee, who is currently based in the Library, attended the IFLA Conference to deliver a paper to the CLM (Copyright and Other Legal Matters) Open Forum. Nick is a member of the CLM Executive. His account of his visit to Jerusalem appears in Impressions of IFLA: copyright debated in Jerusalem.

With the selection of Jerusalem as the conference venue having been a contentious issue for a number of years, attendance at the conference was less than in previous years. There was a notable absence of delegates from Arab and Muslim countries whose governments do not have diplomatic relations with Israel, as well as from other countries in Asia and Oceania where delegates had difficulty in obtaining visas. Major countries represented at the conference were Israel itself, with 400 librarians attending, then the United States of America, the Russian Federation, France and the United Kingdom. Eighty developing country grantees attended with support from the Open Society Institute, DANIDA (the Danish government aid agency) and selected country library associations.

IFLA governance issues
IFLA is beginning a slow process of evaluation and restructuring. This process reached its first milestone at the Jerusalem conference, with a unanimous vote in favour of the proposed new statutes (devised by a working group chaired by former National Library Director-General, Warren Horton). This means that calls for nominations for the new Governing Board, including the posts of President and President-elect, will be issued later in the year. Elections by postal ballot will be held for the first time in IFLA’s history early next year. The new Governing Board will take over from the existing Executive and Professional Boards at the Boston conference.

Members of IFLA

Differentiated fees
Proposals to introduce differentiated fees for institutional members were approved by Council. This means that fees for institutional members in the least developed countries (as defined by the United Nations) will be reduced substantially. In turn, the fees for institutional members in some of the most industrialised countries will increase slightly, but the vast majority of institutional members will see no change. Fees for association members in the same least developed countries will also be reduced.

Standing Committees
The proposal to simplify the process for electing members to the Standing Committees of IFLA sections was also approved by Council. From now on, only one nominator (instead of two) is required for each candidate for a place on the Standing Committee of a Section. In accordance with normal practice, a call for nominations to Section Standing Committees will be sent out to all voting members towards the end of the year.

Delegates sponsored by DANIDA

Division on Regional Activities (Division 8)
The report of the Advisory Group set up by the Executive Board to analyse the issues surrounding the withdrawal of the earlier proposal to abolish Division 8 was presented to Council by its chair, Marjorie Bloss. Essentially the Advisory Group made the decision to turn the whole matter over to the regional sections for further attention. Two open hearings on the report were held during the conference week. The hearings were well attended, but clearly would have been even better attended had there been a full complement of delegates from Asia. Ms Bloss presented a summary to the final Council meeting at the end of the conference. The proposals, together with the results of the open hearings, will be debated at the IFLA ALP Advisory Committee meeting due to take place in Uppsala in October 2000. It is hoped to be able to present final proposals to Council in August 2001.

IFLA statements and manifestos issued
During the conference the IFLA Executive Board adopted a statement on Copyright in the Digital Environment Age. The full text of the statement can be found at: www.ifla.org/V/press/copydig.htm.

The IFLA School Library Manifesto is now available from IFLA Headquarters, in English, French and Spanish. Full text at: www.ifla.org/VII/s11/ssl.htm#3d.

Western ('Whaling') Wall in the Old city of Jerusalem

Future IFLA conferences
Starting with next year’s conference at Boston, IFLA members will be entitled to a discount of USD 50 on the registration fee. Members of Associations belonging to IFLA, staff of institutional members and personal affiliates are all eligible for the discount.

Future venues are:
2001: Boston, USA
2002: Glasgow/Edinburgh, UK
2003: Berlin, Germany
2004: Buenos Aires, Argentina
2005: Oslo, Norway
2006: Seoul, Korea.
—Amelia McKenzie

Above Top: Members of the IFLA Regional Division Coordination Board at work: (clockwise, from front) Gabriel Alegbeleye (Nigeria), Henri Sene (Senegal), Adolfo Rodriguez (Mexico), Alice Miranda (Costa Rica), Amelia McKenzie (Australia), Gunilla Natvig (Sweden), Pensri Guaysuwan (Thailand), Birgitta Sandell (Sweden)

Above Centre: Amelia McKenzie (far left) with the Asia delegates sponsored by DANIDA

Above bottom: The Western (‘Wailing’) Wall in the old city of Jerusalem

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