ifla journal

CONTENTS

Editorial: Fresh from Buenos AiresStephen Parker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

ICT Skills for Information Professionals in Developing Countries: perspectives from a study of the electronicinformation environment in NigeriaLinda Ashcroft and Chris Watts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The British Library and E-LearningLynne Brindley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Democracy Building Activities in the Swedish Riksdag; the role of a parliamentary libraryMargareta Brundin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Unreliable Research: are librarians liable?Ann Curry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Librarians and Basic Education Teachers in the Context of ‘Digital Literacy’Emilia Ferreiro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

NGOs, ICTs and Information Dissemination in Asia and OceaniaElizabeth Reade-Fong and Gary E. Gorman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Copyright Protection as Access Barrier for People who Read Differently: the case for an internationalapproachJ.W. Roos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

European Emigration Records, 1820–1925George R. Ryskamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Citations and Links as a Measure of Effectiveness of Online LIS JournalsAlastair G. Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

The Manuscript Collections of Europe: a mirror of migration, separation and reunification as seen in theAlexander von Humboldt Collection in BerlinJutta Weber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

REPORTThe Herzogin Anna Amalia Library after the FireMichael Knoche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

NEWS (with separate Table of Contents) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

INTERNATIONAL CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

ABSTRACTS 109 — SOMMAIRES 111 — ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN 114 — RESÚMENES 117 —119 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Notes for Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Ρефераты статей

IFLAJOURNAL

Official Journal of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

Volume 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 1–122. ISSN 0340-0352 SAGE Publications

Visit http://ifl.sagepub.comFree access to table of contents and abstracts. Site-wide access to the full text for members of subscribing institutions.

IFLA JournalOfficial Journal of the International Federation of Library Associations and InstitutionsISSN 0340-0352 [print] 1745-2651 [online]

Published 4 times a year in March, June, October and December

Editor: Stephen Parker, c/o IFPRI-ISNAR Program, ILRI, PO Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Tel. +251 1 463 215;Fax: +251 1 461 252/464 645. E-mail: [email protected]

Editorial Committee

Ramón Abad Hiraldo (Chair),Biblioteca Universitaria de Zaragoza, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]

Charles Batambuze,National Library of Uganda, Kampala, Uganda. E-mail: [email protected]

Lis Byberg,Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science, Oslo University College, Norway. E-mail: [email protected]

Heinz Fuchs,Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Göttingen, Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

Yoshitaka Kawasaki,Professor, Library and Information Science, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Japan.E-mail: [email protected]

Ludmila F. Kozlova,Department of Foreign Library Science and International Library Relations, Russian State Library, Moscow, RussianFederation. E-mail: [email protected]

David Miller, Levin Library Curry College, Milton, MA, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Víctor Federico Torres,Biblioteca Regional del Caribe y de Estudios, Universidad de Puerto Rico, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Maria Witt,14, rue Thèophraste Renaudot, 75015 Paris, France, E-mail: [email protected]

Nancy Gwinn (Chair, Publications Committee, ex officio),Smithsonian Institution Libraries, Chevy Chase, MD, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Stephen Parker (United Kingdom) (Editor, ex officio)

PublisherSAGE Publications, London, Thousands Oaks and New Dehli.Copyright © 2005 International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes ofresearch or private study, or criticism or review, and only as permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1998, thispublication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing ofthe publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the CopyrightLicensing Agency. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers at the addressbelow.

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Stephen Parker

Almost 4,000 participants from 121 countriesattended the World Library and InformationCongress, the 70th IFLA General Conference inBuenos Aires, Argentina, in August 2004. Fromamong the nearly 200 papers and presentationsat the Congress, Division and Section Commit-tees recommended 50 for consideration by theIFLA Journal Editorial Committee for possiblepublication in the journal. After carefully review-ing all 50 papers, the Editorial Committeeselected 19 for publication during 2005. Thisissue contains the first of these papers; otherswill be published in forthcoming issues.

The ten Buenos Aires Conference papers in thisissue reflect something of the wide range of topicsand issues with which IFLA is concerned, and thewide geographical spread of its membership. Thepapers deal with such diverse topics as educationand training of information professionals, theprovision of e-learning services to the generalpublic, the work of parliamentary libraries, pro-fessional liability for the quality of research,digital literacy, information dissemination bynon-governmental organizations, copyrightproblems affecting the print-disabled, emigrationrecords, online professional journals and thepreservation of manuscript collections, and theirauthors come from the United Kingdom, Sweden,Canada, Argentina, Fiji, New Zealand, SouthAfrica, the United States and Germany.

The first paper, by Linda Ashcroft and ChrisWatts, deals with ‘ICT Skills for InformationProfessionals in Developing Countries: perspec-tives from a study of the electronic informationenvironment in Nigeria’, and describes aresearch project carried out at Liverpool JohnMoores University in the UK into the provisionof electronic information in Nigeria. The projectidentified a significant skills gap amongst infor-mation professionals in terms of their ability tomake effective use of information and communi-cation technologies, and concluded that theproblem might be alleviated through collabora-tion and the strategic management of resources.

In the second paper, Lynne Brindley, Chief Exec-utive of the British Library, provides an overview

of the Library’s approach to e-learning anddescribes how its online learning resources areused by different groups of learners. The papertouches on some of the challenges of delivering awidely accessible learning programme and posesquestions which the new possibilities offered bye-learning pose for national libraries.

The third paper, by Margareta Brundin, describesthe activities of a new office created by the Par-liament of Sweden (the Riksdag) with the aim ofincreasing knowledge of and interest in theRiksdag and its work among the general public —especially young people. The open-door policyand regional activities of the Riksdag Library, andits training programmes for librarians from allover Sweden, help to satisfy the need of thepublic for accurate and easily accessible informa-tion on the work and decisions of the Riksdagand so contribute to building democracy.

A completely different topic is dealt with in thenext paper, by Ann Curry, in which she examinescases of fraud and deception in research, thereasons why some researchers transgress theaccepted rules in this way and the ineffectivenessof publishers and reviewers as gatekeepers.While librarians and LIS researchers seemunlikely to conduct or publish unreliableresearch, problems can arise when librarians dis-tribute unreliable research in their collections.Nevertheless, withdrawing all unreliableresearch from library collections may not bedesirable, as it may contain grains of truth thatcould result in future, reliable research.

In the next paper, Emilia Ferreiro looks criticallyat the notion of ‘digital literacy’. She contendsthat literacy is not a static notion because literacyrequirements change across time and places.While the introduction of ICTs has led to radicalchanges in the ways of producing and dissemi-nating texts, it has not change the conceptualnature of the literacy process. The paper exploresthe relationship between the elementary schooland the new technologies, and concludes that itis too risky to depend only on computers toimprove literacy. Librarians can help make moreeffective use of ICTs in educational contexts, asthey have already adopted these technologieswhile teachers are still reluctant to use them.

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EDITORIALFresh from Buenos Aires

Copyright © 2005 International Federation of Library Associations &Institutions (www.ifla.org). IFLA Journal 31(1): 3–5.ISSN: 0340-0352. DOI: 10.1177/0340035205052637

The next paper, by Elizabeth Reade-Fong andGary E. Gorman, looks at the way in whichNGOs in Asia and Oceania use information andICTs for sustainable capacity building. Theauthors suggest that communication strategiesthat take into account the social nature of access,recognize the interaction between face-to-faceand online communications, and combineInternet use with a broad range of other new andold media provide the best opportunities for sus-tainable development initiatives through the useof ICTs. They address this issue through a seriesof questions relating to the barriers to ICTadoption, the most appropriate mix of ICT-basedand print-based information, the reactions ofdifferent cultures to information accessedremotely rather than face-to-face, the extent towhich NGOs collaborate in sharing develop-ment-related information, and the facilitatorsand barriers to more effective collaboration.

The next paper, by J.W. Roos, is concerned withthe access barriers to print which copyright pro-tection creates for people with print disabilities.The analysis of this problem should not beconfined to Braille and audio materials, but toother means of disseminating information to theprint-disabled through the use of new technolo-gies. While several countries have attempted tosolve the problems of access posed by copyrightprotection through legislation, these attemptshave not always given rise to perfect solutions.

The next paper, by George R. Ryskamp, notesthat, while European emigration records provideextensive information about individual emi-grants, often including their places of origin, nosurvey of all such records exists and there is noteven a complete list of records types and loca-tions for any single European country. The paperdescribes the work of the Immigrant AncestorsProject at Brigham Young University in the USAand identifies the various record types generatedby emigrants in the process of emigration, givingexamples from several countries where eachtype of record may be found.

The paper by Alastair G. Smith examines the useof citation counts and web links to evaluateonline LIS journals, and compares the WebImpact Factors of a sample of online LIS journalwebsites with their conventional citation counts.Links to online journals are often consideredto be equivalent to citations, but there aresignificant differences. The paper provides indi-cations of how effective the online medium isfor communicating LIS research and offers

guidance for LIS authors and journal editors tohelp them make effective use of online journals.

The final Buenos Aires Congress paper in thisissue, by Jutta Weber, notes that manuscripts andtheir creators are subject to the conditions ofhistory, and shows how the history of the Alexan-der von Humboldt Collection in Berlin is a historyof the migration of manuscripts, the separation ofparts of the collection, and their reunification. Thisleads to some more general observations on thesafety of the original locations of manuscripts andtheir safe preservation in other locations. Theauthor suggests that there are good reasons tobuild an alliance of institutions willing to cooper-ate with respect to these questions.

This issue also contains a report by MichaelKnoche, describing the fire which destroyed thehistoric building and a large part of the book col-lection of the Herzogin Anna Amalia Library inWeimar, in Germany in September 2004 and thechallenge of restoration work which must befaced.

The Tango Conference?

In her report on the Buenos Aires Congress(IFLA Journal Vol. 30, no. 4, 2004) IaMcIlwaine, Chair of the Professional Commit-tee, described it as ‘The Tango Conference’. Thiswas the tango . . . ?

Editorial

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Goodbye and Hello!

Exactly one year ago, in IFLA Journal Vol. 30,no. 1, 2004, the Editorial, by IFLA SecretaryGeneral Ross Shimmon, was entitled ‘Farewelland Good Luck’. Ross was announcing hisimpending retirement after some five years at thehelm of IFLA and welcoming his successor, R.Ramachandran. In this issue, we regretfully saygoodbye to Mr Ramachandran, and hello to hissuccessor, Peter Lor, who takes up his appoint-ment on 1 February 2005. See the News Section(‘From the Secretariat’, p. 97) for more details.

Tsunami News

The News Section opens with a heading whichwe are sure has never appeared in IFLA Journalbefore, and hope will never have to appear again— ‘Tsunami News’. Among the devastation

wrought in many countries by the recent tsunamiin the Indian Ocean, many libraries of manykind, many books and other materials — and, wefear, many librarians and library workers — haveundoubtedly disappeared, along with schools,clinics, homes and many other buildings — and,worst of all, many thousands of people.

We draw the attention of our readers to thePresident’s appeal, on page 94, for all IFLAmembers to help their colleagues in the affectedcountries in any way possible. One of the worstaffected countries, Sri Lanka, has already begunto organize its reconstruction efforts and isappealing for help, both in these pages and viathe IFLA-L listserv. Our colleagues in othercountries hit by the tsunami will doubtless alsobe taking similar actions in the near future, andwe join the President in urging all IFLAmembers to help in any way they can.

Fresh from Buenos Aires

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6Copyright © 2005 International Federation of Library Associations &Institutions (www.ifla.org). IFLA Journal 31(1): 6–12.ISSN: 0340-0352. DOI: 10.1177/0340035205052638

Linda Ashcroft and Chris Watts

Linda Ashcroft is Reader of Infor-mation Management at theSchool of Business Information,Liverpool John Moores University,98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool L35UZ, UK. She manages variousfunded research projects and hasdeveloped special expertise in theresearch area of electronicresources. She is involved in awide range of professional activi-ties. She has been Chair ofBAILER (British Association forInformation and Library Educationand Research), has chaired theContinuing Professional Educa-tion Round Table of IFLA andserves on the committee of theIFLA Library and InformationScience Journals Section. E-mail:[email protected].

Chris Watts is a researcher in theSchool of Business Information atLiverpool John Moores University.His research interests includeelectronic health care informationresources, with an emphasis ondeveloping environments; socialinclusion/exclusion; research gov-ernance; and censorship andpublic Internet access. E-mail:[email protected].

ICT Skills for Information Professionals inDeveloping Countries: perspectives from a study ofthe electronic information environment in Nigeria

Information Communication Technology (ICT) skillsin the Information Age

In recent years, work for the information profession has becomecharacterized by fast-paced change and new skills requirements.This transformation has been brought about by the constantemergence of relevant new technologies. Information profession-als are increasingly required to adapt their skills and practice inorder to gain an awareness of technological advances. As a result,the profession itself exists in a state of flux alongside theseemerging technologies, with traditional roles being increasinglysubsumed by new skills and working environments, and, there-fore, job descriptions (Ashcroft, 2004).

Thus, information professionals are now expected to be aware ofand capable of using and demonstrating emerging ICTs(Nwakanma, 2003). There is a need for additional training toaugment the traditional skills knowledge base with a competencyin ICT use. Information professionals must be flexible, and adapttraditional skills to incorporate the requirements of technologicaladvances (Biddiscombe, 2001; Sharp, 2001). Given the current sit-uation, wherein ICTs are being continuously updated or intro-duced and traditional formats are being replaced or supplementedby digital formats (such as e-journals and e-books), it seems likelythat there will continue to be a need for regular training for infor-mation professionals.

There is also an increased focus on communication skills, withmore players involved in the electronic information environment.Information professionals are being called upon to work closelywith ICT users and providers (including IT staff) and to work incollaboration with others in the profession (Wittwer, 2001). Somegroups of users lack the necessary IT skills to obtain qualityinformation (Stubbings and McNab, 2001) and information pro-fessionals will therefore be called upon to act as both educatorsand intermediaries (Sharp, 2001). Given these circumstances,information professionals are required to have increased teachingand communication skills.

Thus, it is vital for those in management positions to recognizethe imperative of continuing professional development (CPD)and ensure that staff are proactive in maintaining up-to-datelevels of expertise.

The significance of CPD in this climate has been acknowledged byboth the United Kingdom’s Chartered Institute of Library andInformation Professionals (CILIP) and the United States’ AmericanLibrary Association (ALA).

CILIP (2004a) advocates pro-active CPD inorder to remain in touch with issues relevant tothe information profession, and to allow individ-uals to take advantage of opportunities thatarise. CILIP (2004b) has produced a Frameworkfor Continuing Professional Developmentdesigned to assist in the building of a personalportfolio, assessing competence and recordingCPD activities and needs. CILIP also offers anumber of facilities to support CPD, includingworkshops (in, for example, ICT and InternetSkills, and Professional and Technical Skills),conferences, a Chartership scheme, and adviceon professional practice.

Education and Continuous Learning is one offive key action areas for the ALA, with lifelonglearning seen as being integral to providing highquality information services (ALA, 2004a). Inresponse to this, the ALA holds conferences andevents that support CPD (ALA, 2004b). Onthree occasions, ALA has held a Congress forProfessional Education that identified (amongothers) appropriate issues concerning CPD forinformation professionals, including core com-petencies.

ICT Skills and Reference Services

The use of ICT skills spills over into all aspectsof library work, and the explosion of electronicinformation delivery has resulted in the need forelectronic user support. Over the past few yearsa number of electronic reference services havedeveloped in response to this need. OCLC’sQuestionPoint electronic reference system(http://www.questionpoint.org/) arose out oftwo projects which had been under develop-ment. The Collaborative Digital ReferenceService (CDRS) (http://www.loc.gov/rr/digiref/) became a functional service in 2002, havingbeen instigated by the Library of Congress. Itaimed to test “the potential for developing col-laborative and innovative responses” by usingavailable technologies as a starting point(http://loc.gov/rr/digiref/history.htm). National,public and academic libraries participated in thetesting using the Remedy call managementsystem (http://remedy.com/) to provide thebasis of the system. Questions were routedbetween institutions by an automatic algorithm,which used such criteria as subject and time ofday to match the question with a suitableinstitution. A second project investigated thedevelopment of services at a regional level. ThusOCLC and the Library of Congress were able to

support and promote a product that included alocal toolkit for real-time web-based communi-cation, a local interface for managing andanswering enquiries and a network for globalparticipation. The system includes a knowledgebase with which user enquiries are initiallycompared. If no answer is found, the question isthen routed to an appropriate institution (basedon areas of competence, opening hours andsimilar data). When the question is answered itis added to the base and sent back to the user.Collaboration is at the heart of the system, andthe QuestionPoint model requires that librariesuse it within local groups or join the global con-sortium if taking it on an individual basis.

Davis and Scholfield (2004) discuss the develop-ment of the digital reference services at the Uni-versity of Technology Sydney (UTS) and itsplanned expansion as a part of a global networkof digital reference partners. They consider theUTS digital reference partnership with the Uni-versity of Strathclyde, UK, in the light of possibleexpansion of the consortium. With each institu-tion’s research and teaching profiles beingsimilar, the pilot stage of the collaboration wasfor the partner libraries to answer enquiries fromthe other institution during hours when their tra-ditional library services were closed. Davis andScholfield found that despite the need to servicethe enquiries of a geographically remote institu-tion, the global real-time consortium approachoffers benefits to members, the most obviousbenefit being a reduction in costs. They concludefrom their experience that an expanded globalreference consortium offers the best pathforward, both in terms of value for money andservice enhancement.

Twenty-four hour global reference services arenow increasing in a variety of library services.The UK’s Somerset library service has linkedwith reference librarians in Richland Countypublic library service in South Carolina, USAand with Brisbane City Council library servicein Queensland, Australia. This connection,known as Answers Now (http://www.richland.lib.sc.us/answersnow.htm) allows all threelibraries to become global resources in an inno-vative way. Another scheme called GlobalLibrarian (http://www.globallibrarian.info/about.php) involves Southampton City Library inthe UK, linking with Vaughan Public Librariesin Ontario, Canada. Links are being added toBritish Columbia, Melbourne and Surrey. Eachlibrary will be responsible for eight-hourincrements, and users access it through the

ICT Skills for Information Professionals

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libraries’ own websites (24 hour reference,2002).

Whilst good communication skills have tradi-tionally been at the heart of reference service,these developments indicate the importance ofexpansion of communication beyond the userfocus into wider areas of collaboration. Theexamples also indicate the increasing impor-tance of ICT skills.

Furthermore, expanded communication skillsare also of importance in relation to free digitalreference services (DRS). Lochore (2004)reports on an experiment to assess the perform-ance of freely available DRS, with three freeDRS selected for the experiment:

1. AllExperts (www.allexperts.com) claims tobe the oldest and largest free question andanswer service on the Internet and is, ineffect, a consortium of individual researchers.

2. Ask a Librarian (www.ask-a-librarian.org.uk)is a question and answer service provided bya consortium of UK public libraries.

3. The University of California, Los Angeles e-mail reference service (www.library.ucla.edu/contact/e-mail.html) is based within an indi-vidual academic library.

The findings of this experiment demonstratedthat DRS generally deliver accurate information,although the time to do so varies both betweenservices and within a service. Additional infor-mation provided with responses is often useful.Lochore concludes that collaboration is likely tocontinue so as to limit expenses incurred by indi-vidual institutions. Lochore also emphasizes thelibrarian’s user training role, pointing out that

instructing users on how to find informationindependently has always been one of thehallmarks of academic library services, andthis should be given priority, in a digitalenvironment. (Lochore, 2004, p. 28)

The Impact of the Digital Divide onSkills Development

There has been a great deal of discussion aboutthe impact of digital information resources, par-ticularly around what has been termed thedigital divide, or the split between those thathave access to digital information resources andthose who do not. In general, the digital divideapplies internationally. However, Norris (2001)

discusses three types of digital divide: social(within countries), global (between countries)and democratic (those unable to use ICTs to takepart in public life). The (social) digital divide hasan impact upon information professionals indeveloped environments, with many librarieslacking resources and technical support, andstaff needing continuously to acquire appropri-ate training in order to deliver up-to-dateservices and troubleshoot equipment (Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation, 2004).

Regarding the global digital divide, Lim (1999)suggests that too much emphasis has beenplaced upon the development of ICT infrastruc-ture in developing countries, and not enoughconsideration has been given to human resourcedevelopment. However, in order to understandhow ICTs impact upon skills development indeveloping countries, it is necessary to recognizethe situation that currently exists regarding theICT infrastructure. For example, in Africa, onein 100 people have access to a PC; the fewInternet Service Providers are comparativelyexpensive; power supplies may be unreliable(even non-existent) and telecommunications aresparse, with the 90 percent of the populationliving in rural areas having only 50 percent ofthe telephone lines (Jensen, 2002; Magara,2002).

Steinmueller (2001) suggests that many ICTusers are self-taught, and are capable of develop-ing an understanding of ICTs through the expe-rience of utilizing them. If this is the case, thencountries unable to provide extensive access toICTs are inevitably marginalized, as they are lesslikely to produce capable self-taught persons.However, Steinmueller’s suggestion doesindicate a more optimistic scenario for thosedeveloping environments progressively provid-ing access to ICTs, as it suggests that staff maybe able to gain at least some degree of expertisethrough self-learning.

A Nigerian Research Project

A research project based at Liverpool JohnMoores University (LJMU) investigated the pro-vision of electronic information resources inNigerian libraries. Focusing on Nigeria as anexample of a developing country, the projectexamined existing electronic informationresources and identified barriers obstructing theeffective provision of electronic information.The project commenced with a comprehensive


8

search of secondary data sources to ascertaincurrent thinking in the area and also to identifyexisting resources available online that addressthe provision of electronic information in devel-oping countries. Following this, fieldwork wascarried out in Nigeria by Dr Samuel Jimba, theWebmaster at the Office of the Governor, whoselocal knowledge and contacts were crucial to thesuccess of the project. The fieldwork consisted ofa questionnaire survey of information profes-sionals in national and academic libraries thatare leaders in the provision of electronic infor-mation resources and then follow-up interviewswith a sample of initial respondents. The ques-tionnaire responses established the nature ofdigital information within informationresources, information providers, awareness anduptake of national and international initiatives,digital resource users, expenditure, collabora-tion, and barriers to provision of electronicresources. Interviews examined these issues inmore depth, as well as looking into strategicapproaches, promotion and staff and usertraining and education.

Results from the project showed that hardly anyrespondents had formed or joined a consortiumfor purchasing. A major anticipated benefit ofbeing part of a consortium is rationalization andcost saving. The consortium culture and strategyfor libraries in developed countries is evident,and a consortium can comprise both large andsmall institutions and both public and academiclibraries. For example OhioLink — the OhioLibrary and Information Network in the US(http://www.ohiolink.edu/) — is a consortium ofcollege and university libraries in Ohio, as wellas the State Library. It serves 600,000 users over85 sites. In the UK, the M25 Consortium ofAcademic Libraries (http://www.m25lib.ac.uk/)has over 50 member institutions and 150member libraries amongst London-based, highereducation (and related) libraries within andaround the M25 orbital motorway region. Theconsortium also has a group, the CPD25(http://www.cpd25.ac.uk/index.html), whichdelivers training to all staff in academic librariesin the London area.

Of those Nigerian university libraries surveyed,only 38.5 percent were using NUNet, which is aproject to connect all the Nigerian universities ona wide area network and to the Internet. NUNetalready provides dial-up e-mail services to 27universities and inter-university centres acrossthe country. Take-up of NUNet is likely toimprove as the programme continues to develop.

The collaborative approach is identified asimportant for digital reference services. Thedevelopment of NUNet could encourage collab-oration between university libraries in Nigeria,which could eventually work towards collabora-tive digital reference services. Good communica-tion skills are vital in any collaborative orconsortium situation in order to ensure that thearrangements work for all involved.

However, the research findings demonstratedother issues that impinge on such developments.Most responding libraries (university andnational) ranked a lack of strategic approachnationally as either significant or highly signifi-cant, and all national libraries stated that a lackof strategic approach within the organizationwas significant. In this context it is relevant thatpolicy-making staff formed a small group ofusers of e-resources for university libraries andpolicy-making staff were not using e-resources inall the national libraries surveyed (46.2 percentin total). Thus it seems that the development ofcommunication skills could also be used to effectwith policy makers.

Furthermore, most of the responding librariesvoiced concern about a lack of ICT skills. Thislack permeates all levels. Comments included:

“those at policy level do not have computerliteracy”

[policy making staff have a] “serious lack ofawareness of computer capabilities andcomputer skills are low”

“unfortunately this institution does not offerofficial training — staff are however encour-aged to undertake training on their own”

“in this institution staff are encouraged totrain themselves”.

Other areas included the shortage of technologyliterate staff in libraries, the lack of skilledhuman resources to install and manage technol-ogy and networks and poor funding to attractsuch staff or to develop such skills in existingstaff. Responses to questions about the measuresrequired to support future use of e-resourcesdemonstrated an overwhelming need fortraining/education/skills. Frequently occurringcomments stressed the need for “increased ICTliteracy”, “training and retraining of staff”, etc.


9

In line with Steinmueller’s (2001) suggestionthat many ICT users are self taught, it wouldseem that, whilst free trials of e-resources (avail-able from various suppliers) could facilitate self-teaching, so too could the free digital referenceservices. Experimentation and competence inusing such free services could inform strategicproposals for future development of services andcould also inform user awareness and user edu-cation.

In Nigeria, user education in universities hasbeen summarized as uncoordinated, purelyintroductory and non-examinable. This scenariois replicated in most universities and other edu-cation institutions across Africa. Consequently“the meager information resources that onefinds in libraries are grossly under-utilized”(Mutula, 2004). A study at the University ofZambia to determine usage of the campusintranet and the Internet among academic staffrevealed that those who were not using thefacility cited, among other reasons, lack ofguidance on how to use the intranet and lack oftechnical know-how (Chifwepa, 2003). Theresearch found that implications for users werealso recognized, as skills to raise the awarenessof users were identified as an important impactfactor, and in terms such as “technical know-how of staff to stimulate the interest of users”.This demonstrates the need for development ofcommunication skills in terms of raising aware-ness and user education. These skills need to beexpanded towards collaborative ventures andcommunicating with management and policymakers.

However, a major problem needs consideration.The research project found that when question-ing barriers to the provision of e-resources, allresponding libraries cited accessibility problemsas either significant or highly significant in termsof bandwidth and power. There is no easysolution to this problem, but a recent reportcommissioned by the International Network forthe Availability of Scientific Publications(INASP, 2003) has sought to address this diffi-culty. One solution might be to press for lesscostly access through pressure on governmentsto open telecommunications markets, partner-ships across academic institutions to negotiatebest connectivity arrangements, and promotingtake-up of Open Source opportunities. Yet thereport also suggests a further approach, wherebybandwidth is carefully managed, protected andshared, both by users and by staff with appropri-ate technical expertise and understanding of user

and institutional needs. It goes on to outline thebenefits of enhanced training for users andmeasures to control undesirable usage. Librari-ans are encouraged to use training to encourageappropriate behaviour. This approach shifts theemphasis away from managing costs tomanaging the consumption of the service itself,so as to maximize its current benefit to users.Furthermore, the INASP report looks at thequestions librarians need to ask of ICT and man-agement in order to ensure their goals are met.

There are also opportunities to support trainingand skills needs outside developing environ-ments. In Australia, a programme at the Univer-sity of Queensland Library is designed to meetthe skills needs of information professionals indeveloping countries. Jordan (2003) suggeststhat barriers to adequate ICT skills training indeveloping countries arise from both lack of ITliteracy and the fact that many local libraryschools fail to integrate ICTs into their curricula.Goulding (2000) asserts that teaching depart-ments have a responsibility to support the devel-opment of appropriate skills to deliver moderninformation services by incorporating new skillsrequirements into syllabi. One solution is toencourage information professionals fromdeveloping countries to spend time learning inlibraries in developed countries:

They can engage in update courses, under-take targeted work experience placements,‘shadow’ library staff who are practitioners ofthe skills they need to acquire, participate inmanagement strategy meetings, observe andteach information skills for users — in short,observe, learn about, and practice any or allof the skills they need to acquire, in the en-vironment of a fully functioning library/information resource centre. (Jordan, 2003)

The University of Queensland runs such a pro-gramme, calling it the Cybrary (www.cybrary.uq.edu.au), with courses and activities cus-tomized to meet specific user needs. Forexample, client libraries may send staff for place-ment experience for up to three months, duringwhich time they acquire designated, tangibleskills. Training consists of a set of genericmodules as well as hands-on practical experi-ence. ‘Train the trainer’ courses assist partici-pants to increase their confidence so they canpass on skills they have learned to colleagues.Jordan stresses the importance of allowingadequate time for participants to learn andpractice new skills, and follow-up training


10

(perhaps by e-mail). It is also imperative thatparticipants can communicate their own needsand goals and are able quickly to implementaspects of their training on their return home.

Conclusions

The research identified many free electronicresources made available through internationalinitiatives. For example, INASP has librarysupport programmes including policy develop-ment, experience sharing and a travellingworkshop for university librarians (providingtraining on using e-resources). Yet 77 percent ofrespondents were not using these resources andonly one respondent was using INASP tosupport services. It was suggested that this wasbecause of lack of awareness:

“until recently most institutions and librarieswere not aware of these services”

“initially management was not interested,probably due to lack of knowledge”.

However, development of initiatives such asNUNet should help raise awareness about freeresources. Greater take-up of free resourceswould allow for experimentation and self-teaching of ICT skills, which, together withexpanded communication and collaborativeskills, may be cascaded to users.

References

24-hour reference. (2002) Library + Information Update,1 (7), 10.

ALA. (2004a) American Library Association: continuingeducation. Available online at: http://www.ala.org/ala/education/educationcareers.htm. Accessed 5May 2004.

ALA. (2004b) American Library Association: continuingeducation. Document available online at: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=home&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=6490. Accessed 5 May 2004.

Ashcroft, L. (2004) Developing competencies, criticalanalysis and personal transferable skills in futureinformation professionals. Library Review, 53 (2),82–88.

Biddiscombe, R. (2001) The development of informationprofessionals’ needs for Internet and IT skills: ex-periences at the University of Birmingham. Program,35 (2), Apr, 157–166.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (2004) Towardsequality of access: the role of public libraries inaddressing the digital divide. Document availableonline at: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/Down

loads/libraries/uslibraries/reports/TowardEqualityofAccess.pdf. Accessed 6 May 2004.

Chifwepa, V. (2003) The use of the intranet and internetby teaching staff of the University of Zambia. AfricanJournal of Library, Archives and InformationScience, 13 (2), 119–132.

CILIP. (2004a) Chartered Institute of Library andInformation Professionals: continuing professionaldevelopment. Available online at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/qualifications/cpd.html. Accessed 5 May2004.

CILIP (2004b) Chartered Institute of Library and Infor-mation Professionals: continuing professional devel-opment. Document available online at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/qualifications/Framework1.doc. Access-ed 5 May 2004.

Davis, Keith and Sally Scholfield (2004) “Beyond thevirtual shore”: an Australian digital reference servicewith a global dimension. Library Review, 53 (1),61–65.

Goulding, A. (2001) Never the twain shall meet –Changing syllabi of LIS schools, or, From cat andclass to intranet construction and does it matter?Impact, the Journal of the Career DevelopmentGroup, 4 (4), Jul/Aug, 65–6.

INASP. (2003) Optimising Internet bandwidth in devel-oping country higher education. Available onlineat: http://www.inasp.info/pubs/bandwidth/. Access-ed 13 May 2004.

Jensen, M. (2002) African Internet status: a report.Document available online at: http://www3.sn.apc.org/africa/afstat.htm. Accessed 6 May 2004.

Jordan, E. (2003) Cybrary skills in the tertiary environ-ment: in-service education for librarians from devel-oping countries. Australian Library Journal, 52 (1).Available online at: http://www.alia.org.au/publishing/alj/52.1/full.text/cybrary.skills.html. Accessed 7May 2004.

Lim, E. (1999) Human resource development for theinformation society. Asian Libraries, 8 (5), 82–100.

Lochore, Stephen. (2004) How good are the free digitalreference services? A comparison of library-basedand expert services. Library Review, 53 (1), 24–29.

Magara, E. (2002) Applications of digital libraries andelectronic technologies in developing countries:practical experiences in Uganda. Library Review, 51(5), 241–255.

Mutula, Stephen. (2004) IT diffusion in Sub-SaharanAfrica: implications for developing and managingdigital libraries. New Library World, 105 (7/8),281–289.

Norris, P. (2001) Digital divide: civic engagement, infor-mation poverty and the Internet worldwide. Cam-bridge University Press, Cambridge, England.

Nwakanma, C.D. (2003) Information technology com-petencies: identifying knowledge depths for libraryand information science education. CanadianJournal of Information and Library Science, 27 (4),75–6.

Sharp, K. (2001) Internet librarianship: traditional rolesin a new environment. IFLA Journal, 27 (2), 78–81.

Steinmueller, W.E. (2001) ICTs and the possibilities forleapfrogging by developing countries. InternationalLabour Review, 140 (2), 193–210.


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Stubbings, R. and A. McNab. (2001) ‘Why doesn’t itwork?’: managing user expectation in an electronicenvironment. In Graham, C., ed. Online Information2001. Proceedings. Oxford: Learned Information,129–133.

Wittwer, R. (2001) Special libraries – how to survive thetwenty–first century. Electronic Library, 19 (4),221–225.

Original paper no. 028 presented at the World Libraryand Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Confer-ence, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, insession 127, Reference Work. English original andFrench and Spanish translations available on IFLANETat: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.


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Introduction

The British Library is a major international research library, anational cultural institution, an essential resource for science,technology and innovation, and a key component of the UKlibrary system.

Figure 1 gives an overview of our five key audience groups(researchers; business; libraries; education; public) and asummary of the services we offer each group. As you can see, weare responsible for providing services across a wide spectrum ofneeds.

As a knowledge institution, the support of learning through ourcollections and services is a core element of our role, andeveryone who uses the Library’s collections and services is insome sense a learner, whether:

• the researcher in a pharmaceutical company who orders ajournal article from our collection to learn about a new scien-tific development

• the businessman who comes to look at market research reportson our electronic databases to help him write his business plan

• the schoolchild who visits our public exhibition galleries and isinspired by the historic documents on display.

Advances in technology are helping us to improve access andservice provision to all our audience groups — electronic articledelivery; virtual exhibitions online; improved online cataloguesand searching facilities, etc. In some sense, all of these could besaid to be examples of ‘e-learning’.

Lynne Brindley

Lynne Brindley has been the ChiefExecutive of The British Librarysince 2000. Since her appoint-ment, Lynne has led a majorstrategic repositioning and mod-ernisation programme to ensurethat the BL continues to providerelevant services to users in the21st century, and that the libraryis recognized for its contributionto research, innovation andculture. Lynne came to the BLfrom the University of Leedswhere she was Pro-Vice-Chancellor and University Librar-ian. She previously held positionsas Librarian and Director of Infor-mation Services at the LondonSchool of Economics, PrincipalConsultant at KPMG, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Director ofInformation Services at AstonUniversity. She may be contactedat: The British Library, 96 EustonRoad, London NW1 2DB, UK. Tel.+44 (0)20 7412 7262. E-mail:[email protected].

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The British Library and E-Learning


Figure 1. Our audiences and the services we offer them.

I would like to focus on e-learning in relation toour educational programme. This programme isdesigned to support the young learner (second-ary level upwards) and the independent adultlearner.

What Do We Mean When We TalkAbout E-Learning?

The Internet and electronic resources areopening up new kinds of learning opportunitiesand new models of learning. There are manydifferent forms, ranging from ‘formal’ e-learningclosely tied in to school curriculum or universitycourses, to more informal learning such aslifelong learners or hobbyists using the Internetto explore topics of interest.

What Does E-Learning Offer Us ThatIsn’t Possible With Traditional

Textbook-only Learning?

Individualized learning — technology can enablea more personalized learning experience tohelp support independent learning — forexample, students can elect when to take a teston materials they have been studying toprogress at their own pace, or gather resourcesrelated to their own interests to build up apersonal collection of learning materials. TheBL’s Collect Britain (which I will describe inmore detail later) encourages users to collectand build their own set of favourite resourcesfrom the images and texts on the site.

Group learning — online learning can incorpo-rate discussion forums or spaces for groups toshare their learning experiences. At the BL,our learning site features spaces for groups toshare their research projects in progress,perhaps exploring new avenues in response toquestions from other learners visiting the site.We also have an online teachers forum, whichincludes teaching resources, informationabout using the library and online discussions.Such group areas can help learners in develop-ing communication and team skills.

Virtual learning environments — online learningcan include virtual learning environments,such as e-conferences or access to experts.

Learner support — e-learning can also incorporateadvice, guidance, planning. For example, in theUK, the People’s Network is planning aNational Enquiry Service. At the BL we wouldneed to avoid replicating other kinds of learner

support, but we might want to help learners tonegotiate and make meaning from the informa-tion available on our own learning pages.

Flexible study — in practical terms, e-learningenables provision which is oriented to thelearner, online/offline, distance/campus, con-tinuous/interrupted.

Tools for teachers — online learning can alsobring customizable resources closer toteachers and lecturers. For example, the BL’s21st Century Citizen website provides down-loadable task sheets and resources for use inthe classroom.

What is our Overall Approach toLearning at the British Library?

Our mission is to:

• Be a centre of excellence in source-based andinvestigative learning, driving curriculuminnovation and supporting creative teaching.

• Inspire students to progress in order to makefull and creative use of the British Library’sresearch resources.

• Help transform the e-learning landscape byproviding digital images, texts and soundssupported by innovative pedagogy.

• Be a great place for a group visit, withengaging displays and with sessions led byprofessional cultural educators challenginglearners to think big and think differentlyabout ‘the world’s knowledge’ that is con-tained in our collections.

Our expertise at the BL in providing support forresearch informs our e-learning strategy. Ourhigh-level aim is to be a centre for excellence inresearch and source-based learning. We feel thatthis is where we can bring our particular knowl-edge and resources to bear and provide some-thing different and valuable to learners.

The unique and richly diverse materials in ourcollections are something that learners cannotaccess elsewhere. We are building our onlinelearning programmes around this unique content(for example historic documents or soundrecordings). Building on the diversity of materi-als in our collections, a common thread runningthrough our e-learning activities is to inspirethinking about diversity and cultural exchange.

We are using primary sources as the startingpoint for debate, for individual interpretationand for further research.

Lynne Brindley

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To draw our e-learning programmes back to ourcore identity of a research library, our mainfocus is on developing research skills throughindividual research. A focus on self-directedlearning is a good fit with the key nature ofresearch, and information literacy, relevant tothe BL as a research library. Generic skills thatenable learners to think critically, deal with com-plexity, identify problems, interpret images, textsand sounds, and acknowledge differences ofinterpretation, surround the engagement withprimary resources associated with researchlibraries. By focusing on these core skills, ourlearning materials will be relevant to both youngand adult learners.

We have a rich collection of e-resources forstudents, teachers and lifelong learners, whichincludes an archive of 1000 pages of curriculumresources – texts, images, sound and maps – tosupport the exploration of curriculum topicssuch as English and History.

Last year we launched a new online learningresource — 21st Century Citizen — to support theCitizenship curriculum (www.bl.uk/learning).The activities encourage an enquiry-basedapproach to learning and are based on themessuch as: British origins and movement;Language and identity; Democracy and docu-ments; Families; Utopia; Crime and community.

Students are asked to consider a range of his-torical evidence, linked to topical editorials. Forexample, in exploring language and identity,students can study source extracts such as pam-phlets, adverts and recordings of dialects, toexplore the role of language in citizenship aswell as their own attitudes to the ways otherswrite and speak.

Our learning site is also interactive. To supporttheir debates students are also able to take partin online polls and surveys. Students andteachers are encouraged to share their work andideas through the ‘Showcase’ and ‘Ask aquestion’ areas.

Another important web-based resource forlearners is ‘Collect Britain’ (www.collectbritain.co.uk).

This is the Library’s biggest digitization projectto date, made possible with GBP 3.25 millionfunding from the New Opportunities Fund.When the site is complete in autumn 2004 it willcontain over 100,000 images and 350 hours of

sound recordings, including photographs, manu-scripts, paintings, Victorian ephemera, soundrecordings, maps and newspapers, building arich picture of the UK’s regional history. Forexample, a recent addition to the site has beenrecordings of dialects from northern England,made in the 1950s and today, charting thechanges in the regional dialect. These can beenjoyed by academics researching languagechange or by the casual browser.

Visitors to the site can use the search facility tolook for resources relating to a particular placeor topic (and results can then be sorted by title,date, genre or collection). Visitors can alsoexplore the resources which have been speciallyselected and grouped thematically, including:

Special collections — including 19th centurylandscape engravings, London street maps, orrare early wax cylinder recordings of song,music and speech from five continents

Themed tours — on subjects including ‘LostGardens’ and ‘the East End of London’. Forexample, maps, drawings and eye-witnessaccounts chart the growth of the East End,from the villages and green fields where 17thcentury diarist Samuel Pepys took countrywalks, to the expansion of the docks and thesocial deprivations of 19th-century industrial-ization. The digital images are accompaniedby commentary setting them in context andyou can take part in online quizzes to testyour knowledge at the end of each tour.

Virtual exhibitions — or you can take a touraround one of our virtual exhibitions, such asthe ‘Literary Landscapes’ exhibition. Contem-porary views and maps are used to bring tolife the topographical backgrounds to worksby six favourite classic authors, includingChaucer and Wordsworth.

To give you a flavour of the kinds of resourceswe will be developing in future, we are about tobegin a project to digitize further materials forlearners.

With funding of GBP 3 million from the JointInformation Systems Committee we are able toproceed with two major digitization projects.The funding will enable us to make available indigital format parts of our newspaper and soundcollection.

This will be a valuable contribution to our web-based resources, and the items will be of interestacross the learning spectrum, from Higher


15

Education through to Further Education,students and lifelong learners.

We plan to digitize some 1.8 million pages of19th century newspapers. This will neatly com-plement our digitization of newspapers from ourBurney collection of 17th–19th century news-papers.

The funding will allow us to digitize nearly 4000hours of music and spoken word from the UKand overseas. Examples of content to be madeavailable include: performances of Beethovenstring quartets, offering the opportunity ofresearch into the evolution of performancepractice; interviews with UK jazz players andpromoters and visual art interviews fromthe1990s.

The final choice of content will be made in con-sultation with the academic community — wehave two panels who will advise on the finalselection.

Whilst we can reach a wider audience via ouronline learning programmes, we recognize theimportance of real-world, experiential learningand I would like briefly to mention this here. Weoffer onsite education programmes at theLibrary, and are also working in partnership todevelop educational resources for use in class-rooms.

To take one example, I’d like to tell you aboutsome of the learning activities and resources wedeveloped around the Lindisfarne Gospels. TheGospels is one of Britain’s greatest artisticmasterpieces. Written between 715 and 720, themanuscript was executed in the Monastery ofLindisfarne, on Holy Island, off the coast ofmodern-day Northumberland in North-EastEngland. It is famous for the superb quality andamazingly intricate design of its decoratedpages.

Last year we staged a major exhibition on theGospels at the BL. Students were able to visit theexhibition and to take part in our onsite work-shops on ‘Reading Patterns’. The workshopdevelops children’s visual literacy skills by pro-posing the idea of pattern as code in differenthistorical and cultural contexts. Children workwith an artist to find visual patterns in a range ofworld sources including illustrations in Gospelsand Qur’ans, photographs, maps, stamps andmusic. The workshop was an excellent partnerto the exhibition, but is a core part of our

ongoing education programme, as it focuses ongeneric research and interpretation skills.

We also ran two summer schools on ‘readingpatterns’ for students from a local school. Eachweek-long course involved 20 students, agedbetween 8 and 10 years. The summer schoolswere part of a larger ‘summer university’ in thelocal area which aimed to give students an inten-sive learning experience using ‘acceleratedlearning’ — a mixture of physical, musical andvisual ways of learning as well as words.

We have also developed ‘resource boxes’ forschools (ages 5–18), working in partnership withthe North East Museums Libraries and ArchivesCouncil. The resource boxes contain a variety ofmaterials inspired by the Lindisfarne Gospels.These include lesson plans, classroom ideas,images, games and even a CD with sounds ofwildlife from Holy Island. They have beencreated and assembled by a North East educa-tion consultant, who worked closely withlibraries, museums and schools in the region.

The boxes are being distributed to museums andschool library services across the North East.Any school can borrow them from their localresource centre. The project is one of a range ofregional programmes whereby we incorporateBL expertise with local knowledge to makeresources more accessible and relevant to usersin the regions.

To coincide with the exhibition we alsoproduced a wonderful facsimile copy of theGospels which is currently touring aroundpublic libraries in the North East. Because it is afacsimile copy, people can actually handle thepages, and it is proving an extremely popularexhibit.

We also have a virtual version of the exhibitiononline (which you can still visit), with imagesand commentary. Some of the most beautifullyillustrated pages can be seen on our website andpages can be turned in a realistic way with themouse (using ‘turning the pages’ technology).

To provide an inclusive learning programme weneed to ensure that we provide learningresources and experiences which are accessibleto a wide range of informal learning groups (seeFigure 2).

To date, our educational programmes have beendeveloped with formal, discrete groupings of

Lynne Brindley

16

learners in mind — such as primary or secondaryschool children (some of the key groups on thelearning spectrum are shown at the top of thediagram). Currently, we provide professionallyled programmes for schools and our resourcesare used by the Higher Education community(typically postgraduate researchers and academ-ics) to underpin their research.

We want to be able to provide education pro-grammes that are relevant to a broad spectrumof learners. Inclusivity is high on the agenda ofgovernment and other funding bodies, so it isalso important that we can demonstrate we aremeeting their objectives if we are to succeed inraising funding for new programmes.

In practical terms this means that we may needextra resources to develop and run programmesfor these different groups. We also need to thinkabout how we shape our programmes andmaterials in order to appeal to these otherlearning communities.

Something that we think will help us to addressthe question of accessibility is the new frame-work which was launched by the Museums,Libraries and Archives Council in March thisyear.

Inspiring Learning for All is a vision for accessi-ble learning in museums, archives and libraries.It is founded on four broad and overlappingprinciples, which together describe the charac-teristics of an accessible and inclusive museum,archive or library. These are shown in Figure 3.

The framework is designed to stimulate practi-tioners working in museums, archives andlibraries to focus on and improve the way thatlearning is supported by helping them to:

• evaluate what the organization does against aset of best practice processes

• support learning more effectively both on andoff site

• evaluate the outcomes in terms of the learningand awareness of users

• demonstrate their commitment to supportingand enabling learning as a lever to fundingand recognition

Inspiring Learning for All adopts a broad defi-nition of learning: ‘learning’ is not used only insense of formal curriculum, but in the sense ofeveryone accessing information, culturalresources or entertainment in order to developas individuals. Inspiring Learning for All rec-ognizes that people learn in different ways andrequire a variety of stimuli to engage them inthe learning process. It stresses that museums,libraries and archives need to: remove barriersto access; cater for individual learning styles(not just ages); create exciting environments;use innovative methods; value learningexperts, consult with users and reach out tonew users.

We are currently assessing how best we canapply the framework across the Library. It is anapproach that libraries and museums can applyto all aspects of their work — whether e-learningor onsite exhibitions.


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Figure 2. Challenge of reaching informal groups.

I hope that this has given you a flavour of someof the activities and programmes that we aredeveloping at the British Library. All of theonline resources that I’ve mentioned can befound at our website — www.bl.uk (learningresources are at www.bl.uk/learning).

To finish, I’d like to leave you with some ques-tions which the new e-learning possibilities raisefor all of us.

How does e-learning change the educationalrole of national libraries?

• For the BL, e-learning provides us with newopportunities to engage with wider audiences.

• We can make the resources we have stretchfurther – it is viable for us to reach students,lifelong learners and the general public viadigital channels, in a way that is not possiblethrough a single physical location. We canrepurpose work; e.g. the digitization of amedieval manuscript — initially for scholarlyresearch — can also benefit students who canuse the source material online to studychanging language, or meaning throughimages.

• Therefore there is a greater responsibility onus to take advantage of these new possibilitiesto open up the national collection and,through appropriate selection or interpreta-tion, make it accessible to a wide range ofpeople (not just a national audience either, butinternationally).

Should national libraries interpret theirheritage collections as museums do?

• We believe that it is important to provide somekind of interpretation and guidance alongsideour resources — for example, we arrangematerials in themes and topics and alsosuggest choices of tasks and learning goals.However, we do not want the learning experi-ence to be passive. We want to help the learnerbecome an active interrogator.

Should libraries deliver learning programmesdirectly or let others package the library’sresources?

• We believe it is important that we interpret BLsources in an inspiring way, in order to showother people what is available and what ispossible. However, we are also keen to workin partnership with others to develop educa-tional resources from our content.

• By developing our own programmes, we canshape something distinctive which drawsupon our unique strengths.

• We believe that it is important we develop ourown skills in the interpretation of sources, sothat libraries will be used to the full in future.

Original paper no. 102 presented at the World Libraryand Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Confer-ence, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, insession 75, National Libraries. English original andFrench and Spanish translations available on IFLANETat: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.

Lynne Brindley

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Figure 3. A framework for accessible learning.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried inthis world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy isperfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is theworst form of Government except all those other forms that havebeen tried from time to time.

Winston Churchill, Speech, House of Commons,November 11, 1947.

Democracy – a Mutual Responsibility

A comprehensive and well-developed system of informationabout society is a fundamental requirement in a democracy. It isa precondition for an active dialogue between citizens and theirelected representatives. As the principal representative of thepeople, the Parliament has a special responsibility for promotinginformation about society in general and for providing impartialinformation without party political bias about Parliament and itswork. Knowledge of Parliament and our society is a fundamentalprerequisite for citizens in exercising influence. Good knowledgeof how Parliament and society work is the basis for commitmentand responsibility. The citizen’s trust in the democratic institu-tions is vital for a democracy to function.

The information activities of the Parliament of Sweden, theRiksdag, take their starting-point in the fundamental rightsrelating to freedom of expression and public access to informa-tion stipulated in the Swedish Constitution. These laws constitutean obligation for the Riksdag to provide information and a rightfor the public (media, organizations, the education system,agencies, businesses etc.) to obtain information about the role, thework and the decisions of the Riksdag. The Riksdag Administra-tion must therefore be accessible, transparent and service-minded. The media and other distributors of information are tobe actively supported in their task of informing the public.

Declining Participation in General Elections

In the western democracies young people tend to take democracyfor granted. Democracy has, after many years of struggle, givenpeople a relatively good standard of life. The media — the fourthbranch of government — are today the principal source for infor-mation about society and the work of the Parliament. But politi-cians many times are looked upon with criticism and distrust,both by the media and by the electorate.

Swedes have been regarded as firm keepers of democracy. Wehaven’t had a war since 1809. The general right to vote for allcitizens alike was obtained in 1921. But in the last general elec-tions in Sweden (2002) voter participation declined to 80 percent

Margareta Brundin

Margareta Brundin is SeniorLibrarian and Deputy Head of theOffice for Information and Knowl-edge Management, Parliament ofSweden. She has been a memberof several groups concerned withspecial libraries, terminology andstandards in Sweden and amember of the IFLA Section onLibrary and Research Services forParliaments, 1999–2003 andits Chair 2001–2003. Contactaddress: Swedish Parliament,SE–100 12 Stockholm, Sweden.Tel. +46 8 7864151. Fax: +468 786 5871. E-mail: [email protected].

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Democracy Building Activities in the SwedishRiksdag: the role of a parliamentary library


— the lowest figure since 1958. Voter participa-tion has been declining gradually since 1979.The number of young persons voting for the firsttime has decreased even more. The lower thelevel of education these young persons have theless interest they show to go to the polls. And theelections for the Parliament of the EuropeanUnion (EU) in May this year gave a severe shockto Swedish politicians — only 37.8 percent ofeligible Swedes voted, less than the 41.6 percentwho voted the last time. Sweden has been amember of the European Union since 1995, butstill this fact is not really accepted by manycitizens. But is the best course of action for thecitizen really to ignore politics and elections?

What can be done to change these trends? Whatcan Parliament do? And are these problemsreally something for the Parliamentary Libraryand the rest of the administration to tackle? Per-sonally, I think so. Parliament has an importantsupporting role to play in the education ofcitizens and the training of distributors of infor-mation like journalists, teachers and librarians.

In what follows I will describe the activities ofthe Library and the other departments of theRiksdag in this field. I will also mention whatsome other Parliaments do to enhance com-munication with the public.

Information and CommunicationActivities of the Riksdag

The Swedish Riksdag is a single chamber with349 members from seven political parties. It hassixteen committees plus a special committee forEU issues. Around 550 non-political staffwork for the Parliament. The party secretariatsemploy around 400 persons, mostly politicalsecretaries.

One year ago, in 2003, the Library and otherdepartments of the Riksdag working with infor-mation and knowledge were reorganized andtaken out from under the parliamentary Admin-istrative Office. They now form a new officedirectly under the Riksdag’s General Secretary:the Office for Information and Knowledge Man-agement. This gives the Library and the otherrelated departments a more prominent part toplay towards external groups of special interestto the Riksdag. One of the goals of the Riksdagis to be as open as possible towards the mediaand the public, and this is also one of the mainobjectives for the new office:

• to contribute actively to increasing the public’s— and especially young people’s — knowledgeof and interest in the Riksdag and its work

• to satisfy the need among different segmentsof the public for accurate and easily accessibleinformation about the work and decisions ofthe Riksdag.

The organization of democracy-enabling activi-ties varies from one country’s parliament toanother’s. In many parliaments the Libraryorganizes nearly all public relations contactswith the surrounding world — one good exampleis the Parliamentary Library of Canada, anotheris the House of Commons Library in the UK. InSweden this is not the case. Many of the democ-racy-building activities of the Riksdag are organ-ized by the Information Department. Indeed, thefirst public relations activities of our parliamentwere started in the 1960s by the Secretariat ofthe Chamber, and an information departmentwas set up only in the early 1980s.

The Information Department today is responsi-ble for

• a telephone service for the general public,media, organizations, companies, publicauthorities and educational establishments

• press contacts and service to the media• advertisements in the press• courses and training for teachers, journalists,

information officers, etc.• school visits, primarily from upper secondary

school and adult education classes• guided tours for the public• study visits from organizations, public author-

ities, etc.• work experience programmes for school

pupils• exhibitions, fairs, open days, Youth Parliament

etc.• production of information materials for

external and internal users, including teachingmaterials, fact sheets, books, brochures, a staffjournal etc.

• electronic publication of the Riksdag’s docu-ments, databases and other information aboutthe Riksdag.

Press and Information Services

The Press and Information Office answers over25,000 telephone enquiries per year from thepublic, media, authorities, organizations andcompanies. The section’s information officersrespond to questions about current business in

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the Riksdag, the scheduling of debates, results ofvotes in the Chamber and the implications ofdecisions. Other questions may for exampleconcern the Riksdag’s working procedures, theformation of Government, referendums, elec-tions and distribution of seats. The telephoneservice is open on weekdays. Most questions areanswered over the telephone but an increasingnumber are answered by e-mail.

The section is responsible for issuing pressreleases, dealing mainly with current business,committee reports, forthcoming activities in theChamber and the engagements of the Speaker.

A brief summary of the decisions taken in theChamber is compiled and sent at regular inter-vals via fax or e-mail, primarily to the media.

Every Friday the Press and Information Officecompiles the Riksdag business agenda withinformation about forthcoming business in theChamber, new Government bills, public commit-tee hearings, etc. The Riksdag business agenda isdistributed internally and externally to Govern-ment offices, public authorities, the media, etc.

Press releases, the summary of decisions and theRiksdag business agenda are all available inSwedish on the Riksdag website.

Twice a year a two-day course about the work ofthe Riksdag is held for journalists. Courses arealso arranged for journalism students and publicsector information officers.

A telephone service with a voice answer-backfunction provides extensive information aboutactivities in the Riksdag. Among other things, itis possible to listen directly to debates in theChamber, to public committee hearings or topress conferences. Recorded messages also giveup-to-date information about current business inthe Chamber, etc. Via a fax-on-demand service itis possible to order agendas and lists of speakersfor the current week, the Riksdag businessagenda, summaries of decisions, press releases,etc. Service to the media is available on aseparate number — journalists can simply phonein free of charge and listen to the debate inprogress in the Chamber. Various televisionchannels use the parliamentary recordings of theplenary proceedings free of charge.

Some 30 journalists representing the majornewspaper, radio, television and news com-panies have offices in the Riksdag. The journal-

ists receive services aimed at facilitating theirwork in the Riksdag.

School and Visiting Services

The goal for which the Riksdag’s School andVisiting Services strive is to give visitors,especially young people, knowledge of how toinfluence decisions before they are taken in theSwedish Parliament. They are also informedabout the democratic process and about thework and conditions of being an MP.

Activities of one kind or another are organizedby the booking office for around 100,000 visitorsa year. These activities cover educational pro-grammes and include guided tours.

School groups

In the school unit former teachers work asschool information officers. They work withstudents from the age of 16, but also with adultstudents. The visiting class receives lessonsabout the Constitution, the historical back-ground of the Swedish Parliament, the law-making process, etc. in a specially equippedclassroom. Sometimes they look at a video andafter that they visit the chamber from the publicgallery and listen to a debate; often they also geta chance to speak to a Member for about half anhour. The whole visit takes about 1.5 hours. TheRiksdag usually receives 20 classes a week.

For younger students (14–15 years old), specialprogrammes of about 40 minutes are arranged.They get basic information about the work of theParliament and they visit the public gallery.There are six to eight classes of younger studentsper week.

Special groups

For other groups, guided tours through the dif-ferent parts of Parliament are arranged. Fifteenpart-time guides are employed to take care ofthese tours. Some days of the week are reservedfor assistance to MPs’ privately booked visitors.

General public

During the parliamentary session guided toursfor the general public are arranged on Saturdaysand Sundays both in Swedish and in English.There are also special ‘art-in-the-Riksdag’ tourson Mondays. During the summer, guided toursfor Stockholm tourists are arranged every

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weekday in Swedish, English, German andFrench.

Educational material

Different kinds of educational materials, such asbooks, fact sheets, brochures, overhead trans-parencies, videos and CD-ROMs, are published,especially for upper secondary schools. The aimis to provide schoolteachers with educationalresources to increase pupils’ interest in politicsand democracy. Law-making is often a complexprocess and requires pedagogically designededucational materials to be properly understood.

Training

Courses about the organization and work of Par-liament are arranged for teachers and universitystudents. About 1,200 persons participate everyyear. The courses for teachers are very popular andthere are always lots of applications to participate.The courses are inexpensive for the participantsbecause the Parliament considers teachers aprimary target group and subsidizes these courses.A course can last one day, three days or even fourdays. Half-day courses are often arranged forstudents at university level. The course programconsists mainly of lectures, talks and discussionswith MPs and listening to debates in the chamber.

Exhibitions

Generally one or two big educational exhibitionsare created every year.

Student trainees

Each year about 60 upper secondary schoolpupils can accompany MPs in their work for aweek or two. In cooperation with the MP andwith regard to the trainee’s age and interests, theInformation Department arranges studyprograms, to take place when the MPs areoccupied with their work in the standing com-mittees. The sessions in the committees are notopen to the public and the trainees are conse-quently not allowed to be present. The Librarytakes part in these programs by arranginghistoric political walks in the Old Town ofStockholm. The young trainees really appreciatethe opportunity of being in the centre of politics.

Youth Parliament

Many Parliaments arrange Youth Parliaments.On the 19th of March this year, 349 young high

school students from all parts of Sweden met inthe Riksdag for the fourth Swedish Youth Parlia-ment. These delegates were gathered to practiseas members of Parliament for one day. They hadbeen preparing themselves for this day togetherwith their teachers and fellow students for half ayear beforehand. After the Speaker hadwelcomed them to the Riksdag, they gathered inparliamentary committees to discuss the differ-ent subjects on the agenda. Under the guidanceof one MP and one officer from each committeethey discussed the motions sent in to the YouthParliament from schools all over Sweden. Adebate and voting in the Chamber followed.Then they had an opportunity to ask questionsto Members of the Government. An opportunityto meet with Members of Parliament concludedthe day.

Educational Centre

An interactive educational centre will open inthe Riksdag next year. The idea has beenborrowed from the Danish Parliament, theFolketing, where the program is called ‘Poli-tician for a Day’. The Centre in the Folketing issituated in the basement of the Parliament, andis a high technology mini-parliament withchamber, committee rooms, library, MPs offices,etc. Here pupils from grades 8 and 9 can takepart in an advanced role-play reflecting thepolitical life of an MP.

Publications and Electronic Information

The Publications and Electronic InformationSection is responsible for the Riksdag website,the public databases (Rixlex), the Riksdag’sIntranet, graphic design, electronic informationand production of the Citizens’ Guide.

The Riksdag website (www.riksdagen.se) containsinformation about the work of the Riksdag,current business, members, the Riksdag and theEU, etc. Much of this information is also availablein English. A subscription service is available formembers of the public wishing to receive pressreleases, the Riksdag business agenda and asummary of decisions taken by the Riksdag.When the Riksdag is in session, the website hasan average of 180,000 visitors per month.

The Riksdag’s public databases (Rixlex) areavailable via the website. Rixlex contains full-text databases dating back as far as the late1980s. It also contains a directory of all themembers of the Riksdag.

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All printed and electronic information materialis given a special graphic design. The Sectionoften functions as an internal consultant forother departments when they wish to produceinformation material. Material for external targetgroups includes a presentation brochure aboutthe Riksdag in several languages, fact sheets anda directory of the members of the Riksdag. Abrochure entitled Schools and the Riksdagpresents teaching materials for different schoollevels. Much, but not all, of the Riksdag’s infor-mation material is free of charge. Informationmaterial and parliamentary documents, i.e.Government bills, private members’ motions,committee reports, records, etc. can be pur-chased from the Riksdag’s Information Centre inStockholm or ordered via the website.

The Citizens’ Guide is an easily comprehensibleguide to the rights and obligations, laws andregulations that apply in Swedish society. It alsoprovides practical information on topics such ashow to start a business, how to apply for abuilding permit, what rules apply in the case ofindustrial injury etc. It is continuously updated.The Citizens’ Guide is available in Swedish onthe Internet: www.samhallsguiden.riksdagen.se.

The EU Information Centre of the Riksdag

The task of the EU Information Centre is to keepthe general public informed about the EuropeanUnion and Sweden as a member state. The activ-ities are focused on answering questions aboutthe EU from the general public. Responsibilitiesalso consist in producing and distributing infor-mation material. The information concerns bothbasic facts and issues of current importance. Theinformation provided by the EU InformationCentre must be non-partisan and politicallyimpartial, in accordance with requirements laiddown in the parliamentary guidelines for allinformation activities.

The public can contact the EU InformationCentre in several ways. The most common wayis via the Riksdag website or by telephone. Thetelephone service is open weekdays for 5 hoursevery day. Information material can also beordered via a 24-hour answering machineservice. The call is free of charge when phoningwithin Sweden. The number of questionsreceived by fax and e-mail is growing every year.Questions can also be forwarded by post.

The material produced by the EU InformationCentre is in most cases available in both printed

and electronic form. The ambition is to make itpossible to access all needed information on thewebsite. Some of the material is also available inEnglish. The Centre publishes fact sheets,brochures and other types of publications.

Från Riksdag & Departement

Från Riksdag & Departement is a special journalcontaining news about the business of theRiksdag and the Government and is publishedevery week when Parliament is sitting. It isintended to keep central and local governmentemployees, the private sector, organizations andthe public abreast of what is going on in theRiksdag, the Government offices and the EU. Itcovers topics of current interest, inquiries andGovernment bills. It also describes the progressof various proposals in the Riksdag, parliamen-tary debates and decisions, and how affairsrelating to the EU are being dealt with. Experi-enced journalists write the articles. Från Riksdag& Departement has around 20,000 subscribers,and is also issued in audio format as a talkingnewspaper.

The Research Service

The Research Service of the Riksdag has nospecial activities directed towards the public. Ofcourse they do a lot of research work for MPsthat these can use in their contacts with theirconstituencies, but the research reports andInfoPMs are not available to the public.

People with Special Needs

For many years the Riksdag has tried to improvethe general public’s access to the work of theParliament. A couple of years ago a discussionstarted as how to help persons with specialneeds, i.e. persons with physical handicaps likeblindness or deafness, but also people withdyslexia and other learning problems, to under-stand and follow the work of the Parliament.Also, Sweden has an immigrant population ofaround 10 percent, many of whom have difficul-ties understanding the Swedish language. Whatcould be done for these groups? For many yearssome of the Riksdag material has been publishedon cassettes, but what more would be needed toreach these groups?

Discussions started with the Ombudsman fordisabled people, with immigrant and handi-capped persons’ organizations. These were giventhe opportunity to go through the website and


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the printed material of the Riksdag, to criticizeand give advice. This led the Riksdag to changethe formats and versions of the information bothon its website and in its print publications.

As a result, all staff of the Riksdag working withinformation have been educated in interculturalcommunication and how to present material forpersons with special needs. Easy-to-readversions of the brochures about Parliament andits work were published and special areas foreasy-to-read information and information in signlanguage were added to the website. A specialaudio function that lets the user listen to theinformation on the website was created. Textwas added to the videocassettes of the Riksdagand some of the guided tours were led by inter-preters of sign language. All televised broadcastsof debates in the chamber include interpretationin sign language, and there have been requestsfor subtitled debates in the future. Furthermore,a project to publish all information brochures ofthe Parliament in some of the immigrant lan-guages has started this year (2004).

Information Centre

The Information Centre of the Riksdag wascreated in 1995 and used to be located close tothe main entrance of the Riksdag. As of August2004 the Information Centre has been reopenedin a new form and in a new place — the entrancehall of the Library. This will make it possible forthe Information Centre and the Library to workvery closely together and easier for the public tofollow the work of the Riksdag. We hope both tospark a greater interest in the activities of theRiksdag and to create a new meeting point forthe public and members of the Riksdag. TheInformation Centre has up till now receivedapproximately 45,000 visits per year. The Libraryhas more than 100,000 visitors per year, so thecooperation will probably be fruitful.

The new Information Centre will sell parliamen-tary documents, official government reports andsouvenirs. The public can follow the debates inthe Chamber on a wide-screen television andmultimedia work stations are available foraccessing the Riksdag website and for searchingthe Riksdag’s collection of public databases,Rixlex, or viewing presentations about theRiksdag and its history.

Once a week when the Riksdag is in session aninformal meeting is to be held in the readingcorner of the Information Centre, giving

members of the public the opportunity to meetand discuss with politicians. The reading corneralso has current information about the partygroups in the Riksdag. Program activities andexhibitions concerning the work of the Riksdagare also arranged at the Information Centre.

And, finally, what does the Library of theRiksdag do to build democracy? In my opinionthe most important democracy-enabling activityof the Library is its open door policy towards thepublic.

A Riksdag Library open to the public

The function of the Riksdag Library when it wasfounded in 1851 was initially to serve onlymembers of the Riksdag and their staff, togetherwith the committees and agencies of the Riksdag.At the end of the 19th century, representatives ofthe governmental bodies were granted permis-sion to use the services. Over the years, closecontacts developed with the libraries of the min-istries, all situated in the near neighbourhood. Asthe collections of the library to some extentlacked a counterpart in other Swedish libraries,the Riksdag decided that scholars should beallowed access to the library. In 1918, when thelibrary became one of the agencies of theRiksdag, it was formally declared open toresearchers and advanced students. This hasalways been interpreted in a broad sense and inreality it meant that the library was open to thepublic. The Riksdag Library participates in closecooperation with university libraries, speciallibraries of various kinds and the public librariesof Sweden. The Riksdag Library is furthermore adepository library for documents of many inter-national organizations and has agreed to keepthis material available to the public. Thus thelibrary is a parliamentary library, but it also hasobligations towards other groups and the generalpublic. In 1983 direct access for the public fromthe street into the library was opened.

The Riksdag Library is, of course, first of allresponsible for the provision of information andknowledge to members of the Riksdag and totheir staff, by acquiring and making availablefactual and briefing material. But it also has asone of its aims to help to create openness andaccess to the work of the Swedish Parliament,and to promote greater knowledge of andinterest in the Riksdag and its work. The Libraryis responsible for informing the general publicabout the official materials it holds and forkeeping them accessible to the public.

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Many parliamentary libraries say that they areopen to the public, but very few are open to allmembers of the public without any previousapplication or notification. Being paid for by taxmoney, parliamentary libraries should, in mymind, be open to those who are paying for them.And nowhere are librarians with a deeperknowledge about parliamentary affairs andpolitics to be found! Five hours every weekdaythe public may use the Riksdag library. To theRiksdag it is, of course, open all day.

The Finnish Eduskunta Library, the Library ofthe Italian Camara dei Deputati and theNational Assembly Library of South Korea areother parliamentary libraries that I know workwith the same model. The Finnish EduskuntaLibrary is an excellent example: it is open from0900–1800 Mondays and Fridays and the rest ofthe week from 0900–2000. It is even open to thepublic 0900–1500 on Saturdays! I think this is amodel for the rest of our parliamentary librariesto follow!

In March this year (2004) I had the greatpleasure to visit the Italian Parliament and itswonderful library. The Library is completelyopen to the public, with direct access, and offerstruly beautiful surroundings for students andother members of the public to study the parlia-mentary documents and other subjects of thecollections. The Italian Parliament opened itslibrary to the general public in December 1988.They have developed and gradually extended thefollowing services to the general public:

• guidance to legislative research and to Italian,foreign and EU documents

• assistance in bibliographic research, catalogueconsultation and using the databases and theCD-ROM service of the Library

• Internet access and assistance in searchingnetworked electronic resources

• training sessions on legislative and juridicalresearch, with special reference to the parlia-mentary documentation available on Internet

• photocopying and reproduction services

And an extensive assistance is available in thereading rooms from the entire staff workingrotating shifts.

Library user analysis

Who are the visitors to a parliamentary libraryfrom the public and how often and why do theyvisit? Only two months ago, in Spring 2004, the

Riksdag Library did a survey among the peoplevisiting it from outside.

Mainly the visitors are young people: 48 percentare students between 20 and 30 years of age, 27percent are between 30 and 40. A total of 71percent come to the Library on account of theiruniversity studies. 18 percent come to solveproblems related to their work (lawyers andemployees of the courts in the neighbourhood)and 12 percent use the Library for researchpurposes. About one-third — 33 percent — of theexternal visitors come to the Library everymonth and as many as 27 percent come once aweek or more. The remaining 40 percent visitthe Riksdag Library once or twice a year.

What information do they seek?

As many as 43 percent seek information aboutolder parliamentary documents and decisions,while 28 percent are looking for informationabout current parliamentary issues. Some 39percent of the public visitors are looking forgeneral information about society: on environ-mental matters, about the European Union,about Swedish social issues, about internationalpolitics and laws; or just want to read the peri-odicals. Only a very few are interested in factsabout how Parliament works. As few as 6percent come to borrow a certain book. Mostlythe students are looking for course books, lawbooks, case law, historical material and researchreports. Some of the outside visitors simply usethe Riksdag Library as their working place whenin Stockholm.

Website and information

The Library has invested much more effort in theIntranet than in the extranet, its public website.I am quite proud of the Riksdag Library’sIntranet and all the digital information ourmembers and staff can find there, but that liesoutside the scope of this presentation. There is aspecial smaller Intranet for visitors from thepublic to use in the library. They can search andorder from the library catalogue, of course, butthey also have access to some of the major lawdatabases of Sweden.

The Riksdag Library’s public Internet site will berenewed at the end of this year. There is a bigproject going on to update all the websites of theRiksdag, and the Library web is part of thiswork. Already today the public can search andorder material, so that it is waiting for them


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when they arrive, and they can also extend theirloans. The website gives all of Sweden access tothe Library, and that is quite democratic.

Indexing

Librarians index all official documents of theRiksdag. The Library publishes one of thepublic’s most important gates to the Riksdagdocuments — the printed index. At the momenta project for automatic indexing of the docu-ments with the help of the search systemAutonomy is in its final stages.

Training of librarians

Libraries and librarians in Sweden are a veryimportant target group for parliamentary informa-tion delivery. The staff of the Riksdag Libraryconsists of only 40 persons, and very few of thecitizens of Sweden have the opportunity to usethe Library personally. We have to use otherlibraries and librarians as retail dealers of infor-mation about the Riksdag. That is why we twice ayear arrange training courses for librarians fromall over Sweden. The duration of the course isthree days. The Riksdag pays for the stay: twonights at a hotel in Stockholm. We also arrange adinner for the participants and members of Par-liament in the Riksdag restaurant. But the mainobjective is that when the librarians leave Stock-holm, they shall know everything that is worthknowing about the Parliament, the building, thehistory, the documents, the proceedings. Librari-ans from all types of libraries (public, university,special) can apply for the course, but librariansworking with the social sciences and with parlia-mentary documents have the best chance to getselected. The Riksdag Library training course islooked upon as one of the best educational oppor-tunities for librarians in Sweden, and it helped usget the ‘Library of the Year’ award in 2002.

Regional information services

In January 2004 the Riksdag Library in Stock-holm started regional Riksdag InformationCentres in three other major cities of Sweden:Malmö, Gothenburg and Sundsvall. The RiksdagLibrary picked up this idea from the Finnish par-liamentary library, which did something similaras a project with several Finnish provinces someyears ago, but we have tried to polish and refinethe concept.

For several years the opening of regionalRiksdag Information Centres in other parts of

the country had been suggested in privatemembers’ bills. This led us to investigate how torealize the idea at a low cost to the Riksdag.Every city of Sweden has a very good publiclibrary. As a librarian I thought that using thesepublic libraries would be the best solution. Weselected three major cities, one in the very south,one in the west and one in the north, for thisregional Riksdag Information Centre project,which will run for two years. If all turns out well,some new cities will be selected, and the projectwill be transformed into a current activity of theRiksdag.

The public library selected as host has to offer agood space where the Riksdag can set up aregional centre. The Riksdag pays for the equip-ment, hardware, furniture, etc. and the publiclibrary puts staff at the centre’s disposal. Thisstaff — two librarians from each library — isinvited to the Riksdag for two or three days twicea year. They get a thorough education in how theRiksdag works and they meet with MPs from theconstituency. They also learn all about the pub-lications of the Riksdag and they get to practiseboth in the Riksdag Library and at the Informa-tion Department. They meet a special contactperson at the Riksdag, whom they can call on forhelp whenever they need it. The Riksdag pays fortheir stay in Stockholm during the trainingsessions. The public library is in charge of thelocal marketing of the centre. During weekendsMembers of Parliament from the region areinvited to use the centre as their meeting pointwith their constituency.

On 9 February 2004 the three regional Riksdaginformation centres were inaugurated. Manyother public libraries from different parts ofSweden are waiting for their chance to be partof this project.

Conclusion

These are some of the ideas practised in theSwedish Parliament and I am eager to hearabout the experiences of other parliaments andtheir libraries in activities that enable democ-racy.

And remember that this work of democracy-building which we do is no small matter. A wiseman observed, “You can never have a revolutionin order to establish a democracy. You must havea democracy in order to have a revolution.”(G.K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles, 1955.)

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When we work to build democracy through ourparliamentary libraries, we are working to helpcitizens change their world.

Original paper no. 166 presented at the World Libraryand Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Confer-ence, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, insession 73, Library and Research Services for Parlia-ments. English original and Spanish translation avail-able on IFLANET at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.


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Unreliable Research: are librarians liable?

This paper is concerned with unreliable research, which mightalso be called fraudulent, false, spurious, unethical, or many othernames that indicate that the research is defective. It addresses twotypes of research: that done by librarians about aspects of theirwork, and that done by others, which we as librarians disseminatein our libraries.

Background

Ptolemy

The phenomenon of unreliable research is certainly not new. Thehighly respected Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy who lived inthe second century B.C. is now suspected of conducting unreli-able research. When astronomers of the 1800s re-examined hisdata that would predict the positions of the planets, they foundthat many of the calculations were very wrong — and that Ptolemyhad lifted his data from an earlier astronomer. Ptolemy is alsoaccused not only of the ancient crime of plagiarism, but the moremodern crime of ‘creating’ results to fit a theory of planetarymovement that he was championing.

Galileo

Galileo in the 1600s also conducted research that was highlysuspect, despite the fact that he is known as the father of empiri-cism — basing theories on empirical evidence. Modern scientistshave proved that the results he obtained from dropping stones offthe Leaning Tower of Pisa to investigate gravity could not havebeen obtained, not surprising, considering Galileo’s fondness forconducting ‘thought experiments’, in which the brilliant man likedto imagine an outcome rather than actually performing the ex-periment. When he was asked about the outcome of an experi-ment that he had previously reported, and whether he hadconducted the experiment himself, Galileo replied “No, and I donot need to, as without any experience I can affirm that it is so,because it cannot be otherwise” (Broad 1982, 27).

Newton

Even Isaac Newton was not above ‘tweaking’ his data to fit histheories. Historian Richard Westfall says that Newton “ ‘adjusted’his calculations on the velocity of sound and on the precession ofthe equinoxes, and altered the correlation of the variable in histheory of gravitation so that it would agree precisely with histheory.” According to Westfall, in his experiments Newton “manip-ulated the fudge factor with unparalleled skill” (Westfall 1973, 751).

Babbage’s categories

Being ‘creative’ with scientific results was so common in the1800s that Charles Babbage, the inventor of the calculating

Ann Curry

Dr. Ann Curry is an Associate Pro-fessor and Chair of DoctoralStudies in the School of Library,Archival and Information Studiesat the University of BritishColumbia. Her research andteaching areas include censor-ship and access to information,public libraries, history of librariesand librarianship, library architec-ture and planning, collectionmanagement and researchmethods. She has worked inschool, special, college andpublic libraries in Malaysia,Canada, and Australia. She pub-lishes extensively in professionaljournals and her book The Limitsof Tolerance: Censorship andIntellectual Freedom in PublicLibraries (1997) continues toprovide guidance for thoseengaged in censorship-relatedresearch. She may be contactedat School of Library, Archival andInformation Studies, University ofBritish Columbia, #301 – 6190Agronomy Road, Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada V6T1Z3. Tel. +1 604–822–4250.Fax: +1 604–822–6006. E-mail:[email protected].


machine that evolved into our modern com-puters, wrote a book in 1830 about this careless,some would call, criminal, type of creativity. Hecatalogued different types of fraudulent researchinto three areas, which remain relevant almosttwo hundred years later:

Trimming — clipping off little bits here and therefrom those observations which differ most inexcess from the mean, and sticking them onto those which are too small.

Cooking — an art of various forms, the object ofwhich is to give ordinary observations theappearance and character of those of thehighest degree of accuracy. One of itsnumerous processes is to make multitudes ofobservations, and out of these to select onlythose which agree, or nearly agree. We callthis now ‘selective reporting’.

Forging — “The forger is one who, wishing toacquire a reputation for science, recordsobservations which he has never made.” Thiscreation of results out of thin air Babbageconsidered the most heinous scientific fraud(Babbage 1969).

Why Do Researchers ‘Cheat’ and Whatare the Consequences?

Greater reputation

In his third category, that of forging, Babbagetouches on one reason why researchers cheat —to obtain a greater reputation. Charles Darwinhimself acknowledged that this was the mainreason why he was less than fully honest abouthis research. Darwin based his theory of evolu-tion on the work of several zoologists who hadspeculated for decades about the phenomenonof natural selection, but he was loth to acknowl-edge his intellectual debt, some would say hisplagiarized ideas, to others, even when pressedto do so. He said, “I wish I could set less valueon the bauble fame, either present or posthum-ous, than I do . . .” (Merton 1973, 306).

Career advancement

Allied with fame and glory — possession of theshiny bauble — is the need for career advance-ment. Published research is the currency of thecareerist, who needs to acquire a richness ofpublications to climb up the ladder within theresearch institution, the university, or within theacademic library. According to William Broad,“The scientific paper at one time was a vehicle

for the transmission of scientific truth and forspeculation on the workings of nature, but todayits importance has been diminished as it moreand more has become a tool of the careerist”(Broad 1982, 56).

The curricula vitae of many researchers todayinclude 30 or 40 pages of listed publications, asthose researchers strive for promotions andincreasing numbers of grants, both of which aredependent on publication record. The pressureto publish is enormous; perhaps there is too littletime to actually ‘do’ the experiment. Who willknow if, like Galileo, one just does a quick‘thought’ experiment, rather than actually takingthe time to test all the compounds, or ask all thequestions of every person in the sample popula-tion of library customers, or analyze all thoserecords of Internet searches?

Getting caught

The propensity for dishonesty amongstresearchers appears to be influenced by threefactors: the rewards, which in some fields arevery high; the perceived chance of being caught;and the personal ethics of the researchers. Thechance of being caught is surprisingly low. Theliterature is replete with stories of researcherswho carried on for years, publishing falsifieddata in numerous journals. Two ‘over the top’medical cases in the 1980s are that of JohnRoland Darsee from the Harvard MedicalSchool, who falsified heart research findings foryears in over 100 medical articles (Kochan andBudd 1992), and Elias Alsabti, who practiced asa cancer specialist (with forged credentials) atnumerous leading United States teaching hospi-tals for almost 5 years, and published almost 50papers, most of which were partial or completeplagiarisms of papers published by others (Kohn1986, 147). Darsee’s research assistants werevery fearful of turning him in, as he was a super-star at Harvard; even when they did raise doubtsabout the reliability of their supervisor’s resultswith new heart drugs, they were not believed.Much of the heart research at Harvard duringDarsee’s tenure had to be scrapped, as it wasbased on his work. Darsee was caught onlywhen a persistent official from the grants depart-ment of the US National Institutes of Healthinsisted that Darsee’s numerical calculationsregarding drug-testing results were incorrect,and an investigation began. Alsabti was fingeredseveral times by authors who were horrified tosee their work ‘republished’ by someone else, butwhen cornered with the evidence of his stolen


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results or copied prose, Alsabti just resignedquickly and moved on to another hospital inanother state. The teaching hospitals andresearch institutions that Alsabti disappearedfrom certainly did not want their credibilitydamaged, so very little publicity about hisduplicity was ever released.

Responsibility of the publishers?

In both the Darsee and Alsabti cases, neither theeditors of the refereed journals, nor the reviewersof the articles, caught the crimes. The BritishMedical Journal claims that with the greatnumber of medical journals published world-wide— nearly 8,000 — “it is well nigh onto impossibleto check whether a paper has been publishedbefore” (Broad 1982, 56). And analysis of citationrates shows that the articles in many smallresearch journals of all disciplines, includinglibrary science, are rarely cited. Which perhapsmeans that they are rarely read? So if the publish-ers are shirking the responsibility for catchingfraudulent research, what about the reviewers?

Responsibility of the reviewers?

It appears that the reviewing system works, butnot that well, mainly because reviewers are notsuspicious enough. Researchers who review thework of other researchers have faith in theircolleagues. Suspicion is considered slightlyunseemly and perhaps a trait of someone unfaith-ful to the subject or not part of the disciplineteam. After all it is a ‘peer review’ process, and‘peer’ is defined as a person of the same rank,ability, or qualities as another, an equal. Scientistsgenerally believe that the only people who falsify,fabricate, or plagiarize research findings areunbalanced and irrational, traits that the scientistwould definitely have noticed in a colleague atthe last conference they attended. Reviewersneed to search more widely for plagiarized results— an activity that most claim they do not havetime for and hope that someone else (who?) willdo, and to be more skeptical. As Broad says:

Scientists are not different from other people.In donning the white coat at the laboratorydoor, they do not step aside from thepassions, ambitions, and failings that animatethose in other walks of life. (Broad 1982, 19)

Severity of the penalty?

The cheating researcher weighs the chances ofgetting caught, and also the severity of the

penalty. How ‘widespread’ will the news of hisor her notoriety be? Research on this topic indi-cates that the news remains quite localizedunless the case becomes a ‘cause unceleb’.Journals are loth to publish letters from authorswho are furious that their work has been plagia-rized in that journal, and almost as reluctant topublish articles or letters that challenge theveracity of data or conclusions. Such ‘admis-sions’ that they and their reviewers havestumbled mean only that the journal’s reputa-tion is damaged and subscribers are lost. Only ifhonor and ethics prevail over economics will aretraction be published. The exception to retrac-tion avoidance occurs with medical journals,where the fear of a lawsuit resulting from patientharm appears to prevail. But even then, a retrac-tion printed in the same journal may neverreach the eyes of the person who accessed thefirst, unreliable article, and therefore the unreli-able or misrepresented data live on, cited overand over.

As shown by both the Darsee and Alsabti cases,unethical researchers are also unlikely to bepublicly vilified by their institution, theiremployer. It appears that most medical institu-tions just want the dishonored researcher toslink quietly away, and most universities shunpublicity about the debacle. I would imagine thata university library would do the same if it weredetermined that one of their librarians con-ducted or published fraudulent research, anddismissal would depend on how the conductaffected the ability of the librarian to do his orher job.

Replication

The research and publishing arenas also havefaith that unreliable research will be caughtthrough replication, but this is largely a falsehope. In all disciplines, including libraryresearch, there is no glory in repeating research,in going where someone else has gone before.The rewards of large research grants and publi-cation in well-respected journals go to originalwork, not to steady, careful repeating of a projectthat confirms the results of work already done.Replication is hampered, as well, by the difficultyof obtaining the original data — they are oftenlost, misplaced, or inadvertently destroyed whenthe first researcher moves on to other projects.Replication research also carries with it theimplication of challenge to the originalresearcher, a sense of cynicism about the originalresults or conclusions. The cause of unveiling

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unreliable research would be much better servedif replication research were viewed as a compli-ment to the original research whose results wereconsidered so important that the project wasworth repeating and checking. But this is usuallynot the case.

Electronic publishing and fraud

According to Marcel LaFollette writing in theJournal of the American Society for InformationScience (2000, 1337), the consequences of pub-lishing unreliable research have increased con-siderably with the development of electronicpublishing, but our ability to retrieve or retractinformation has decreased. I quote:

At one time, a scientific publisher couldsafely assume that a journal’s readers camefrom the same narrow professional com-munity as its editors. Journals were notmarketed outside that circle, and rarely soldon newsstands. Isolated in the science [orlibrary science (my addition)] sections oflibraries and hidden behind bland covers,they presented a stodgy and uninviting faceto non-specialists. Web-based publication —and the jazzy new graphics developed forinteractive presentation of scientific data —have attracted all sorts of new readers toscientific journals. People who have neverseen an actual printed copy of the Journal ofthe American Medical Association havenow accessed its Web pages. Even thosewho do not read the technical articles on ajournal’s Website may read the general sum-maries, news, and commentaries; othershave easier access to journal informationthrough a host of new Web intermediariesthat summarize medical and scientific newsand provide links to the journals them-selves. The speed with which informationmoves in cyberspace has alerted specialiststo the need for accuracy and reliability forthe sake of their colleagues and their pro-fessional reputation. The spread of informa-tion now makes accuracy and reliabilityessential for all of society.

Are Librarians Likely (or Liable) toConduct Fraudulent Research?

No, they are not – according to the only articlethat could be found on this topic, the transcriptof a brainstorming session held in 1996 bythe editorial staff of the journal Library and

Information Science Research (LISR) (Fraudand Misconduct . . . , 1996, 199). The primaryreason for our honesty would be that the stakesare too low. The multi-million dollar researchgrants, high salaries, ultra-prestigious positions,and press recognition that are awarded tomedical or other science researchers whopublish many articles per year are largely absentfrom the library and information field. Accord-ing to these editors, we’re honest because the‘bauble’ spotlight that Charles Darwin coveted isnot a reward that would be ours.

It would be folly, however, to assume that librar-ians and LIS researchers will be forever researchsaints, so speculation about when we might beliable to conduct unreliable research is prudent.The pressures of careerism, publish or perish,have become much more intense in LIS schoolsin the past 20 years, and this same pressure isnow affecting academic librarians who havefaculty status within their universities and forwhom advancement depends on publishedresearch. But are we likely to be more vigilantabout reviewing material for journals now thatthe pressure to publish has intensified? I thinkincreased scrutiny of our peers will be difficultbecause the LIS community worldwide is quitesmall, leading us to think that putting the workof our peers under intense examination is aninsult and a waste of time. It is likely that we willfollow the lead of other researchers in assumingthe absolute honesty of our peers, and presumethat only an ‘unbalanced’ researcher wouldcheat. This was the case in Canada regarding afraudulent article in a 1990 issue of theCanadian Journal of Physics: Canada’s smallresearch physics community could not believethat one of their ‘own’ had been dishonest (Mon-tagnes, 1993).

Although no specific fraudulent LIS researchcould be identified, the LISR editors believedthat some unreliable research in Babbage’s firstcategory — fudging — was likely slipping throughthe editorial and reviewing process. They feltthat librarians were just as vulnerable as otherresearchers to slightly altering data to makeresults ‘cleaner’ and conclusions more com-pelling. Fudging might also result from thetendency of inexperienced researchers tomanipulate results in inappropriate ways inorder to obtain the results they want to see. Sta-tistical magic can seem to be a very logicalprocess if one really wants to obtain certainanswers from a survey of customers or ananalysis of online journal use. This fudging of


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figures is not forgivable, but at least it is due toineptitude and not malice. Another source ofunreliable research done by librarians could bean investigation that breaks or bends ethicalguidelines. For example, research concernedwith the rapidly evolving area of Internetresearch — how people search the Web, howthey communicate through e-mail, what com-munication patterns exist on electronic discus-sion forums (listservs) — involves numerousethical issues related to privacy. Questions arisesuch as: What identification markers can we usewhen we describe the messages and searchstrategies we are researching? Must we usepseudonyms for everyone? Is it an invasion ofprivacy to quote a message from a listserv, evenwhen no personal names are used? Willresearch with no identifying characteristics ofthe message author nor the message itself be oflimited use and unable to be replicated? Typicalof a research project that encountered ethicalroadblocks was the doctoral research of EinoSierpe, whose thesis is entitled ‘Gender and itsrelationship to perception in computer-mediated communication’ (Sierpe 2003). Dr.Sierpe navigated the ethical shoals very well, buthis research results were muted by privacyconcerns. When he described the messagesposted on a listserv, he (of course) did notidentify the poster, but he also could not saywhat the messages were! The ethical issues sur-rounding this area of research and a report onthe topic by the Association of InternetResearchers are described by Jeffrey Young inthe Chronicle of Higher Education (2001).

An ethical misstep can indeed result in data col-lection that is tainted and unreliable: theoffense may be due to lack of ability and not adeliberate oversight, but we are still liable forcensure because of the transgression. Unfortu-nately, not all LIS schools have requiredresearch methods courses. And even some ofthe required courses concentrate almost solelyon teaching librarians to be perceptive con-sumers of research rather than skilledresearchers themselves. As well, exploration ofgood ethical practice sometimes receives shortshrift in research courses, sidelined by the manyhours required to explore various methodolo-gies. So if we are to decrease our liability to dounreliable research, a greater emphasis onethical research practices should appear in ourcourses, and we must make certain that our dis-cussion of information ethics as it relates topractice, also relates to research.

Are We Liable for Unreliable Researchin Our Libraries?

I could find no cases in which librarians hadbeen found guilty or liable for distributing un-reliable research in their libraries. But thequestion of culpability is inextricably entwinedwith intellectual freedom questions, of course.Do libraries, particularly university libraries,have a responsibility to maintain unreliableresearch on their shelves, so that there is arecord of this research, and so that it can bestudied? How can we, or should we, mark mate-rials to indicate that they are unreliable?

Librarians can receive little guidance on thisissue from the literature — few relevant articlescould be located. One by Sidney Berger, ‘Forg-eries and their detection in the rare book world’,discusses the financial and reputation damagethat forged books can cause to universities andto dealers, and reveals the tricks of those whocreate and sell expensive spurious documents(Berger 1992). Steven Sowards, in ‘Historicalfabrications in library collections’, discusseswhat he calls “problematic historical writings”,which include books purported to be diaries thatare actually pure fiction, and books based onquestionable or refuted World War II evidencethat are often characterized as Holocaustrevisionist materials. After weighing the options,Sowards recommends against labeling orstamping all such problematic material:

. . . to begin such labeling is a doubtfulundertaking; once begun, it requires us toconclusively weigh the worth of every bookin the collection, lest we imply approval ofthose left without warnings. This is not onlya gigantic task, but a controversial one; itasks librarians to come to unequivocal judg-ments where subject specialists and expertscholars have often been unable to do so.(Sowards 1988, 85)

The issue of ‘problematic historical writing’ haserupted just recently with the book ArmingAmerica: The Origins of the National GunCulture, in which facts are disputed. This bookhas been pulled from the shelves of manyAmerican libraries, making it the fourth mostchallenged book in the US for 2003, according tothe American Library Association (Homan 2003).

Carol Hughes (1998) conducted a survey on thepolicies and procedures followed by medical

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libraries when they discover that research intheir collections is fraudulent. Fifty-nine percentof libraries had no policies for calling the atten-tion of the library user to retracted informationin publications. Those libraries that did, eitherstamped the article — e.g. “all or a portion of thisarticle has been retracted — contact referencedesk for assistance” or tipped in a message aboutthe retraction. With almost all medical journalliterature now disseminated electronically, theUS National Library of Medicine’s MEDLINEpublication of errata and retraction notices,which are linked to the original online article,makes it much easier for readers to becomeaware of unreliable research (United States.National Library of Medicine, n.d.). This servicealso eliminates the need for medical librarians tocontinue with their previous method of findingretractions — searching through individualjournals for retraction notices.

Fraudulent research mounted on websites hasbecome a new nightmare for librarians as self-service Internet access in our libraries continuesto grow and as we increasingly direct customersto websites when answering reference questions.An article in Searcher magazine titled ‘Betterread that again: web hoaxes and misinformation’(Piper 2000) details different categories ofhoaxes on the Internet — including counterfeitsites, parody and spoof sites, malicious sites andfalse product sites — but offers no solutions tolibrarians about how to deal with this misinfor-mation, other than becoming more astute andcynical searchers.

One other area of unreliable research needs tobe touched upon, that of libraries containingmaterial that is alleged to be slanderous orlibelous. Are we liable for continuing to carrythat material after we have been alerted to thealleged libel, even though the material has notbeen proven in court to be libelous? A recentand ongoing case in Canada (Warman v. BritishColumbia Library Association, 2004) indicatesthat repeating an alleged libel in your librarybooks or in audio form may indeed be action-able, although no evidence could be found of asuccessful libel case against a library in recentyears.

Conclusions

The question of unreliable research must beviewed in the context of our strange 21st centuryage in which we expect a kind of fraud and

unreliability in everyday life. It is a time of over-whelming amounts of unsubstantiated anderroneous data on the Web that mixes withmanipulated political information presented astruth on the television. It is an age of computerimages of people and places that look likephotographs but that are completely imaginaryand digital, an age in which an actual photo-graph can be changed with free software to showsomething completely fabricated, an age inwhich popular ‘reality’ shows like Survivor claimto be real, but are later proven to be completelystaged. It appears to me that the concept of‘unreliable’ may now be slightly hazy for societyin general, and perhaps for librarians and LISresearchers as well. But if we remember theresearch misdemeanors of Ptolemy, Galileo andNewton, perhaps we can take heart when weacknowledge that this area is a difficult one, withno easy answers.

So, are we liable for unreliable research? Forerrors either malicious or inept in the researchprojects that we conduct, yes. But we are liableno more than researchers in other disciplines,and that means that our ‘sentence’ will be light,if we are discovered at all! We will likely be sen-tenced to censure by our peers, but this censurewill not likely be widely known.

For the research of others? Not likely, particu-larly if we make every effort to provide retrac-tion information for the material that has beenwithdrawn by the publisher. With regard tomaterial not retracted but still unreliable, solidcollection management policies and practicesthat address selection should protect us. The juryis still out, however, regarding alleged libelous ordefamatory material, as we may be liable for‘repeating’ the defamatory words. Although libellaws vary in each country, and sometimes ineach state or province, the law regarding libelgenerally says that as soon as a secondary dis-tributor (bookstore, newspaper) discovers thatmaterial is alleged to be libelous, the materialmust be pulled from distribution. The best wecan do is be aware of the laws in our jurisdictionand practice ‘due diligence’.

For librarians, however, a larger question lurksbehind this exploration of unreliable researchwhen we examine it in the context of intellectualfreedom philosophies as expressed by Article 19(n.d.) and FAIFE (Libraries 2004). Should wereally make all unreliable research disappear? Ifwe do remove it from our libraries, how cananyone know what the fraudulent research said?


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Many times, research from the past that wasalleged to be untrue, either because it wasclaimed to be slanderous or fabricated, fudged orfraudulent, turned out to have a grain of truthwithin it, a grain that grew through furtherresearch into solid results. John Stuart Mill in OnLiberty stated four reasons in support of freedomof expression, the second of which said:

Though the silenced opinion be an error, itmay, and very commonly does, contain aportion of truth, and since the general pre-vailing opinion on any subject is rarely ornever the whole truth, it is only by the col-lision of adverse opinions that the remain-der of the truth has any chance of beingsupplied. (Mill 1985, 116)

So let us try to do reliable research ourselves, sothat we are not liable for censure, and let usprovide for our customers the reliable researchthat they seek, but let us not destroy withoutquestion the unreliable research — it’s liable toprovide a very interesting story, and perhaps, justperhaps, a grain of truth.

References

Article 19: The United Nations’ Declaration of HumanRights. (n.d.) (IFLA/FAIFE), Available: http://www.ifla.org/faife/art19.htm. (Accessed: October 1, 2004)

Babbage, C. (1969) Reflections on the decline of sciencein England. Farnborough: Gregg. (First published1830)

Berger, S. (1992) Forgeries and their detection in the rarebook world. Libraries and Culture, 27 (1), 59–69.

Broad, W. (1982) Betrayers of the truth. New York:Simon and Schuster.

Fraud and Misconduct in Library and InformationScience Research. (1996) Library and InformationScience Research, 18, 199–206.

Homan, P. (2003) A record enriched: a case for a librarycatalog note for Michael Bellesiles’s ArmingAmerica: the origins of a national gun culture. Part2. Idaho Librarian, 54 (4). Available: http://www.idaholibraries.org/newidaholibrarian/200305/RecordEnrichedII.htm (Accessed August 12, 2004).

Hughes, C. (1998) Academic medical libraries’ policies

and procedures for notifying library users ofretracted scientific publications. Medical ReferenceServices Quarterly, 17 (2), 37–42.

Kochan, C.A. and Budd, J. (1992) The persistence offraud in the literature: the Darsee case. Journal of theAmerican Society for Information Science, 43 (7),488–493.

Kohn, A. (1986) False prophets. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.LaFollette, M. (2000) Observations on fraud and scien-

tific integrity in a digital environment. Journal of theAmerican Society for Information Science, 51 (14),1334–1337.

Libraries and intellectual freedom (February 26, 2004 —last update). IFLANET. Available: http://www.ifla.org/faife/faife/presen.htm (Accessed October 3,2004).

Merton, R. (1973) The sociology of science: theoreticaland empirical investigations. Chicago: University ofChicago Press.

Mill, J.S. (1985) On liberty. London: Penguin. (First pub-lished 1859)

Montagnes, I. (1993) Introduction to the issue: theFreeman affair. Scholarly Publishing, 24 (July),193–203.

Piper, P. (2000) Better read that again: web hoaxes andmisinformation. Searcher, 8 (8), 40–50.

Sierpe, E. (2003) Gender and its relationship to percep-tion to computer-mediated communication. Unpub-lished PhD diss. McGill University. Montreal.

Sowards, S.W. (1988) Historical fabrications in librarycollections. Collection Management, 10(3/4), 81–88.

United States. National Library of Medicine. (n.d.) FactSheet: Errata, retraction, duplicate publication andcomment policy for MEDLINE. Available: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/errata.html (Ac-cessed August 11, 2004).

Warman v. British Columbia Library Association.(2004). Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Westfall, R. (1973) Newton and the fudge factor. Science,179, 751–58.

Young, J.R. (2001) Committee of scholars proposesethics guidelines for research in cyberspace. Chron-icle of Higher Education, November 2, 51.

Expanded version of original paper no 187 presented atthe World Library and Information Congress, 70th IFLAGeneral Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27August 2004, in session 139, Library Theory andResearch. English original and French and Spanishtranslations available on IFLANET at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm

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I will present some thoughts on the role of libraries in the so-called ‘digital literacy’ context. I will try, from the start, toquestion this name — ‘digital literacy’ — by trying to reveal whatis hidden behind a name everybody seems to accept withoutfurther questioning. I will deal with the role of libraries in schoolperformance, specifically focusing on basic tuition and poorlydeveloped countries, which help to enlarge the so-called ‘digitalgap’.

I will always wonder, regarding the most popular slogans, whatare we talking about?

Before I start, it would be convenient to justify the approachchosen. Of all the professions involved with the production,circulation, cataloguing and distribution of written messages,probably the library community is the one which has betterreacted to technological changes. On the other hand, the schoolas an institution shows all kinds of fears and reticence, andabruptly shifts from locking up the few computers available, toclaiming for more machines, as magical agents for the promotionof new learning.

I shall speak of education as a social institution, formally organ-ized. Of course, I am aware that school is far from being the onlyeducational environment, but in these times there are phenomenawhich have magnified the ‘school effect’: on the one hand, theentrance age has become progressively lower — in highly devel-oped countries, practically all children attend school by the ageof three. On the other hand, the so-called mandatory basic edu-cation has been extended to the age of 15, absorbing part of whatbefore was called ‘secondary school’ or ‘second grade school’.Also, the growing importance of diplomas is such that it justifiesthe recent and controversial declaration by the OECD [Organiz-ation for Economic Cooperation and Development], saying thateducation has become ‘a service which is an object of commerce’.

For obvious reasons, I am not going to talk about higher educa-tion. At that level, intensive use of new technologies is evident,whether at online courses level, or in the renewal of libraries,research networks working jointly in several countries, trans-mittal of specialized techniques by means of virtual reality, and along list of etceteras.

I will focus my presentation in the existing tension betweenlibraries and librarians linked to the less sophisticated users onthe one hand, and mandatory school and teachers on the other.Both institutions and professions are summoned to help achievethe ‘digital literacy’.

* * *

Emilia Ferreiro

Emilia Ferreiro was born inArgentina. She obtained her PhDat the University of Geneva underthe advisorship of Jean Piaget.Since 1979 she has resided inMexico, where she is full profes-sor at the Center for AdvancedStudies of the National Polytech-nicum Institute. Dra Ferreiro isinternationally known by her con-tributions to early literacyresearch. She may be contactedat: [email protected].

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Librarians and Basic Education Teachers in theContext of ‘Digital Literacy’


Personal computers (PCs) are already 20 yearsold (I am speaking of PCs, not of computers).The idea of a ‘personal computer’ seemedunusual at the beginning. Twenty years later, wespeak very naturally about the computer athome, at my office, my notebook. That is to say,we think it is natural for a person to have threedifferent computers, for uses that partiallycoincide.

Ten years ago, a computer could be inherited.Nowadays, youngsters in the family ask forpowerful processors and high speed. The adults’computers are no longer inheritable. Recyclingof computers — for obvious market economyreasons — is underdeveloped and, to my knowl-edge, limited to a few non-governmental organ-izations (NGOs) supporting the wrongly called‘Third World’, and to some computing projects ina few countries.

We already have, at basic education level, ‘com-puterized children’, as before we used to have‘television children’. By this I mean: childrenwho were born and grew up knowing this tech-nology was present in society. For some, thattechnology existed and was visible at theirhomes (though not necessarily available tothem). For others (the great majority) it was oneof the many technologies that are objects ofdesire, but out of reach. In both cases, and thisis what I am concerned with, they were bornwith this technology already installed in society.It is not the same to see a certain technologycoming to life, as being born with it alreadythere. All those present here, at least most of us,and in spite of the obvious age differences,belong to the generation that watched this tech-nology ‘coming to life’. Ours is the surprise, theamazement, the not knowing if ‘that’ would bean object of curiosity or necessity; later, therewas the compulsory learning, and now, the real-ization that we have established a new techno-logical dependency relationship.

None of this for the computerized children andyouths of the new generation. To this new gen-eration, the verb ‘to communicate’ meansmaking a phone call (preferably, on a cellphone), or chatting. The verb ‘to communicate’no longer spontaneously conveys the idea ofwriting on paper. Let’s bear this in mind.

* * *

We are witnessing a revolution in the practicesrelated to the production, use and publicizing of

the written text. This is undeniable. The saidrevolution was prepared by writing by means ofa keyboard, an invention that has been availablesince 1874, when the Remington company (aweapons manufacturer), offered in the marketthe first typing machines.

Writing by means of a keyboard is over a centuryold. But the keyboard becomes a privilegedwriting tool when it is associated with acomputer. This is very interesting, because itshows that, sometimes, there is a considerabletime gap between the availability of a certaintechnology and its social impact.

How long did it take for some of the recent com-munication techniques to become popular?

In its 1999 report, the United Nations Develop-ment Programme (UNDP) gives the followinginformation:

• The radio took 38 years to finally have 50million users.

• TV took 13 years to reach the same number ofusers.

• The Internet reached that figure in only 4 years.

(Computers, the Internet’s fundamental support,took 16 years to reach 50 million users.)

Of course, information and communicationtechnologies (ICTs) are much more than akeyboard. But they incorporate the keyboard,and this is not always emphasized. I think it isimportant, because over the last few years,writing by means of a keyboard has shifted frombeing a job to being part of the ‘writer’s skills’. Inthe past, the keyboard defined a specific learninginstance called ‘typewriting’. Today, no privateinstitute — not even the lowest quality ones —promotes ‘typewriting’. The school does nottackle this — because it never considered thekeyboard as a writing element.

Of course, the computer revolution is muchmore than writing by means of a keyboard. Themain issue is that everything changes at the sametime: the text production method, the ways ofdisseminating the texts, and the material of thesupporting objects of written signs.

* * *

Current production methods involve a concen-tration of tasks on one single person, whichbefore were divided into several specialized jobs.

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At one point in history, in classical antiquity andfor a great part of the Middle Ages, the work ofauthor and scribe were dissociated. The authorof the text was not the author of the signs; theauthor of the signs carried out a manual job. Forthe text to circulate, the copyists had to take partin the process. If the text needed any particulargraphics, a new character would also intervene:the illuminator.

As technology improved and advanced (technol-ogy for the preparation of surfaces and for theinstruments to make the signs — i.e. writing — onthose surfaces), the author of the texts and theauthor of the signs became one single person.

But for the circulation of the texts, many differ-ent types of professionals, with very differentskills, had to take part in the process. As cen-turies went by, all those publishing professionalswere grouped under the name of a publishinghouse. Now, for the first time, the time is ripe forthe disappearance of all those characters. (I amnot saying they will actually disappear, but thatthere is a possibility of their disappearing thatconcerns them.)

Nowadays, for the first time, an author can behis own editor/publisher: first, because he cangive his text a graphic format at will (includingthe addition of sounds and moving images);secondly, because he can distribute his textthrough the Internet. (It is more difficult toensure that he will get any financial incomethrough this distribution, but that is anotherproblem, related to copyright, of which I will notspeak.)

From the monastic organization of copyists tothe mercantile organization of publishing afterthe press was created, there was a qualitativeleap. Another qualitative leap is taking placenow, and it should not be disregarded. The textproduction and distribution methods changecompletely in each of these periods.

The ideas of ‘work unity’ and ‘author identity’are also changing. Both are closely related to amaterial support that helps to make such notionstangible. Even though the title page has includedthe author’s name since the 17th century, thejuridical status of author would only beacknowledged by the late 18th century. Asstrong as such idea of author may seem to us, ithas only been strongly established for twocenturies. The idea of author ‘is not a medievalidea’.1

In terms of social practices related to the writtentext, what is new and what is a return to pasttimes? On screen, the texts scroll vertically. Thisvertical shifting text is, in a certain way, a returnto the scroll (prior to the codex). There isnothing similar to the gesture of ‘leafing through’in the new technologies, a gesture caused by thejoined pages of the codex. The text’s instabilitycan be conceived as a return to medieval prac-tices, as well as authorship’s frailty. Before thepress, there was no necessary unity of subjectmatter in the codices. On the contrary, thecodices were usually anthologies, a group oftexts brought together for different reasons,without a necessary topic unity. The loss ofsubject matter unity in electronic formats wouldnot be then an attack on books, but a return tothe codex prior to the press. Historically consid-ered, then, the ICTs acquire a new dimension.2

Is the relation between images and text com-pletely new? Yes, because it is possible to add animage to a text, as easily as never before. Yes,because it is possible to tackle a text as an image,and digitize both. However, we should not exag-gerate. Since medieval times, and very stronglysince the Enlightenment, images go with texts andsometimes replace them. (After all, during theconquest of America, Catholic doctrine was oftentransmitted by means of images, as shown by theCatechism in pictograms by Friar Pedro de Gante,inspired in the pre-Hispanic Mexico codices.3)

Are we witnessing then an improvement, dis-appearance, or a rupture of linearity? Onceagain, what are we talking about? Searching forinformation in a book, a dictionary, an encyclo-pedia, a phone directory, or whatever, was neverlinear. It was always a process of going to andfro, gathering information bits ‘in leaps andbounds’ and, with that fragmented information,making decisions. But the moment the requiredinformation has been found, and if that informa-tion appears in the shape of continuous writtentext, as brief as it might be, reading is linear. TheInternet circulates texts without transformingthem into non-texts.

Are there resources available that might allowthe addition into writing of elements that wereabsent from alphabetical writing? Sure. But thisis not totally new either. Commercial advertisinghas explored many of these resources very longago.

The newest thing is, maybe, the possibility of frag-mentation, with everything this entails. Video

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experimented with the fragmentation and super-imposition of images with great success. Theremote control gave users, particularly youths,the possibility of changing channels or tracksrapidly and continuously, with a minimum explo-ration of visual image or sound stimuli.Computer resources allow us to fragment andsuperimpose images and texts at will. Maybe,without our knowing it, we are witnesses to newtext aesthetics, where the traditional analysis interms of coherence and cohesion no longer makesense. I cannot assure this. But I am convincedthat some peripheral technologies — such as theremote control — have had a stronger impact onnew generations than was expected at first.

We must remember that, together with the juridi-cal acknowledgement of the ‘author’, the idea ofa closed, finished, published work was alsoestablished. The author’s copyright could onlybe attributed to a work with those characteris-tics. Are we going back to the instability of themedieval text? Cerquiglini, in his challengingwork ‘Eloge de la variante’, discusses the effectsbrought about by the modern publishing ofmedieval texts, especially regarding word seg-mentation, punctuation and the search for ONEoriginal, of which the rest would only be copieswith different levels of fidelity or falsity. Theessential thing in medieval texts would be varia-tion, precisely because of the lack of the idea ofan author.4

* * *

We are in a field where things are first said inEnglish, and are then translated, with good luck,or none at all, into other languages. However,words name what the users, always changing,make with them. An Internet search will rapidlyinform us that the term ‘literacy’ often appearsassociated with expressions related to ICTs:

information literacy; computer literacy;digital literacy; media literacy; web literacy.

(Fairly interchangeable terms, even thoughsome differentiation systematizations havebeen tried, which are not yet being used).

But we also find:

technology literacy; environmental literacy;financial literacy; baseball literacy.

For example, the expression ‘baseball literacy’does not refer to someone who reads a lot about

baseball, but to someone having a certain degreeof proficiency in the practical skills related tothat sport.

What meanings are we trying to convey when, inEnglish, we speak about ‘computer, digital, ormulti-media literacy’? In the library field5 thereis less difficulty in using these expressions,because it is assumed that they are related toinformation search, and the methods of search-ing for information have drastically changed.Information is no longer looked for in bookindexes, in encyclopedias or dictionaries – stillless in card indexes which have been or arebeing destroyed. Information is searched for indigital databases, and we have to learn to use‘keywords’ and basic logical operators in orderto guide the search. In the library field, it is amatter for debate to define which are the skillsrequired for a computer search, but it is muchsimpler than when we apparently want to talkabout the same issue in the educational field.

In education, it is not only a matter of searchingfor information, but also of doing somethingwith it, transforming information into knowl-edge. In principle, a librarian is not concernedwith what the user will do with the informationobtained. He doesn’t even care if the informa-tion the user got, and which seems to satisfy him,is that which is really required for the problemhe is trying to solve.

For the educator, instead, the information searchprocess is but a stage between two crucialmoments: making a question that will result inthe search, and ending up by building newknowledge (new at least from the learner’s pointof view).6

* * *

In the educational context, what can we under-stand by ‘computer, digital, or multimedialiteracy’?

We know that, at the level of basic education,there are difficulties, opposition, in any case littleuse, including in the most advanced countries.On October 2003 in France, the Ministry ofEducation was concerned because only 20percent of the teachers used multimedia tools inclass.7In 2001, Larry Cuban published a bookwith Harvard University Press, which right awaybecame a text for debate. The book is called‘Oversold, underused’, and its subtitle is ‘Reform-ing schools through technology, 1980–2000’. The

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author’s thesis is that in the USA, computers donot have a significant role in the teaching prac-tices of teachers.

The detailed information we are starting to haveabout developed countries contrasts with thehuge propaganda by international agenciesabout the immediate educational benefits thatcould result from using new technologies, andthe equally huge investments made by govern-ments. (All ministers of education in LatinAmerica agree: the Internet in all schools is apriority. These ministers declare equipmentpurchase goals on solemn occasions such as, forexample, at the beginning of the school year.8)

* * *

Maybe it would be useful to look into therelation between technological innovations andthe school, as an institution, in order to betterplace the debate on the effect of ICTs on basiceducation.

School has its own technologies, inherited bytradition, which it maintains as if they werepatriotic symbols: the blackboard, where chalk isused to write on; and the school notebook tech-nology, heir to the small individual slates.

School adopted (along with innovations in itsown organization), technologies foreign to it: themetal quill, successfully replacing the bird quill,which has to be sharpened constantly. I suspectthat the pen’s success, which drastically reducedthe age of being able to write in ink, was relatedto its similarity to the previous instrument. Forsome reason both are known as ‘quill’, thoughthe second one no longer even resembles a bird’sfeather. The inkwell remained. The gesture ofgoing with the quill to the page with extremecare so as to avoid a blot that would spoil every-thing, was still there. The change was, actually,the proscription of a weapon within the school:the instrument called penknife. And on prohibit-ing weapons within school, there is full agree-ment in advance.

But that same institution reacted negatively tothe appearance of the following technologicaladvance: the ball-point pen, a writing instrumentthat carried the ink within itself, which pre-vented the risky gesture of going from theinkwell to the paper, which actually made theholes on desks for inkwells redundant. To allthese advantages, the school institution reactedwith a categorical NO, and for reasons which

today sound ridiculous: the new instrument (theball-point pen) would ‘ruin’ the students’ hand-writing. Of course, by then we were in the tran-sition between calligraphy as a school objective,and the legible italicized handwriting that finallyprevailed.

Schools often wage battles that have been lostbeforehand, but they face them in order tomaintain ‘their own technologies’, and this has tobe taken into account. They also fought againstpocket calculators, and for the same reason: theywould ‘ruin’ the students’ calculation skills.Sadly, and to their regret, they had to acceptthem. And they learnt to used them cleverlywhen it was discovered that calculation mechan-ics could be delegated to that instrument, butthat the student was always in charge of theintelligent approximate calculation, as he wasthe only one capable of assessing if the resultwas possible or absurd, through an error inpressing the keys. The reintroduction of esti-mated calculation as an intelligent activity, andthe delegation of exact calculation as a mechan-ical activity, is still today characteristic of goodschools in some places of the world, and in noway a distinctive sign of the adoption of a newtechnology on the school’s part.

Another one of the writing technologies I havementioned — the so-called ‘typing machines’(mechanical or electrical) — were never acceptedby the school as an institution. Surveys amongLatin American teachers have always resulted inthe same answer: ‘they are too noisy’, reasonenough to keep them away from schools.Actually, typing machines entered the schoolbureaucracy, but not the classrooms. Althoughtyping machines are undoubtedly very powerfulwriting tools, they were kept away from theteaching field (even though they were used in theschool bureaucracy). The increasing need to fillforms in typewriting was not reason enough forthe school to tackle this technology, which wasnever allowed to actually enter the elemental orbasic teaching field, in spite of its countlessadvantages.

In brief, the relationship between the develop-ment of socially used technologies and theschool as an institution, is a very complex issue.In general, technologies related to the act ofwriting had an impact (not always positive, as inthe case of the ball-point pen and the typingmachine). But school is highly conservative,reticent about incorporating new technologiesthat imply a drastic change from prior practices.


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PC technologies and the Internet give access toan uncertain and out of control space: screenand keyboard can be used to see, read, write,listen, play . . . Too many simultaneous changesfor an institution as conservative as school.

I mentioned before that ‘of all the professionsinvolved with the production, circulation, cata-loguing and distribution of written messages,probably the library community is the one whichhas better reacted to technological changes’. Thiscan be said of big libraries, but is it by any chancetrue about small libraries and school libraries?How is the library system at its primary leveldoing, where the users are less sophisticated, butmore promising in terms of the future?

* * *

The situation is highly conflicting because, as Ihave mentioned, there are huge social expecta-tions about education being the key to solve allsorts of things which, obviously, no educationalsystem by itself can solve, as long as socialinequalities exist, while poverty in the wronglycalled ‘developing South’ increases, while unem-ployment or underemployment is one of themost realistic expectations in spite of any collec-tion of diplomas, while the list of the chosen byForbes informs us that only one family (or oneperson) has an income higher than the GDP ofseveral of the small countries in the planet, whileinternational experts live to issue reports and‘domestic evaluations’ which will have little orno impact on the phenomena they deal with:poverty reduction, education quality, equity,transparency, efficiency and effectiveness of edu-cational systems.

Poor countries, the ‘poorly developed ones’, tiedto the reproduction mechanisms of foreign debt,go on indebting themselves to ‘give a computerto every school’, without the least proper educa-tional debate about what that implies. It is notthe same to ‘give desks and toilet bowls to everyschool’, as to give a computer to every school.Computers need permanent technical support;they require continuous software updating, theyrequire a telephone line or wiring that will guar-antee the Internet connection. To give acomputer to every school without thinking ofthe essential infrastructure is to put in somethinguseless which will become obsolete a fewmonths after being installed.

Oddly enough, we don’t hear as often or asstrongly a similar demand regarding school,

community or municipal libraries. ‘The Internetin all libraries’, starting with those in school,would be a very reasonable demand. . . .

Few teachers are ready to allow books (in theplural, i.e. a classroom library) to enter the class-room; still fewer are those who will allow acomputer in the classroom (a distractingelement, like books). It is already a cliché . . . tosay that the teacher feels left aside by an attrac-tive technology that generates — we alreadyknow — playful attitudes, and not necessarilylearning attitudes. On the contrary, librariansdon’t feel that conflict: the computer is an instru-ment to request and search for information,which replaces card files. Less occupied space,and more functions. Ideal for a librarian.

* * *

It is fashionable now to build ‘scenarios’. Let ussee, then, several short-term ‘possible scenarios’.

Scenario 1 (thought up by Microsoft) — Allchildren will attend school with their notebookcomputer (many of them donated by the BillGates Foundation). They will load all the biblio-graphy of every subject into their notebooks, thusputting an end to the hideous photocopies, a tech-nology which ruined the taste for books, whichgave all pages the same physical aspect, andwhich fragmented texts, long before the Internetdid. Also, it attacked the authors’ identity, whichdisappeared in the photocopies of photocopiescirculating in poorly developed countries.

Teachers will be tutors, advisors, consultants . . .They will do plenty of things, except give lessons.The true ‘teachers’ will be absent or, to put itmore accurately, virtually present. The librarianwill probably have a virtual presence too. The‘face to face’ and ‘body to body’ situations, thathave played a very important role in educationalcontacts of the past, tend to disappear. Thus weshall also avoid the potentially dangerous bodycontacts among members of the educationalcommunity. The only classroom learning courseswill be introductory leveling courses, to ensureall students have similar computer knowledge.(Though it would be reasonable to expect thatkindergarten and the first school years will beclassroom learning courses, at least until it is dis-covered how to teach reading and writingwithout the presence of a human being. . . .)

Scenario 2 (conservative) — Some children willhave their ICT spaces away from school. School

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will take for granted that ‘out-of-school’ knowl-edge (as it assumes all students know how tohandle a TV set, record a program, etc.). Afterall, school never explicitly taught how to use acellphone, and any child has learnt it at home orwith his friends. Neither did it teach how to usea TV remote control. At most, school just says,‘Today at 6 pm watch a program on channel 11,on polar bears; tomorrow we shall commentabout it in class.’ School does not teach ‘thelanguage of images’. Likewise, it can ask studentsto search for information on a given subject onthe Internet, recommending a couple of sites,and implicitly assuming that the rapid spread ofthis technology exempts school from teaching apurely technological know-how. What about thedigital gap? School did not create it; it is just onemore of the many social evils affecting its ownperformance, but it is not within its capacity tomodify these social problems. How can weexpect that the majority of teachers, badly paidand worse trained, can teach children to surf theover 50 million websites identified in April2004? Librarians would just give access to infor-mation sites previously identified, with generalsatisfaction from teachers, families . . . and evenusers not very skilled in computers.

Scenario 3 (dangerously idealistic) — The ICTsare such a huge revolution that they radicallychange the reading and writing processes andespecially mark the disappearance of ‘alphabeti-cal linearity’. Knowledge will no longer be trans-mitted through written language, but throughcomplex relationships between images (prefer-ably moving ones), graphs, information capsules(in audio or in writing). The most important thingis to learn to interpret messages conveyedthrough all these media at once, but also toproduce messages using state of the art technol-ogy. School takes as its fundamental goal this new‘digital multimedia literacy’, and relegates tradi-tional teaching content to the background, sincethe speed of changes in knowledge to be incorpo-rated ‘for life’ makes any curriculum rapidlyobsolete. Also, speed in changes in technologiesthemselves requires devoting considerable time tothe permanent recycling of the users (includingexperts). Teachers will be replaced by computertechnicians with training in communicationsince, as some of their promoters say, “multimedialiteracy (. . .) teaches to read and write with text,sound and images, in non linear interactive doc-uments”.9 Something similar can be applied, inthis scenario, to librarians, more concerned withcomputer knowledge than with the knowledgethat can be accessed by means of computers.

When we read the ‘Information Literacy Stan-dards’10 which are being promoted in the USA —from Pre-K to Grade 12 — it is evident that theyare not thinking about schools such as the onesin Latin America, where students attend classesonly 4 hours a day: all the school time would bedevoted to learning those communication tech-niques, with no time available for the curricula(and assuming there were only 20 students perclass, instead of the 30 or 40 there are today;assuming there were many machines available,free access to the Internet, technical support,machines and program updates, and all the rest).

* * *

This scenario 3 often comes together with a pro-gressive and well-thought discourse; sometimes,simply with the implacable futurism of visionar-ies. But whatever the kind of discourse, the truthis that it matches well the ideology of the ‘knowl-edge society’, promoted by the World Bank andassociated agencies. And here we must stop tothink a little.

New economics is described as knowledge eco-nomics. In fact, James Wolfensohn, President ofthe World Bank (WB), proposed back in 1996(and repeated in 1999), that the WB be rede-fined as a ‘knowledge bank’. The expressionknowledge management regularly appears inrecent documents produced by that agency andothers, such as the OECD. What ‘knowledge’ arethey referring to? To a practical, immediatelyapplicable, rapidly becoming obsolete (they areconvinced that this knowledge will have anaverage 3-year life cycle), merchandise like anyother, with a market value. Of course, everybodysays knowledge should not be mistaken forinformation but, in their discourse, all terms getmixed up and, oddly enough, learning is some-times totally dissociated from knowledge.

Institutions traditionally associated with knowl-edge (i.e. universities), are left aside unless theyadjust to this model, which of course is happen-ing in many places. In principle, this new knowl-edge will be available in other places, andalready is in the computer highways.

Where shall we get the knowledge required forthis new economic dynamics? The key expres-sion is learning communities. This expression isextremely ambiguous and maybe deliberatelyambiguous. A learning community can havelocal existence (a company, a family, a ruralcommunity, whatever), or can have virtual


41

existence (groups connected by the Internet).Also, a school could be described as a learningcommunity. But school ceases to be the learningplace par excellence, and that is what matters.

Let us not fool ourselves: it is not scientificknowledge, that which aims at intelligibility,which creates comprehensive systems (which wecall theories), which demands demonstrations,contrast and discussion, which gives proof of thevalidity of its statements and constantly asksquestions according to ‘intelligibility gaps’. Thatknowledge is not included in this new knowl-edge. We are not discussing whether scientificknowledge is supplementary, opposite, orwhatever, with regard to other knowledge(popular knowledge, technological knowledge,etc.). The serious thing here is word monopoly.New economists have taken the word knowl-edge as theirs. This knowledge is conceived asencapsulated and liable to be so; disposable,liable to become obsolete. Therefore, learning tothrow away information is, to some ideologists,as important as learning to ‘load information’;human individuals are not fitted with a ‘delete’key, and so they talk about the need for trainingin forgetting abilities.

In this discussion, there is a great absentee: thenotion itself of learning that is being used. Whatis the maximum speed at which learning canoccur? What can be learnt through the screens?Learning is a process, and a process that takesits time. It is probable that the traditional age tostart a given kind of learning should be revised.But most surely, there is learning that demands‘face to face and body to body’, as well as thereis fundamental learning that requires effectivecontact with the objects. Both psychology andpsycho-pedagogy have a big task ahead in thenear future: to discover which are the learningsthat cannot be carried out by means of a screen.

ICTs have appeared surrounded by an ideology-prone discourse, of which we shall have to stripthem in order to value them for themselves.

* * *

The digital gap does indeed exist. But it is not theonly existing gap. It is outrageous that there aremore Internet connections in Manhattan than inthe whole of Africa, but not more outrageousthan other inequalities which we have lived withsince decades ago. In particular, the digital gapoverlaps with the literacy gap we already knew,that eternal debt that has been hanging over us

for long. We are in the decade of literacy accord-ing to UNESCO, whose current Director Generalhas had the peculiar idea of appointing Mrs. Bushas ‘special ambassador’ of the said decade, nodoubt to celebrate the re-entrance of USA toUNESCO after about 20 years of absence.

But at the famous 1990 meeting at Jomtien,Thailand, when the World Bank signed withUNESCO the declaration giving absolute priorityto basic education, the goals for the last ten yearsof the 20th century had already been set: educa-tion for all and, of course, literacy for all.

And long before, in 1979, the ministers of edu-cation and those in charge of economic planningin Latin America and the Caribbean weresummoned by UNESCO itself to Mexico City,where they committed themselves to achieve,before the year 2000, school for all children, ageneral basic education of eight to ten years, andthe elimination of illiteracy. It was the beginningof what was known as the Major Project of Edu-cation in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ofcourse, similar meetings were held in otherregions.

And thus we go, from declaration to declaration,from celebration to celebration, while strongsums of money are used for ‘external’ assess-ments and certifications, which guarantee thehomogenization of politics, much more than therenowned ‘transparency’.

Thus we go from a previous unfulfilled commit-ment to the next one, without acknowledgingthe history of our own failures, while Europeand the North of the American continent arebeing invaded by undesired immigrants, whilethe AIDS and new ‘preventive wars’ orphansclamor for justice, wide-eyed, while the numbergrows of those surviving (and living badly) withless than a daily dollar, while the increase inwealth concentration among a few families andamong a few companies is as outrageous as thenumber of children being born with a life expec-tation of under five years.11

How can we bring universal literacy into thisunequal world? What are we talking about? Isdigital literacy the answer?

* * *

As a researcher, I have been struggling for thepast 25 years to extend the concept of ‘literacy’,with an approach that is at once evolutionary,

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social and historical. I can say and maintain, withempirical evidence, that to introduce literacy isnot to go across the ‘code barrier’. It is not, first,because no serious linguistic analysis leads to theconclusion that writings historically developedare codes (in the sense that some artificiallanguage are indeed, such as the Morse code orthe binary code). Secondly, because what isessential in the literacy process is a conceptualre-conversion: language, learnt as a communica-tion instrument, should become an object inde-pendent from the elocution act, an object aboutwhich we can think, which can be analyzed.Thirdly, because historically, writing is not areflection of spoken communication, but a repre-sentation system at various levels, which leavesaside — i.e. does not represent — fundamental dis-tinctions of oral communication (emphasis,intonation, repetitions, intentional pauses, rectifi-cations), and introduces characteristics foreign tospoken communication (e.g. words that ‘sound’the same are written differently if there is achange of reference or syntactic significance).Fourthly, because between ‘the language that iswritten’ and spoken communication there areevident differences at every level (pragmatic,lexical, syntactic and phonological). And I stophere, because I could go on with the list.12

The difficulties in shifting from spoken to writtencommunication are still there, with or withoutICTs. What the ICTs help us to do, unaware, is:

• To render obsolete the idea of promotingliteracy with only one text (but for decades,there have been many of us who insist on theadvantage of a diversity of texts from thebeginning and, in that sense, libraries andlibrarians are an essential aid).

• To render obsolete the pedagogical obsessionwith spelling (we must learn to use spell cor-rectors with intelligence, the same as pocketcalculators).

• To render obsolete the idea of a unique sourceof information: the teacher or the textbook(but for decades, good libraries and goodlibrarians have been working towards thisgoal).

In brief, there are multiple convergence pointsbetween what is claimed as ‘novelties introducedby ICTs’ (in educational terms), and what pro-gressive tendencies in literacy (to give them aname) have been demanding for decades. In thissense, welcome the ICTs!

* * *

To make my position clear, let me summarize itas follows:

I cannot speak about literacy in the void, butwithin a specific space-time. When computerswere but just appearing, and being sure of thepower of the keyboard in developing technolo-gies, I started a campaign for the recovery of oldmechanical typing machines in order to givethem to rural schools in Mexico. Now I amstruggling for access to books and ICTs in allthose schools and in every school.13

I have promoted the creation of a website forall Spanish-speaking children,14 and I haveproduced — with a team of young technicians —a multimedia CD in order to better make myown scientific production known.15

But I don’t speak about digital education ordigital literacy, because I think it is not proper tospeak of them. I speak about literacy by itself.The one corresponding to our space and time.

We need critical readers, who doubt the truth ofwhat they see in print on paper, or displayed onscreen, text or image; readers who seek to under-stand other languages (how much easier it isnow with the Internet!) without underestimatingor magnifying the hegemonic English language.

Readers who will have a global vision of socialand political problems (how much easier it isnow with the Internet!) without sticking tonarrow localisms.

Intelligent, alert, critical readers and producersof written language. What we have alwayssearched for. Difficult task, and now, theInternet helps, no doubt. Books and librariestoo.

As opposed to the conservative school insti-tution, libraries and librarians can play anavant-garde role, quite different from the supple-mentary role some attribute to them. Librariansmust have a major space within the planningand execution of school tasks. It is not just amatter of encouraging children to go to thelibrary. It is about including library research asan integral part of educational projects, wherethe person responsible for the library has his orher own voice: informing the teachers about theresources available, about the intelligent use ofnew technologies, helping — having a ‘quieter’relationship with them — incorporate a tech-nique to help learning.


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In view of the fears and uncertainties on theteachers’ part, school library services have a roleof vital importance to fulfill. They are not askingfor ‘training courses’, as teachers do as a ‘protec-tive shield’ against unavoidable changes. Librar-ians have been trained out of need, as any otherprofession.

Librarians have not stopped at the semantic rootof the word defining them. It is clear that theiroriginal job is to catalogue and make books andprinted documents available. But they have beenable to add recorded and video-recorded docu-ments without much ‘professional trauma’. Theyhave also been able to incorporate all sorts ofdigital sources of access to information. Theyhave already done so, while basic educationteachers are still afraid, precisely because theyare being summoned to bring about ‘digitalliteracy’, without necessarily understanding whatwe are talking about — and for a good reason,because the discourse is extremely ambiguous —while curricula changes are being imposed onthem, in which they have had no participation.

We need children and youths who can expressthemselves in writing in a convincing manner(how much easier it is now with the Internet!)who not simply communicate because ‘one has tobe in permanent communication’, but becausethey have something to communicate; thecontent of the message should be at least asimportant as the format. We need particularlycreative new generations. They will be in charge,no more, no less, of inventing a new world order,where life will be worth living. It is the teachers’duty, but also that of librarians and all professionsinvolved in transmitting and spreading knowl-edge. Professions that believe that it still makessense to transmit human knowledge, whatever itsorigin. Professions that believe in humanity as apluralistic entity. Without hegemonic domina-tion. Let us struggle for this to be so.

Notes and references

1. Cerquiglini, B. (1989) Éloge de la variante. Histoirecritique de la philologie. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Chartier, R. (1992) Libros, lecturas y lectores en laEdad Moderna. (Chap. 3: « ¿Qué es un autor ?»).Barcelona: Alianza Universidad. Chartier, R. (2000)Entre poder y placer. (Chap. V: ‘La invención delautor’) Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra.

2. See Ferreiro, E. (2001) Pasado y presente de losverbos ‘Leer’ y ‘Escribir’. Buenos Aires and Mexico:Fondo de Cultura Económica. (English translation:Past and present of the verbs to read and to write.Toronto: Groundwood Press, 2003).

3. Cortes Castellanos, J. (1987) El catecismo enpictogramas de Fray Pedro de Gante. Madrid:Fundación Universitaria Española.

4. According to this vision, the seven conservedcomplete manuscripts of the Chanson de Rolandare so many other versions or realizations of theepic poem. “It is difficult to accept the idea thatthere is more than one Chanson de Roland, all ofthem authentic”, rightly says Cerquiglini. (Eloge dela variante. Paris: Ed. du Seuil, 1989, p. 63).

5. See website of the American Library Associationand links.

6. The building of knowledge is not limited to ‘makingsense’ of fragments of information. Trying to makesense of information is typical of human cognition.But, to put it in Piaget’s theory terms, the pureassimilation without accommodation is not enough.This is evident in the case of historical knowledge,where attempts to link dispersed pieces of vaguelyrelated information result in the greatestabsurdities.

7. Dossier ‘L’Édition scolaire numérique’, supplementde La lettre de l’éducation N° 426, October 6 2003,Le Monde newspaper.

8. At the beginning of the school year, September2003, the Secretary of Education of Mexicoannounced the government plan to buy 815,000computers. Also at the beginning of the school year,March 2004, the Minister of Education of Argentinaannounced a plan to purchase 50,000 computers inthe next 3 years. The difference in figures is relatedto the size of the school population, not to theirintentions. See both countries’ websites.

9. The quotation is from p. 65 of A. Gutierrez Martin’sbook, Alfabetización digital (Barcelona: Gedisa,2003). Of course, there is an overabundance of textsdevoted to this subject, and it is not my intention tomake a critical bibliographical revision.

10. http://cnets.iste.org/currstands/cstands-il.html.11. UNICEF annual report, submitted in Berlin on May

7 2004: “Chronic extreme poverty kills a millionand a half children before they reach 5 years of age,in the 10 most needy countries in the world”. InAfghanistan, for example, 25% of children do notreach 5 years of age.

12. See Ferreiro, E. (Comp.) Relaciones de(in)dependencia entre oralidad y escritura.Barcelona: Gedisa, 2002.

13. To struggle for access to the ICTs also means to startthe debate: how many computers in each school? Inwhat type of webs? Fitted with what kind ofsoftware? And so on.

14. www.chicosyescritores.org15. Ferreiro, E. (2003) Los niños piensan sobre la

escritura. CD-Multimedia, México: Siglo XXIEditores.

Revised translation of original paper no. 178 presentedat the World Library and Information Congress, 70thIFLA General Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina,22–27 August 2004, in session 140, Plenary Session III.Spanish original available on IFLANET at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.

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NGOs, ICTs and Information Dissemination in Asiaand Oceania


It can be no accident that there is today no wealthy developedcountry that is information-poor, and no information-rich countrythat is poor and underdeveloped.

Dr Mahathir Mohammed

Introduction

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in developingcountries are engaged in information dissemination at two levels.One is purely informational, the sharing of information within theorganization in order for the organization to function. The otheris more directly developmental: the use of information for sustain-able capacity-building initiatives in a range of fields, includingeducation, health, housing and agriculture. Focusing on thesituation in Asia and Oceania, this paper looks at the way inwhich NGOs utilize information, and to some extent informationand communication technologies (ICTs), for sustainable capacitybuilding.

The Questions Asked

It is hypothesized that communication strategies that take intoaccount the social nature of access, recognize the interactionbetween face-to-face and online communications, and combineInternet use with a broad range of other new and old mediaprovide the best opportunities for sustainable development initia-tives through the use of ICT.

To address this hypothesis, we ask a series of questions in thepaper: How have NGOs’ roles changed in the creation, validationand dissemination of information? What are the barriers to ICTadoption, and how might its potential be realized? What is anappropriate mix of ICT-based information dissemination and tra-ditional print-based information? How do different cultures reactwhen information is accessed remotely rather than face-to-face?

We also ask some potentially embarrassing questions, based pri-marily on our experience of the development scene in our region.Specifically, how well do NGOs collaborate with one another insharing development-related information? What are some of thefacilitators and barriers to more effective collaboration?

‘NGO’ Defined

For purposes of this paper we define ‘nongovernmental organiza-tion’ or NGO as the third sector of development activity, that is,non-state, non-business, not-for-profit organizations with a

Elizabeth Reade-Fong andGary E. Gorman

About the authors: page 51

global or regional outreach. According to somecommentators, these NGOs have themselvesdeveloped at a phenomenal rate, especially inthe final decades of the 20th century. This maybe a kind of global revolution for NGOs;whether this is the case is a matter of interpreta-tion, but certainly the NGO has become incred-ibly influential and significant in developmentactivities worldwide. Indeed, anyone whospends time in some of the most needful coun-tries in our region, Cambodia as an example,may be forgiven for thinking that NGOs havetaken over the world – every vehicle, most officepremises and even a number of hotels bear thelogo of an NGO, ranging from the genuineheavyweights to some of the very small organiz-ations engaged in a single project of shortduration.

NGOs in Asia-Oceania

These NGOs have evolved in the Asia-Oceaniaregion against a rich backdrop of varied ethnic,economic, political systems (democracy,monarchy, communism, military rule) andindigenous values and philosophical traditions(Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Islam andChristianity). NGOs were initially established inresponse to emergency relief provision andwelfare services. Over time, this changed, and

many [NGOs] subsequently moved intoincreasingly multi-sectoral, development-oriented programmes aimed at promotingthe self-reliance [sustainable development]of their disadvantaged target groups.(ESCAP 1994, 1)

The establishment of telecommunication infra-structures that formed the basis of ICT develop-ment in Asia and Oceania was the result of thework of colonial powers and their efforts towardthe advancement and perpetuation of theirinterests. This was later reinforced by nationaldevelopment and the brand of economic develop-ment labelled ‘globalization’ that is advocated inthe 21st century.

From wireless and radio or radio telephone, tothe message services of Morse code, cable andtelex, to video and TV and satellite communica-tions, the Internet and CD-ROM technology,mobile telephony, with the advent of the ICTrevolution, national governments, multilateralagencies, regional development agencies, privatecorporations as well as non-governmental

organizations have collaborated to assist thedevelopment of countries in the region. Amongthe notable outcomes of these initiatives are therapid development of the telecommunicationsindustry and the emergence of new ICT andmultimedia industries.

In Asia and Oceania, where country populationsrange from significantly overpopulated (India,Indonesia) to small isolated island states withlow per capita incomes (Tonga, Tokelau) andwith urban populations growing through rural-urban migration, information acquisition anddissemination is, or at least should be, a princi-pal tool of sustainable development for NGOs.In the process of achieving sustainable develop-ment utilizing ICTs, NGOs have had to criticallyexamine (1) issues of access (2) the forms of ICTthat are relevant and sustainable vis-à-vis localresources and (3) the availability of informationand technology skills to sustain any systemimplemented.

NGOs with a Focus on Women as anExample

The women’s movement, amongst others associ-ated with human rights, social justice, repro-ductive health and gender issues, has been adynamic force in the ICT awareness raisingarena by NGOs, through the employment of adynamic mix of ICT strategies based ontechnical assistance and advice, supporting com-munity access, sharing best practices, advocatinginformation standards and low-cost technologiesand supporting local innovations.

The number of websites established by women’sNGOs and national machinery for the advance-ment of women has increased rapidly in recentyears. Through new information technology,women’s organizations are now able to networkwith one another beyond national boundariesand share information and resources with lessexpense. Local groups have become part ofregional and international group networks, andhave strategized networks, thus strengtheningtheir capacity for sustainable institution building.

For example, of the 83 NGOs which regis-tered in 1999 for a regional high-level inter-governmental meeting to review regionalimplementation of the Beijing Platform forAction in the Asian and Pacific region, 68had their own e-mail address, which wasused for communication with ESCAP, the

Elizabeth Reade-Fong and Gary E. Gorman

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meeting organizer. Considering that in1995, at the time of the Fourth World Con-ference on Women, e-mail communicationamong the majority of women NGOs in theAsian and Pacific region was virtually non-existent, that number is significant. At thetime, of the entire United Nations system,only the United Nations Development Pro-gramme (UNDP) maintained a server withweb and gopher sites. The Beijing Confer-ence was the first UN world conference toactively use online information dissemina-tion. (Horie 2003, 1)

On the other hand, while new information tech-nology has given women the opportunity toshare information and interact on a scale thatwas hard to imagine at the time of the BeijingConference, in terms of political, economic andsocial participation women’s worldwidepresence in this new information technologyremains low. Women in developing countries,among other minority groups, are especiallychallenged in terms of effectively accessing theinformation highway to reach alternativesources of information.

The Asian Women’s Resource Center (AWORC),the United Nations Economic and Social Com-mission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) andIsis International Manila are conductingresearch which seeks to assess the situation ofwomen’s organized groups in Asia, the CentralAsian Republics, and the Pacific; their level ofICT use, how ICT is used in their work, andwhat their training and networking needs are,towards furthering women’s empowermentthrough the use of ICT. For countries in theCentral Asian Republics and the Pacific sub-regions, which are less developed than othersubregions in terms of Internet accessibility forwomen’s organizations, indepth subregionalstudies have been conducted to make a situationanalysis on Internet use and access amongwomen’s groups. Women’s organizations in thisresearch are defined as non-profit and non-government women’s groups at grassroots andnational levels which work on any aspect ofwomen in development.

In 2001, the Secretariat of the Pacific Com-munity Pacific Women’s Bureau, in collabora-tion with AWORC, conducted the Pacificsection of the baseline survey which revealedthat within the national women’s machinery ineach of the 22 Pacific Island member countriesand territories of the Pacific Community, the use

of ICT as an advocacy tool by Pacific women inboth government and civil society is limited.(Cass and Williams 2002)

Elizabeth Cass, a member of the survey teamreported that

the survey also highlighted a need, outlinedby the respondent countries, to provide ICTtraining in order to improve the use of ICTso that advocacy and networking on genderinequality could be achieved with multi-layered spin-off benefits such as the creationof online networking and proactive use byPacific women of electronic/online media.The publication assessed the use of ICTs bywomen’s groups in Asia & 8 Pacific Islandcountries (Federated States of Micronesia,New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa,Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu & Fiji).The survey found that very few Pacificwomen’s organizations used the Internet asa networking tool and highlighted the needto improve the capacity of women in thePacific to make full use of ICT to supporttheir policy & advocacy work. High cost ofaccess, and skills & training were factors thatprevented women’s groups from using ICTs.Three phases: research, train the trainers andtwo week online advocacy workshop forPacific women who meet the selectioncriteria: i.e. are in information roles, whichcan best benefit from ICT technology andshare online advocacy through informationand innovative use of ICT and content.(Cass, e-mail communication, 2004)

The NGO DAWN (Development Alternatives forWomen in a New Era), whose base was in thePacific from 1998-2002, is composed of womenin academia from Africa, Asia, the Pacific and theCaribbean. DAWN analyses economic develop-ment policies and their implications for women.It has a strong information power base thatincludes research as a normal part of its activity.DAWN has four themes: the Political Economy ofGlobalization; Sexual and Reproductive Healthand Rights; Political Restructuring and SocialTransformation; and Sustainable Livelihoods andEnvironmental Justice. Its target audience is gov-ernment and the international arena, and its roleis to determine and recommend alternatives forthe development of women. The DAWN websiteis well developed and its links with other onlineadvocacy units through DAWN’s association andstrategic partnerships with specific developmentnetworks and organizations that work on similar

NGOs, ICTs and Information Dissemination

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issues as DAWN are important to the achieve-ment of the network’s goals. These working part-nerships, through ICT links, provide a wideroutreach for DAWN, and the opportunity offocused impacts. Through such partnerships,DAWN seeks to engender influential develop-ment organizations.

The Ecumenical Centre for Advocacy andResearch in Fiji (ECREA) and the PacificConcerns Research Centre obtained funds for anautomated integrated library system (Alice forWindows) for their resource centres. This is anexcellent example of collaboration betweenNGOs in terms of funding and personnel expert-ise. The resource centre is accessible through thewebsite at http://www.ecrea.org.fj.

Internet Access and ICTs in the Region

The World Summit on the Information Society(WSIS) in 2003 was an opportunity for govern-ment and NGOs, institutions and private andbusiness sector organizations to take stock ofICT development goals. This exercise confirmedthe degree to which certain barriers to ICT exist,and the extent to which NGOs are caughtbehind these barriers.

It must be remembered that in developing coun-tries of Asia and the Pacific Internet access hasbecome available only recently. In the Pacific,for example, the Internet arrived as a viablecommunications technology in Fiji in 1995, andin Tuvalu in 2000. At present approximately 25percent of Pacific islanders have regular accessto ICTs, primarily through their workplaces, afew secondary and tertiary educational institu-tions and a few public centres and Internet cafes.(PIFS 2003a, 3)

The proportion of Internet subscribers rangesfrom very high (on average 1:5) in Australia,Hong Kong, Japan New Zealand, Niue (whereaccess is free) and Singapore, to very low(1:1000) in countries such as the SolomonIslands. (PIFS 2003a, 3) Users in only threePacific countries (Papua New Guinea, Samoaand Tonga) have a choice of ISPs, while users inother Asia-Pacific countries are served bymonopoly ISPs. And then there is the matter ofcontrol, with Viet Nam as a good example – therethe government has recently introduced evenstricter controls over what may be accessed onthe Internet, and the general public have beenenlisted as observers of Internet use. Internet café

owners are now required to report any ‘suspi-cious’ use of the Internet by their customers (asreported in Viet Nam News in June 2004). Onecould list several other countries where Internetuse is heavily proscribed, and where allegedmisuse can lead to serious consequences. WhilstNGOs may feel safely outside this net, they maybe rather surprised about how much is known oftheir Internet traffic, and how various govern-ment authorities regard them as a result.

ICT development is largely an urban phenome-non. Nearly all Internet users are located incapital cities and a handful of secondary urbanareas. In rural Viet Nam, for example the moreremote villages often have no electricity, or avery sporadic power supply, and about 40percent of the population is without a telephone.In terms of affordability, Pacific islanders as anexample typically face connectivity charges thatare among the highest in the world. Subscriptionand usage charges for dialup access to theInternet range from USD 3.00 to USD 175.00 permonth, with an average of USD 50.00. (PIFS2003a, 4) On an annual basis this amounts toone quarter to one half of the average annual percapita GDP in many countries and is clearlyunaffordable by the majority of people. Thisscenario differs from region to region.

The price of full-time Internet access via a 64kbps leased line varies much more widely thandoes that of dialup access, from USD 700 toUSD 5000 per month. (PIFS 2003a, 4). Theseprices are, on average, five times higher andrange to as much as 20 times higher, than in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) devel-oped countries. (PIFS 2003a, 4) Where aid isinvolved in access, many developing countrieshave problems with continuation of the project.Projects often lock countries into technology andequipment brands that may hinder development.

Institutional use of the Internet in the Pacific fallsbehind the Association of Southeast AsianNations (ASEAN) countries but is more in linewith the South Asian Association for RegionalCooperation (SAARC) countries and is slowlycatching up with the rest of the world. Neverthe-less, it is not uncommon for government depart-ments to lack access to basic e-mail, and tocontinue to rely exclusively on fax and phoneservices. As a rule, telecommunication links arepoor (e.g. inadequate bandwidth). Whilst the linksmay exist, the quality and speed vary throughoutthe region, and it is these variations that preventaccess to and the exchange of information.


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All of this is exacerbated by an often negativegovernment view of ICT developments, andefforts to hinder these developments. This mightinclude, depending on the country, the deliber-ate application of outdated regulatory frame-works, or the failure to introduce appropriatelegislation guiding ICT developments.

Furthermore, there is a lack of trained personnelwith knowledge of ICTs for the organization anddissemination of information. This also is moreapplicable to some developing countries in theAsia-Oceania region than others. Viet Nam nowhas a very energetic and well-trained cadre ofcomputer and ICT professionals, whereas for thePacific the lack of trained personnel and themigration of such personnel are significantproblems — this is equally true of many countriesin Southeast and South Asia, such as Cambodia,Laos, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Zwimpfer (1999), commenting on trained per-sonnel, stated that there was a notable change inthis arena in the presence of information officersand the like who are responsible for informationacquisition, validation and dissemination. ThoseNGOs fortunate to have donor agency fundingare the ones who have been able to include sucha position in their structure. This means quali-fied personnel in information provision, whichhas enhanced the capacity of many NGOs tomeet their information and advocacy needs.Awareness of the activities of NGOs hasincreased a hundred-fold in developing coun-tries in the last 10 years.

What we have, then, is a set of pretty effectivebarriers to more widespread ICT use by NGOsin the region, as well as by government depart-ments and the general population. To sum-marise, these are:

• urban focus of ICT development• high cost of access• limited bandwidth• unreliable/limited electricity supplies• lack of trained personnel• national priorities in other areas of basic need• government suspicion of the Internet, and• repressive controls

Information Dissemination by NGOs

No one with any experience of NGOs in the AsiaPacific region will doubt that, for the most part,they do an excellent job of disseminating high

quality information to their constituents. Thiscan be observed in every field in which NGOsare engaged, from agricultural development tohousing, clean water, health care, education andfamily planning. They recognize the value ofinformation in formats accessible by their con-stituents and work very hard to provide thisinformation in the form of pamphlets, videos,radio broadcasts, training sessions — whatever iseffective in their specific circumstances. In manycountries this is the only information available topeople, especially in rural and remote areas, andin general it is well received because it has beengeared to the literacy and comprehension levelsof the local population.

On the other hand, NGOs have an abysmalrecord when it comes to inter-agency informationsharing and dissemination. In most instanceswith which we are familiar the NGOs working inthe same field and same countries never shareinformation beyond the most superficial level.This applies to the largest agencies and thesmallest single-issue NGOs. In Viet Nam, as anexample, there are several agencies involved indevelopment programmes for children. In someof the largest agencies there is an intensely com-petitive spirit, which mitigates against any sharingof information. This strikes us as unreasonableand a waste of resources; since these are not com-mercial enterprises, they should not regard theirinformation as restricted or commercially sensi-tive, but rather should be sharing in order tostrengthen what they do through the betterquality information that results from cooperation.The smaller organizations often do not shareinformation because, in their view, they lack per-sonnel and cannot afford the time involved incollaboration. The returns of sharing, of course,may include more efficient delivery of services,and therefore a saving in both time and money.

What the NGOs must do is reassess their viewof information sharing and come to an under-standing that by collaborating with one anotherthere can be significant gains in service deliverywithout loss of autonomy. This is a key priorityfor them. And one good source of information tohelp achieve this priority is Fahamu (http://www.fahamu.org.uk/index.html), an NGO dedi-cated to strengthening the work of not-for-profitand other non-governmental organizationsthrough the use of information and communica-tions technologies. Fahamu produces andpublishes CD-ROM-based learning materialsespecially for this sector, designs and manageswebsites, runs training courses (including online


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courses), and provides support for Internet-related work.

The Information Mix in NGOs

What the current picture demonstrates in theAsia-Pacific region is a wide diversity in the useand application of ICT initiatives for sustainabledevelopment. Whilst for some, access and use ofICT is integral to achieving their developmentgoals and objectives, there are those NGOs forwhich this is a purely hypothetical issue. In themiddle are those who have access and use ICTand are much in need of training, financial assis-tance, changes in national and regional telecom-munications policies, etc. Regardless of thecategory into which an NGO falls, due consid-eration and thought needs to be given to thisissue and reflected in plans for ICT developmentof the countries of the Asia-Pacific Regionthrough a set of guidelines.

In discussions on the development of availabil-ity of and access to ICTs for NGO informationdissemination in the Asia-Oceania region, anappropriate mix of ICT and traditional modes ofinformation dissemination must be undertakenin order to fit both the local situation and theinformation dissemination needs of the NGOs.Based on what we know of NGOs and on ourexperience in the region, the following are somepossible scenarios.

High level capability

In this scenario NGOs are linked to inter-national networks and donor agencies. There isregular funding with qualified full-time(paid/volunteer) and/or part-time personnelwith specialist skills (e.g. research skills andmanagement knowledge of NGOs). ICTs (e-mailand limited Internet) are an accepted part ofdaily work for database management of officeresources and an organized informationresource collection of print and multi-media.Examples in this category are UN-associatedNGOs, DAWN and ECREA. Goal: 50 percentprint-based, 50 percent ICT-based.

Medium level capability

This category applies to many national and localurban-based NGOs that rely on a combinationof local and overseas funding. They might usePCs for office management, and have a workingcollection of print and multimedia materials.

There would be a minimum of one full-time,multi-skilled staff member plus a combination ofpart-time and voluntary workers with ICT andinformation experience. Goal: 70 percent print-based, 30 percent ICT-based.

Low level capability

Here we are looking at totally rural-basedinformal NGOs operating with voluntary per-sonnel. They may or may not have access to anyICT, and if so this is likely to be shared — e.g.phone and fax. There is a very limited (files anda few pamphlet boxes of handouts or brochures)collection of print and multimedia works, if any.Goal: 80–100 percent print-based, 20 percentICT-based.

The degree of combination of ICT and printresources will affect the attitude of informationseekers and users. The reaction of people to thedifferent forms of information disseminated byNGOs will, amongst other issues, be stronglyinfluenced by cultural factors in their preferencefor face-to-face or remote access communica-tion. For the larger sectors of populations in Asiaand Oceania ICTs are both daunting andexciting. In some cultural settings the face-to-face can often be more comforting, but this isdependent on the subject of the issue and thecontext in which the information is beingaccessed or shared. In certain instances, theface-to-face can be culturally uncomfortable,and remote access is the preferred way of dealingwith a sensitive or difficult issue at hand. On theother hand, for cultures where the face-to-facemay lead to stigma of a sort — e.g. a man seekingcounselling for violent tendencies – the remoteaccess format of advice (using audiotape, filmand e-mail) may be more appreciated. An NGOfocussing on domestic violence issues is likely touse a combination of the two — remote access todisseminate information generally, combinedwith face-to-face counselling for greatest effect.

Conclusion

Non-governmental organizations are vital com-ponents in the development process. Theirability to communicate with those whom theyserve, and with national governments and local,regional and international organizations, isheavily dependent on their capacity to inform allstakeholders of issues related to their objectivesand purpose. ICTs are a means to facilitate this.However, in acknowledging the different levels


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of development of ICT capability of NGOs, thebest opportunities for sustainable developmentinitiatives rest with a combination of ICT- andprint-based initiatives. The presence of qualifiedinformation providers in NGOs is no longer aluxury but an essential part of their personnelneeds. For many NGOs this is a reality, for somea dream that could come true and for many noteven something that they can dream about. Ourresponsibility is to try and bring all NGOs on toa level playing field.

References

Ali, Afshana. (1999) Aid, NGOs and gender develop-ment. MA Thesis. Suva, University of the SouthPacific.

Asia-Pacific NGO Symposium. (2000) Final Report of theAsia-Pacific NGO Symposium: Part B. Asia-PacificWomen 2000: Gender equality, development andpeace. [no place]: Asia-Pacific NGO Symposium.

Cass, Elizabeth. (2004) E-mail communication, 4 August2004.

Cass, Elizabeth and Williams, Lisa. (2002) Online and e-advocacy for Pacific women: ICT capacity buildingproject. Noumea: Secretariat of the Pacific Com-munity, Pacific Women’s Bureau.

ESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Com-mission for Asia and the Pacific.) (1994) Fiscalincentives and other measure to support the growthand viability of NGOS for HRD. Bangkok: ESCAP.

ESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commis-sion for Asia and the Pacific). (1996) Support orcontrol? registration of NGOs working for HRD inAsia and the Pacific. Bangkok: ESCAP.

Horie, Yukie. (2003) Status of women’s organisations intheir use of information and communication tech-nology in Asia and the Pacific: a research proposal.http://www.aworc.org/research/proposal.html. Acc-essed 10 July 2004.

Hou, Tony. (1999) NGOs and rural development in theSolomon Islands: a case of the Solomon IslandsDevelopment Trust (SIDT). MA Thesis. Suva, Uni-versity of the South Pacific.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Develop-ment. (1993) The role of non-governmental organisa-tions in development cooperation. Paris: OECD.

Pacific Islands Information and Communication Tech-nologies. (2002) Policy and Strategic Plan: informa-tion and communication technologies for everyPacific islander. Suva: Pacific Islands Informationand Communication Technologies. April.

PIFS (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat). (2002) PacificICT capacity and prospects working paper. [Suva:Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.]

PIFS (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat). (2003a) PacificIslands Regional ICT Consultation: a Pacific Islandsresponse to the WSIS Framework, Suva, Fiji, 9–11April 2003. [Suva: Pacific Islands Forum Secre-tariat.]

PIFS (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat). (2003b) PacificIslands Regional Input Paper, Pacific IslandsForum Secretariat. Prepared for the Asian Regional

Conference for the WSIS, Tokyo 13–15 January2003. [Suva: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.]

Taylor, Vivene. (2000) Marketisation of governance:critical feminist perspectives from the South. Suva:DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women fora New Era).

United Nations Asia Pacific Development InformationProgramme. [n.d.] http://www.apdip.net/projects/prog/access. Accessed 10 July 2004.

Zwimpfer Communications Ltd. (1999) Electronic con-nectedness in Pacific island countries: a survey onthe use of computers, e-mail and the Internet in edu-cation, culture and communication. Prepared forUnesco by Zwimpfer Communications Limited,Wellington, New Zealand. [Wellington: ZwimpferCommunications.]

About the Authors

Elizabeth Reade Fong is Deputy University Librarian(Customer Services) at the University of the SouthPacific (USP), where she is responsible for customerservices, human resource development and theimplementation of the Library’s strategic plan. Sheis Coordinator for the Pacific Population InformationNetwork, Chair of the Network for Women in HigherEducation in the Pacific (NetWHEP), a member ofthe USP Gender Advisory Committee and a Pacificmember of the IFLA Asia and Oceania Section.Contact address: The Library, University of the SouthPacific, GPO Suva, Fiji. Tel. +679 3212363 or3313900 x2363. Direct line: +679 3270177.Fax: (679) 3300830. E-mail: [email protected]: http://www.library.usp.ac.fj.

Gary E. Gorman is Professor of Library and Informa-tion Management at Victoria University of Welling-ton. His main interest is in developing countries, andhe has long experience in South and SoutheastAsia, most recently as manager of a New Zealandgovernment-funded project in Viet Nam, InformationNetworks for the Future. He is also engaged in anumber of LIS educational development activities inViet Nam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. He is Chairof the IFLA Asia and Oceania Section and a memberof the IFLA Action for Development through Libraries(ALP) Advisory Board. Contact address: School ofInformation Management, Victoria University ofWellington, PO Box 600, Wellington 6015, NewZealand. Tel. +64 (4) 463 5782. Fax: +64 (4) 4635184. E-mail: [email protected]. Website:http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~gormang/

Original paper no. 186 presented at the World Libraryand Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Con-ference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, insession 47. Social Science Libraries with Division VIII.— Regional Activities. English original available onIFLANET at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.


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J.W. Roos

J. W. Roos is an Advocate of theHigh Court of South Africa andDirector of the South AfricanLibrary for the Blind. He qualifiedas a lawyer in 1983 and startedhis professional career as anacademic, specialising in com-mercial, labour and property law.He then practised as a humanrights lawyer, focusing on socialwelfare law and cases dealingwith land restitution and tenureprotection of previously dis-possessed South African com-munities. He is currently amember of the IFLA StandingCommittee of the Libraries for theBlind Section. A blind personhimself, he does not view thiscareer change as fundamentallydifferent from his prior pursuits inthe area of human rights. Aslibrarian to the South African blindcommunity his focus has merelyshifted to addressing informationneeds. He may be contacted at:South African Library for theBlind, PO Box 115, Grahamstown6140, South Africa. Tel: +27 466227226. Fax: +27 466224645. E-mail: [email protected].

Copyright Protection as Access Barrier for Peoplewho Read Differently: the case for an internationalapproach


Introduction1

Most contemporary public discussions concerning copyright pro-tection are not concerned with the legitimacy of copyright as aform of protection of intellectual property. They centre aroundprotection measures, whether legal or physical, and the degree ofcopyright protection that such measures should or should notafford. The public debate is fascinating. It provides very impor-tant perspectives on the society we live in now. The advent of theinformation age has given rise to new opportunities for theexploitation of the labour of others and to new challenges ofcontrol over, and the exploitation of, property. As Robert S.Boynton2 has observed:

Once a dry and seemingly mechanical area of the Americanlegal system, intellectual property law can now be found atthe center of major disputes in the arts, sciences and . . .politics.

The reason for these developments is not difficult to understand.As Boynton3 points out:

Not long ago, the Internet’s ability to provide instant, inex-pensive and perfect copies of text, sound and images washeralded with the phrase ‘information wants to be free.’ Yetthe implications of this freedom have frightened somecreators — particularly those in the recording, publishing andmovie industries — who argue that the greater ease of copyingand distribution increases the need for more stringent intel-lectual property laws. The movie and music industries havesucceeded in lobbying lawmakers to allow them to tightentheir grips on their creations by lengthening copyright terms.The law has also extended the scope of copyright protection,creating what critics have called a ‘paracopyright,’ whichprohibits not only duplicating protected material but in somecases even gaining access to it in the first place. . . . In lessthan a decade, the much-ballyhooed liberating potential ofthe Internet seems to have given way to something of anintellectual land grab, presided over by legislators andlawyers for the media industries.

Boynton’s article goes on to explore the development of a schoolof thought — sometimes referred to as the free culture movement(also the title of a forthcoming book by Lawrence Lessig) —which, although it is not a coherent theoretical movement, isusing its joint intellectual powers to set itself against this landgrab. Very significantly, it is using the tools of moral philosophyand historic analysis to develop culture- and research-oriented

arguments in favour of the need to erode existingproperty claims of copyright holders. We need,so the argument goes, to reassert a modern daynotion of the knowledge commons. ChristopherMay4 summarizes the argument thus:

At the centre of the protection of intellec-tual property rights (IPRs) is a long historyof political bargains struck between privaterights to reward and the social benefit ofinformation/knowledge diffusion. The his-torical dynamic of politics in this policy areahas been to expand the rights of ownerswhile circumscribing the public realm ofinformation and knowledge. In recentdecades the public domain has becomemerely a residual, all that is left when allother rights (as constructed by IPRs) havebeen exercised. The advent of digital rightsmanagement (DRM) technologies has dis-turbed a reasonably legitimate politico-legalsettlement over ‘fair use,’ challenging theexisting balance between the rights of‘creators’ and the interests of users. Thebreakdown of the norms underpinning IPRshas prompted renewed debate regardingtheir legitimacy. Although it is technologicalchange that has enhanced not only theability to copy but also the potential tocontrol the distribution of content, . . . thisargument will not be won or lost in therealm of technology. Rather, new technolo-gies return the question of the control ofknowledge and information (content) to therealm of politics.5

(Swahili proverb: ‘Ndovu wawili wakipanga,ziumiazoni nyasi’: ‘When two elephants fight, itis the grass that suffers’)

These intensely political aspects of copyright-related discussions and their moral-philosophi-cal overtones are of great importance to peoplewith print and perceptual disabilities. Notwith-standing the legitimate interests of copyrightholders, copyright protection constitutes anaccess barrier for them. They cannot access printmaterials in their original format.

In the ordinary course, not all copying is pro-hibited in all cases. It is nowadays commonlyaccepted that the so-called fair use or fairdealing principle permits copying which is con-sistent with the normal exploitation of a partic-ular document. But it is striking that no libraryfor the blind or publishing unit that supports ithas ever asserted that the production of a book

in an alternative format is permissible in termsof that principle, even if such production permitsthe normal exploitation of a book which isotherwise inaccessible to the print-disabledpeople who need access to it via a library. Freeaccess to library books is as ancient an idea aslibraries themselves.6

But this idea does not extend to access by theprint-disabled community at large. Libraries forthe blind and their book production agents havetherefore been dependent on the cooperation ofpublishers and authors to provide their permis-sion for the production of accessible literaturewithout the payment of royalty.

Although the need to obtain this type of cooper-ation does not routinely hamper the provision ofan effective library service in accessible formats,the needless trouble it causes is considerableand, in some cases, almost insurmountable.

• First, a significant time delay means thatpeople with print-disabilities — if they gainaccess to a book at all — must wait even longerthan it takes for the conversion process to becompleted.

• Second, the routine administrative burdenthat this type of copyright management entailsadds to the overall conversion cost.

• Third, this administrative process becomeseven more complex as soon as the originalcopyright holder transfers those rightspursuant to a merger or take-over or if, in thecase of smaller commercial concerns, they arewound up and the rights are not disposed ofin a manner which makes it possible to tracethe current holder. This is not an infrequentoccurrence in developing countries.

• Fourth, of particular concern in most coun-tries is the fact that student literature cannotbe converted by libraries for the blind or theiragents at a rate which does justice to the needsof the intended end-users thereof. To imposethe additional administrative burden anddelay factor on producers of student materialsis, therefore, unacceptable if the state has thelegislative means at its disposal to preventthem. This consideration becomes particularlypressing when the state opts for an inclusiveeducation model which permits children withdisabilities to attend so-called mainstreamschools which, in the ordinary course, find itdifficult enough to convert printed materialsfor use by blind children.

• Fifth, the production of magazines for the useof people with print-disabilities is impossible

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where, as is often the case, those magazinescarry syndicated materials over which themagazine publisher may not have furtherrights of disposition.

• Sixth, the administrative burden is furthercomplicated by the fact that permissions toreproduce in alternative formats are almostnever standard. They may, for example, belimited as to the number of permissible copies,the format in which the reproduction may bedone, be renewable from time to time and soon. What makes those potential differences sohazardous is that, from time to time, the per-missions granted must again and again be con-sulted and analysed to do work which isnecessary. Whether the book needs to berestored by replacing torn or missing pages;whether a particular educational institutionwishes to buy a copy for a student; or a parentwishes to buy a book for a child, the per-mission obtained requires examination. Ofparticular relevance in this regard is thedevelopment of the DAISY standard7 fordigitally recorded books for people with printdisabilities. Especially audio books will, as theresult of the international adoption of thisstandard, eventually be regenerated fromanalogue to digital format. In each case, thecopyright regime applicable to that particularaudio book would require careful considera-tion and, if necessary, it must be revisited.

Deaf persons, similarly, have never been confi-dent that they could rely on the support of thelegal system if they claimed that it would be fairdealing or fair use if an interpreter were to trans-late a literary work or a play or a televisionbroadcast for the benefit of deaf persons. On theother hand, though, it is hard to imagine a pub-lisher asserting the contrary in a court of law.But no person with a perceptual disability, noran institution serving the interests of suchpersons, really benefits from this twilight zonebetween strict legalism and public morality.Libraries for the blind depend for their survivalon the perception that they respect the copyrightof others absolutely. They depend on publicfunding. They employ professionals. If they areperceived to be anything other than scrupulousin their dealing with the rights of others, theymay lose the ability to attract the finances, theskills and the international respect withoutwhich they cannot serve their constituencies.

An accommodation that would balance accessneeds with protection needs is therefore of greatpotential importance to people with print and

perceptual disabilities. But it remains to be seenwhether copyright holders will become so dis-tracted by the larger debate that the accommo-dation remains an ideal, or whether they will usethe opportunities presented by the need for suchan accommodation to advance the propositionthat for the publishing industry, the debatefocuses on legitimate protection concerns andnot on protectionism that tramples genuine aspi-rations for short-term goals. To be sure, there ismuch potential for distraction. Each technologi-cal advance which opens up opportunities forthe erosion of access barriers seems to carry withit a potential threat. This is why, from the per-spective of those who seek to eliminate accessbarriers, Christopher May’s thesis that “newtechnologies return the question of the controlof knowledge and information (content) to therealm of politics” is right. Without political inter-vention, the access barriers with which thispaper is concerned cannot be removed com-pletely. But from the perspective of the ownersof content, a measure of cooperation may yieldbeneficial returns on the investment, namely theelimination of political mistakes, increasedaccess to control and, dare one postulate it, themoral high ground.8

In any event, the means to digitize print alreadyexists. For practical reasons, it makes sense towork with libraries for the blind, who are com-mitted enough to providing quality readerservices, to obviate the need for the unlawfulsharing of digital documents subject to copyrightprotection.

Print-Disabilities

People with print-disabilities are those who, dueto blindness, partial sight, dyslexia or physicalimpairments, cannot access visually representedinformation in the ordinary course. They requirethe conversion of such information into an alter-native format which renders it accessible viatheir remaining senses, either through touch,hearing or increased visibility. Formats whichare currently accessible are Braille, audio, largerprint or digital text in some formats, but weshould not try to list them more accurately, sincewe may blindfold ourselves before a properexamination of the problem.

The foregoing formulation has been made withsome caution. Technology changes so rapidlythat the accuracy of today’s definition may be-come the basis for tomorrow’s misunderstanding

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because of changed circumstances. For example,restricting the problem to print access only,ignores the point that a computer screen is notmade of paper, but the access problem may beequally real if the technology in use at any giventime renders access impossible at that stage.During 2003 technology that enables access tocellular telephones became readily available toblind people for the first time, although by thenmany of them had been using computer technol-ogy on other platforms since the early to mid-1980s with a considerable measure of success.What seems impossible today may, therefore,become perfectly possible due to an unforeseentechnological development. It is therefore apotential mistake to circumscribe with thebenefit of contemporary understanding, thosemeans by which tomorrow’s generation of blindpeople may be able to read. This point is notacademic. Care should always be taken not toassume that contemporary practical solutionsare all that is needed. Future developments maycreate new possibilities. The ideal attitude is apositive attitude. As has been observed withreference to the accessibility of the Internet:9

Many people assume that web accessibilityis an issue only for blind people, but HigherEducation Statistics Agency data show thatthe largest group of students declaring them-selves as disabled are those with dyslexia. Sothere is a danger of assuming that accessibil-ity is associated with a single disability,when all are equally important and allaccess needs must be addressed.

For present purposes, therefore, it bearsemphasis that the problem faced by people witha print disability is one of barriers to access,plain and simple. Access issues may differ inspace in time, but ‘access’ and ‘barriers’ remainthe analytical constants and overcoming barriersremains the problem to which an appropriatesolution remains necessary.

Access barriers are not experienced by peoplewith print-disabilities only. In the CanadianCopyright Act this has been recognized by par-ticular provisions that provide for the removal ofaccess barriers posed by copyright protectionto people with perceptual, rather than print-disabilities.10

The use of the term ‘perceptual disability’ workswell within the conceptual framework of theCanadian Copyright Act. But it would be amistake to use it more generally as synonymous

with a print-disability. Print-disability has to dowith access to visual information; not withaccess to audio materials through, say, Sign. Themedia are different; the applicable technologyis different; the issues may therefore well bedifferent.

This paper is concerned with access barrierschiefly to print posed by copyright protection, bysuccesses as well as unfortunate by-products ofprevious attempts to deal with those barriers, bytechnological developments that affect copyrightprotection, and it tries to isolate lessons learntso far.

In a number of countries the problems outlinedabove have received legislative attention in theform of attempts to remove these access barriersthat have been recognized as such by govern-ments who take seriously the needs of disabledpersons. Those attempts are impressive insofaras they reflect a public commitment to deal withthe problem, but they have not always given riseto perfect solutions. They affect the intendedbeneficiaries, the institutions who must providefor their interests and publishers in differentways. One gets the impression that much morework needs to be done in order to come up witha dispensation that, even if it will not satisfyeveryone, is not manifestly made of the stuff ofcompromises that satisfy fewer, rather than morepeople.

A brief consideration of some of those measuresillustrates the trends, both favourable andnegative. It may provide some indication as towhat developing countries should considerwhen implementing similar types of solutions.But it may also provide some factual basis for thebelief that an international arrangement isneeded to standardize these matters. Without it,pressing issues are resolved nationally, whileothers are created at the international level, tothe detriment of readers.

Overview of Statutory Exceptions

The United States Congress adopted a law,11

generally known as the Chafee Amendment,12

which provides in effect for a blanket licence tocertain entities to reproduce certain previouslypublished literary works for the benefit of peoplewith print-disabilities. Since the coming intooperation of this measure, it is not an infringe-ment of copyright if certain entities either repro-duce or distribute copies or phonorecords of


55

previously published non-dramatic literaryworks, provided that those activities complywith certain requirements.13

In Canada non-profit organizations acting forthe benefit of persons with perceptual disabilitiesand even persons at the request of persons withperceptual disabilities, may (in terms of thealready mentioned legislative amendment),make copies or sound recordings of literary,musical or artistic or dramatic works, other thancinematographic works. The legislature providedthat doing so is not an infringement of copyright.What is more, such non-profit organizations orindividuals may translate, adapt or reproduce inSign language a literary or dramatic work, otherthan a cinematographic work at the request of orfor the benefit of persons with perceptual dis-abilities or they may perform in public a literaryor dramatic work, other than a cinematographicwork, in Sign language, either live or in a formatspecially designed for persons with perceptualdisabilities.

In Australia the Copyright Act of 196814 wasamended to permit institutions assisting peoplewith print disabilities to make sound recordings,Braille versions, large-print versions, photo-graphic and electronic versions of copyright pro-tected works under certain conditions, withoutinfringing copyright.15 Those institutions areafforded a statutory licence, subject to certainqualifications,16 if they register with a collectingsociety approved by the attorney general of Aus-tralia to administer such statutory licence.

A directive of the European Union17 (‘the EUDirective’), provides18 that member states of theEuropean Union may in their legislation providefor exceptions or limitations to copyright for“uses, for the benefit of people with a disability,which are directly related to the disability and ofa non-commercial nature, to the extent requiredby the specific disability”. Those exceptions mayalso relate to distribution, to the extent neces-sary.19 It is not compulsory for member states toenact such exceptions or limitations.

Pursuant to this Directive, the United Kingdomhas enacted a law,20 which amends the Copy-right, Designs and Patents Act,21 “to permit,without infringement of copyright, the transferof copyright works to formats accessible tovisually impaired persons”.

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act nowpermits anyone to make a single copy of a

protected work for a visually impaired personwho has the master copy in his or her lawful pos-session or use,22 save for certain exceptions.23 Italso permits approved organizations to makemultiple copies for use by visually impairedpersons,24 subject to exceptions.25

Authorized Entities

Typically, only some entities may reproduce anddistribute such works. They may be referred toas authorized entities. In all of the jurisdictionsconsidered here, those entities are either of anon-profit character, or the fee that may becharged for work done may not include a profitmargin.

In Canada, as has already been pointed out,authorized entities are either non-profit organiz-ations acting for the benefit of people withperceptual disabilities, or individuals.26 TheCanadian statute does not expressly prohibitindividuals from doing this kind of work forothers for profit. But in the UK, “[i]f a personmakes an accessible copy on behalf of a visuallyimpaired person . . . and charges for it, the sumcharged must not exceed the cost of making andsupplying the copy”.27

In the UK, an approved institution authorized tomake multiple copies is either an educationalinstitution or a body which is not conducted forprofit.28

Under Australian law the sale or supply ofotherwise licensed copies for profit, constitutesunauthorized use of such copies.29

In the US, an authorized entity is a non-profitorganization or governmental agency that has aprimary mission to provide specialized servicesrelating to training, education or adaptivereading or information access needs of blindpersons or other persons with disabilities.30 Thisconceivably covers a large number of non-profitorganizations serving people with print-disabilities in a variety of ways. But the ChafeeAmendment does not seem to authorize suchreproductions by educational institutions likeschools or universities which, although theyeducate people with print-disabilities, do nothave the education of such persons as theirprimary mission. Indeed, the law seems to pos-tulate that unless the institution concernedserves such people primarily — presumably ifthey are in the majority and if the institution’s

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activities are so structured as to meet thosepeople’s needs in some demonstrable way — thelaw will not benefit it. This thinking runs counterto the idea of social inclusivity and it postulatesthat the needs of people with print-disabilitiesmust be served separately. A public librarywould therefore not be permitted by that law toreproduce a book, even if it had the technologyto do so, for use by a blind person.

In the US the problems arising out of the‘primary mission’ requirement have beenameliorated by laws in different states whichmandate the provision of study materials by pub-lishers to educational institutions in digitalformats. It is beyond the scope of this paper toexamine those laws in detail. But it is worthnoting that those laws are by no means uniformwith regard to the educational level of institu-tions to which they refer; and they tend to referto so-called textbooks only. So students partici-pating in courses in popular culture may be lesswell provided for (if their books are not gener-ally regarded as textbooks); a university studentin one state may not benefit from the law whilea school learner in the same state may. Theanomalies arising out of fragmentary exceptionsare obviously undesirable.

The Canadian law, as has already been noted,appears to take the broader, more realistic viewof the type of problem that is to be addressed.Typically, specialized institutions cannot realisti-cally meet each and every accessibility need.Typically, countless individuals are prominent inthe social support infrastructure of a (perceptu-ally) disabled person, from paid educational ortherapeutic professionals with Braille skills, signlanguage skills and the like, to a volunteer whocan read and operate a sound recorder. Personswith perceptual disabilities are able to turn forassistance with their access needs, even to anindividual who is prepared to facilitate theiraccess. So even if, at the institutional level, theCanadian exception has not been cast widely,the law of Canada admirably identifies not onlythe types of disability that may pose accessbarriers in the library-related world, but most ofthe types of solutions commonly required andimplemented so as to enable access.

Neither in the United States nor in Canada doesthe law expressly permit the people affectedthereby to use technology to eliminate their ownaccess barriers. In particular, no blind person isexpressly permitted by law to scan the printedimages in his or her own books and to convert

them, with the aid of optical character recogni-tion software, to computer readable text, readyfor output in either Braille or synthetic voice.Nor is a partially sighted person expressly per-mitted to photocopy his or her own books so asto enlarge their typefaces.31

The so-called one-for-one exception that wasintroduced into the law of the UK32 is thereforeworth noting. As has been pointed out, if avisually impaired person has lawful possessionor use of a book or part of a book, it is not aninfringement of copyright for an accessible copyto be made for use by that person if the mastercopy would be otherwise inaccessible. This lawdoes not identify the agency permitted to makethe accessible copy under these circumstancesand it would therefore be lawful for a blindperson to do so himself or herself.

Private enterprise is not totally excluded by wayof those exceptions, but private entities maywork either for libraries for the blind or for indi-viduals on a not-for-profit basis. It is not entirelyclear why this should be so. The making of aprofit for work done does not seem to bear anyrelation to any of the exceptions under consid-eration here. The one-for-one exception makesit possible for one person to make an accessiblecopy for another, but such a person cannot makea career out of producing, for example, Braillefor professionals who need it to do their work.They must presumably either make their copiesthemselves, or turn to non-profit institutions todo it for them, where they may not be able toclaim preferential treatment on the basis thatthey are prepared to pay, because they need tomake money in their turn. Likewise, one needsto think carefully about how the means areprocured to educate children with print-disabil-ities in an inclusive education environment.While education authorities are usually non-profit public agencies, parents who take anactive interest in providing their children withreading materials are also just required to jointhe queue, or to learn how to make accessiblecopies themselves. Their possibly being preparedto pay for quicker access to books for theirchildren does not seem to count for much in anyjurisdiction examined here.

If the idea is that people who work on a not-for-profit basis are less likely to abuse the exceptionfor their financial advantage, it ought to be con-sidered that people who stand to lose personallyfrom their abuse are as likely as others to takecare not to do so.


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In any event the phrase used by the UK excep-tion “the cost of making and supplying thecopy”33 is readily capable of being interpreted tomean that A’s cost, if A does it for profit, oughtto include a profit margin, because A’s produc-tion time may be a costing factor, although thisphrase was probably not intended to convey thatmeaning.

Restrictions regarding Format

In the US, the reproduction must be done in aso-called specialized format. Specialized formatsare “Braille, audio or digital text which is exclu-sively for use by blind or other persons withdisabilities”.34 The reference to digital text is tobe welcomed because, as has been pointed outearlier, technological developments have addedto the range of accessible media available topeople with print-disabilities. The phrase “whichis exclusively for use by blind or other personswith disabilities” is puzzling, particularly inrelation to digital text. One wonders whether the“exclusive use” requirement refers to theintended use of the materials or whether itsuggests that the medium itself must, objectivelyspeaking, lend itself to such exclusive use only.The latter interpretation would be downrightnonsensical, given the extent to which digitaltext can nowadays be accessed by way of notonly refreshable Braille displays, but syntheticvoice also.

In Australia reproductions are limited to soundrecordings made by or on behalf of institutionsassisting persons with disabilities, or Braille,large print or photographic versions.35 Digitaltext does not appear to be covered by this pro-vision.

The Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Actof the UK makes a reference to an “accessiblecopy” only. Accessibility is therefore always aquestion of fact; not of law.36

The Canadian Copyright Act refers to ‘a formatspecially designed’ for persons with perceptualdisabilities.37

The DAISY standard to which reference hasalready been made, is not a ‘format’, but rather astandard, incorporating different commercial orproprietary formats,38 together with a degree ofencryption capability. Since Canada is one of theleading players with regard to the implementa-tion of this standard, the reference in the

Canadian statute to “format specially designed”appears to be unfortunate.

In some countries audio library services forpeople with print-disabilities are provided inboth analogue and digital formats that are notcommercially accessible and which can beaccessed by way of adaptive equipment only. TheSouth African Library for the Blind is one suchinstitution. So, too, are certain institutions inNorth America and the United Kingdom. Theexperience in South Africa has been that thespecialized equipment required to access suchmaterials had proved expensive, in the end firstdifficult and then impossible to source and that,in the final analysis, served as a significantbarrier to print access for the poorest of the poorwith print-disabilities. Since the equipment thatenabled the reproductions was of necessity alsohighly specialized and therefore expensive, thescale of reproduction was limited even further.

From a developing world perspective, restrictingreproductions to specialized formats seems anindefensible practice. In a number of countriesaudio books were for years distributed inanalogue format on commercially accessible cas-settes, without serious repercussions for the pub-lishing industry. Specialized formats requirespecialized equipment to access those formats.The higher the level of specialization, the moreexpensive the equipment required for access.The UK formulation, relying on the idea of theaccessibility of the reproduction, is therefore tobe preferred.

Large numbers of persons are identifiable ashaving print-disabilities on the grounds that theycannot read a particular size typeface. Some ofthose persons are able to deal with the problemby acquiring expensive magnifying equipment,but in less severe cases an enlarged photocopymay suffice. The Chafee Amendment does notpermit the making of such reproductions; theAustralian statute does; it expressly refers tolarge print, while the UK law probably does,because it works with the concept of accessibil-ity without defining it. Such reproductions areexpressly prohibited under Canadian law.39

The UK concept of accessibility of the reproduc-tion is again preferable. The adoption of Exten-sible Markup Language for computer-basedbook production purposes will, in all likelihood,render the production of different formats,whether Braille, synthetic speech or enlargedtypefaces, potentially available on demand.

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Beneficiaries of Statutory Exceptions

In the US the beneficiaries are restricted. Theyare persons who are blind or have other disabil-ities. This seems an inoffensive requirement,until one examines the background legislativecontext. Those persons are identified andrendered eligible to receive books and otherpublications produced in specialized formatsunder United States law. In other words, onlythose persons who may benefit from UnitedStates special programmes to provide booksaccessible to persons with print-disabilities, maybenefit from this statutory limitation on exclu-sive copyright.40 Partially sighted persons are notincluded in these programmes.

With the benefit of hindsight, and in the light ofsubsequent legislative developments in es-pecially the UK and Australia (to which refer-ence has already been made), it is unwise torestrict the beneficiaries of statutory exceptionsof this kind unduly.

Exclusions from the Scope of StatutoryExceptions

Exceptions of this type are often characterizedby qualifications or exclusions. The ChafeeAmendment applies to previously publishednon-dramatic literary works only.41 TheNational Library Service for the Blind andPhysically Handicapped of the Library ofCongress (NLS) interprets this to mean that thepublished scripts of plays are therefore notincluded as reproducible under this particularprovision.42 This seems a qualification which isdifficult to understand and it has not beenechoed in any of the other legal systems con-sidered here. The Chafee Amendment refers topreviously published non-dramatic literaryworks only; it therefore by necessary implica-tion also disqualifies sheet music. The Library ofCongress appears to regard sheet music as alsoexcluded.43

The Canadian Copyright Act44 expresslyincludes music, as does the UK Copyright,Designs and Patents Act.45

Because the Australian Copyright Act includesmusic in the category of “works”, together withliterary, dramatic and artistic works, sheet musicdoes not appear to be excluded by Australianlaw.46

Excluded under the Copyright, Designs andPatents Act are instances where musical worksare to be copied, but where doing so wouldinvolve a performance thereof, or of part thereof.Also excluded are instances where the mastercopy is a database, or a part of a database, andwhere copying would infringe copyright in thedatabase.47

It is unfortunate that certain types of materialsare excluded from some exceptions and not fromothers. A more unified approach is obviouslydesirable.

Commercially Available AccessibleVersions

In Australia, if a sound recording, Brailleversion, large print version, photographic orelectronic version of a work has been separatelypublished, the provisions permitting reproduc-tion of print materials do not apply unless theperson who wishes to make that version (orcaused that version to be made) is satisfied, afterreasonable investigation, that no new copy of theversion of the work can be obtained within areasonable time at an ordinary commercialprice.48

That particular provision is peculiar to theAustralian statute where, with reference to theprinciple of ‘fair dealing’, it is used repeatedlythroughout the Act (commencing with section 40).

But it is by no means unique. In the UK Copy-right, Designs and Patents Act it is also laiddown that this type of exception permitting thereproduction of a work to make it accessible isnot applicable “if, or to the extent that, copies ofthe copyright work are commercially available,by or with the authority of the copyright owner,in a form that is accessible to the same or sub-stantially the same degree”.49 The same principleis also applied in Canada if “the work or soundrecording is commercially available in a formatspecially designed to meet the needs of anyperson” whom the exception is meant tobenefit.50

These provisions appear fair from the perspec-tive of an apparently flourishing audio bookindustry: if books are available in audio format,why permit their reproduction for people withprint disabilities without more? The publishersof such materials have an interest in having thempurchased, rather than reproduced yet again.


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But the Canadian formulation of the principle byno means guarantees this outcome. Theemphasis on format, rather than accessibility,suggests a far more restrictive interpretation ofwhat may not be produced under statutorylicence. A commercially available audio book,whether on CD or on audio cassette, is not, afterall, published in a specially designed formatwhich is calculated to render it accessible topeople with print-disabilities. Canadians repro-ducing materials for people with such disabilitiesmay therefore not have to be too circumspectregarding compliance with this provision in eachcase where it is decided that a particular bookought to become part of a special collection.

With its emphasis on accessibility, the UK pro-vision also appears to miss the point, but here itis the potential reader, not the publisher whostands to lose. What renders a book accessible?If, for example, a book is to be published inBraille but it is available in an accessible audioformat, does its commercial availability obligethe potential Braille producer to apply for per-mission from the copyright holder? Or does theintended format make a difference to the testthat is to be applied? That seems a fanciful sug-gestion, because in the statutory provision itself,the accessibility factor is not expressed in termsthat suggest it to be relative to the intendedformat. Still, a commonsense approach to theUK provisions probably justifies the conclusionthat, whether or not this has been made clear inthe provisions laying down the exception, theposition was meant to be similar to that inAustralia.

The Australian provisions are clearly related tothe medium of publication in issue in each case.

The only instance when an audio book wouldnot be accessible to a blind person is when thatperson also happens to be deaf; but that rendersthe book inaccessible to that person only; notinaccessible to library users in general. Does itmake a difference if the book was initiallyrequested by a deaf-blind reader? And must itthen, for the sake of consistency, be producedunder the one-for-one exception, rather thanunder the provision dealing with multiplecopies? And if it has been produced under theone-for-one exception, is an application for per-mission required if it is intended, subsequently,to produce multiple copies of the same book?

The UK provisions attempt to relate the commer-cial availability requirement to the circumstances

under which the document is being reproduced.When it is to be produced in terms of the multiplecopies provision, the document may not beproduced without permission if, in addition to itbeing commercially available, it is “in a form thatis accessible to the same or substantially the samedegree”.51 If it is to be reproduced in terms of theone-for-one exception, it would qualify for theexception only if it is not commercially available“in a form that is accessible to that person”.52 Thedeaf-blind person would therefore not be preju-diced if the reproduction is required in Braille,but in terms of the one-for-one exception only.But what is meant by “the same or substantiallythe same degree”, is by no means settled. To com-plicate matters further, the “substantially thesame degree” provision in the multiple copiessection is followed by an exact replication of the“accessible to that person” provision.53 Thepurpose it serves there, is not at all clear.

Regrettably, the answers to the foregoing ques-tions appear to suggest that the UK commercialavailability requirement, just like the Canadianone, creates more problems than it solves.

It would seem that the Australian provisions,because they are directly related to the questionwhether it is a sound recording, Braille version,large print version, photographic or electronicversion that is to be produced, best achieves thepurpose of the qualification the legislaturesought to impose on the statutory exception.

Notice Provisions

Most statutory exceptions are characterized bythe fact that, if a publication is produced or areproduction is made in accordance therewith,the resulting document must bear a notice rec-ognizing the original copyright in the materialsconcerned, as well as a notice that it has beenproduced in terms of the applicable exception.54

It would seem that the notices contemplatedmust at least be in the format in which thedocument has been made available, but thelegislation is by no means clear in this regard. Aprinted notice in some form or other is probablyalso desirable. Not much turns on those noticeprovisions, so they are not considered here inany detail. Two observations are however impor-tant in this context.

It is important to note here that individuals whowish to benefit from the one-for-one exception

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in the UK ought to comply with the notice pro-vision associated with the UK statutory excep-tion.55 It seems prudent to require suchcompliance, even if it adds some burden to theindividual concerned, because it may be impor-tant to identify legal copies in certain cases.

The contents of those notices are important foranother reason. When a work is produced in analternative format, the question ought to arisewhether the result is a mere reproduction of anexisting publication or whether it is an edition inits own right. The answer to this question hasimportant implications for whether, in jurisdic-tions where publications must be depositedcentrally, the alternative format publicationneeds to be deposited in terms of the law prevail-ing in the country concerned. It also raises thequestion whether obvious mistakes may be cor-rected or, to put it differently, whether they needto be perpetuated; or whether regional differ-ences that require different spelling may berespected when the reproduction is made ofmaterials not published in the country wherethey are reproduced in alternative formats. If theaccessible format publication is a reproductiononly, mistakes ought logically to be perpetuated;if it is a publication in its own right, the positionmay be different. In each country the answer isone of law, not of fact.

The legislation considered in this paper appears,throughout, to be based on the legal premise thatthe accessible alternative format documents per-mitted to be made for the benefit of people withprint disabilities are copies only; not separatepublications.

Enforcement Provisions

As is the case regarding notices, not much turnson enforcement provisions in the case of abreach of statutory exceptions. This is notbecause they are not important, but because theyare best framed in terms of the existing legalframework of the country to which they apply.

Copies or Alternative Publications?

If the accessible version is a copy and not analternative publication, how true to the originalshould it be? The medium chosen as appropriatealternative format often necessitates changes tolayout. Braille is not a graphic medium. It simplyis not as versatile as print when it comes to the

production of aesthetic effects by means of para-graph styles, fonts, graphic symbols, borders andso on. It is at this stage still difficult and costly toaccompany text with graphic representations. Inaddition, Braille is a bulky medium.

The UK Copyright, Patents and Designs Actmakes provision for the fact that the accessiblecopy does not infringe the typographic arrange-ment of the original,56 but it does not appear tohave expressly taken cognisance of the fact thatpictures, photographs and the like may beomitted from the accessible copy; nor of thepractice of adding, in appropriate cases, descrip-tive captions to pictures. It is true that accessiblecopies may be made of “a literary, dramatic,musical or artistic work”,57 but it is doubtfulwhether this permits insertions of text into aliterary work to make photographs, for example,accessible as “artistic works” within “literaryworks”).

Intermediate (Source) Files Generatedby Alternative Format Production

Processes

The digital environment in which books areproduced in alternative formats is not a staticone. Reference has already been made to thepossibilities that arise out of the use of Ex-tensible Markup Language, which permit amongothers, the production of a book in more thanone format from one digital source. In the devel-oped world, some libraries for the blind arealready making use of streaming audio technol-ogy and others are considering doing so. In anyevent, Braille has for some years now beenproduced from digital source files by a variety ofinstitutions serving people with print-disabilities.Those files, once created, are extremely usefulfor the purposes of maintaining the integrity ofcollections. Books may be restored using them;schools may reuse them year on year. In somecases they may even serve as the collection itself:Materials can simply be archived and hardcopiescan be produced on demand only, while theelectronic files may be delivered instantly toreaders via the web.

In short, what ever the use to which they are put,properly archiving source files and soundrecordings has become an indispensablestandard operating procedure in most leadinglibraries for the blind and production housesthat support those libraries.


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Only in the UK does the statutory exception dealdirectly with this important issue. It permitsapproved bodies to hold intermediate copieswhich are necessarily created during the produc-tion of accessible copies. Such intermediatecopies may be held only for the purpose ofmaking further accessible copies and only for aslong as the approved institution remains entitledto do so.58 This provision does not apply to indi-vidual accessible copies;59 individuals thereforedo not benefit from it.

The so-called one-for-one exception deservedcloser consideration. Individuals are permittedto make accessible copies for themselves or havesuch copies made for them, but if the processgave rise to an intermediate copy, its retention isnot permitted. The omission of this provision (insome form or other) from the one-for-oneexception creates potentially serious complianceproblems for people with print-disabilities whotypically use more than one access medium,depending on what their circumstances require.A potential source file which enables the pro-duction of a Braille print-out may be accesseddirectly from a computer by way of screenreader software that provides synthetic speechoutput. In terms of the one-for-one exception,that type of access is legally acceptable. But itseems that once hardcopy Braille has been gen-erated from the source file, its retention becomesimpermissible, even if the hardcopy had beencreated for the purpose of single use only. Theresult is that, for example, blind parents cannotread poetry to their children in their own voicesfrom Braille printouts if they prefer to archivetheir literature primarily in electronic format,because according to the one-for-one exception,it is either Braille or bust for them. It seemsmore realistic to take account of how people livetheir lives and then to enact control measureson that basis.

Record-Keeping

The already mentioned notice provisions serve,apart from the purpose of acknowledging theauthor’s copyright, as a mechanism to guardagainst unauthorized copying. So, too, do therecords of those institutions that do the copyingor for whom it is done. The Australian licensingsystem makes provision for central records to bekept of such copying. Modern libraries keeprecords, both of their holdings and of produc-tion. An additional record keeping system istherefore probably not a sine qua non for the

effective operation of an exception system, savewhere it forms an essential component of themanner in which the system itself operates, as inAustralia.

Reproduction of Extracts

Reference works pose the problem that, typi-cally, students do not require access to them intheir entirety. It is therefore in their interests thatthe reproduction of extracts from such worksshould be eligible for protection under statutoryexceptions.

The Chafee Amendment contains no provisionthat seems to permit this, though the positionunder state laws may be different.60

The Canadian Copyright Act also does notappear to make provision for this type of situa-tion.

In Australia, making an accessible copy of partof a work for the benefit of a person with a print-disability or a person with an intellectual disabil-ity, is permissible.61

The UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Actmakes express provision for the making of anaccessible copy of a “master copy”, which mayalso be part of a copy.62

Territorial Jurisdiction

It is important to stress that the beneficiaries ofthese statutory exceptions are people who readdifferently, not their libraries or those institu-tions that produce alternative format materials.Regrettably, however, production houses andlibraries who had instigated the reforms thatculminated in the legal provisions under dis-cussion paid little, if any, attention to the con-sequences of those reforms for the interlendingsystem.

At face value, the statutory exceptions under dis-cussion here constitute drastic inroads on therights of authors. They need not be consulted iftheir works are reproduced for the benefit ofreaders of alternative format materials in termsof those laws. The Berne Convention63 vests theexclusive right to authorize the reproduction ofliterary and artistic works in their authors,64 butit also sanctions statutory exceptions of the kindunder consideration here:65

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It shall be a matter for legislation in thecountries of the Union to permit the repro-duction of such works in certain specialcases, provided that such reproductiondoes not conflict with a normal exploita-tion of the work and does not unreason-ably prejudice the legitimate interests ofthe author.

Members of the Berne union who enact suchstatutory exceptions therefore do not violatetheir international law obligations by imposing aform of quasi-expropriation on literary works offoreign authors who publish in the countrieswhere such exceptions apply. It would appear tobe reasonable to permit reproductions ofexisting publications in alternative formats, aslong as the process is controlled. No doubtlibraries for the blind and their productionhouses play a crucially important part in theoperation of such control measures.

But does it follow that a book which is lawfullyproduced in one country in accordance with anexception that prevails there, may be regarded ashaving been published lawfully in anothercountry which is also a member of the BerneUnion? Do the enabling provisions in the BerneConvention that permit the curtailment ofauthors’ rights apply internationally, so as toprotect books that travel across borders forinterlending purposes?

The parties to this treaty are states. It is thereforethe state, not the individual, that derives theright to curtail, by legislation, the rights ofauthors within the area of its sovereignty; not theindividual or his or her library. In other words,the Berne Convention is facultative in its opera-tion, permitting members of the Berne Union tomake certain laws, but it does not confer itsbenefits without more on the individuals whoreside or the institutions who are domiciledwithin a given member state’s area of sover-eignty.

The exceptions therefore appear to apply withinthe territories of the states that enacted themand therefore not internationally.

And so what is to be done then, to restore topeople who read differently, the full benefits of aproperly functioning interlending system?

The solution is not particularly complex. Eachcountry that has already enacted an exceptioncould, it is submitted, extend the protection

contained in its currently prevailing exception,also to alternative format materials or accessiblecopies produced in terms of laws permitting suchproduction beyond the jurisdiction of thecountry concerned, which are distributed on anon-profit basis in such country.

The World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO) is in the process of compiling a draftcopyright law for countries in need of inter-national assistance with the formulation of suchlaws. In it, that formulation is suggested in thefollowing terms:

. . . it shall be permitted without the author-ization of the author or other owner ofcopyright to reproduce a published work forvisually impaired persons in an alternativemanner or form which enables their percep-tion of the work, and to distribute the copiesexclusively to those persons, provided thatthe work is not reasonably available in anidentical or largely equivalent form enablingits perception by the visually impaired; andthe reproduction and distribution are madeon a non-profit basis.

The distribution is also permitted in casethe copies have been made abroad and theconditions mentioned above have beenfulfilled.

It should be noted that this provision is in draftform only and therefore subject to review. Itwould seem less complex to provide that the dis-tribution of any work which has been lawfullyproduced in its country of origin will be lawfulin the country in which the exception contain-ing this enabling provision, applies, providedsuch distribution is undertaken by a library orlike institution, to its registered members. Sucha formulation would avoid any debate concern-ing the efficacy of controls designed to protectthe publishers of commercially available audiobooks. If not, the WIPO draft provision amountsto saying that a book held by a library in onecountry cannot be lent to a library in anothercountry if that book is commercially available inthe country of the lender. That, with respect, isnonsense.

The draft provision ought also to contain afurther clause regarding prima facie proof oflawful publication which, it is suggested,should be provided by the notice prescribedin the country in which the work was repro-duced.


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Cooperation Between Beneficiaries andCopyright Holders — Publishers’ Files

As has been pointed out earlier, it is not manda-tory for members of the EU to provide for statu-tory exceptions of the type discussed here.Importantly, however, the EU Directive providesthat, in cases where such exceptions are indeedenacted, members are obliged to enact furthermeasures.66

Member states shall take appropriatemeasures to ensure that rightholders makeavailable to the beneficiary of an exceptionor limitation provided for in national law inaccordance with Article . . . 5(3)(b) . . . themeans of benefiting from that exception orlimitation, to the extent necessary to benefitfrom that exception or limitation and wherethat beneficiary has legal access to the pro-tected work or subject-matter concerned.

This means that where statutory exceptionsexist, member states should also ensure thatthose rightholders that can enable access to themeans to benefit from such exceptions, must doso to the extent necessary. This provision doesnot bind member states where rightholders havetaken voluntary measures, including agreementswith those parties concerned, to achieve thesame object.

This provision does not seem to require that thepre-existing voluntary measures must complywith any particular standard. The standard set isa high one: rightholders must cooperate withbeneficiaries to the extent necessary to enablethem to benefit from the exception or limitationconcerned. The question therefore arises whetherlicensing arrangements that do not meet thatstandard, exonerate member states from havingto enact the provisions contemplated.

The Parliament of the UK, when it enacted theCopyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act of2002, adopted a prudent measure in this regard.The statutory exception that regulates themaking of multiple copies,67 does not apply tothe making of accessible copies if a licensingscheme operated by a licensing body is in forceunder which licenses may be granted by thelicensing body, which permit the making andsupply of accessible copies.68 But then thescheme is not permitted to be unreasonablyrestrictive.69 The scheme is unreasonably restric-tive if it limits the statutory exception,70 unless

“there are reasonable grounds for preventing orrestricting the making of accessible copies of thework”.71

Those provisions are impressive. They permitlicensing schemes to operate, notwithstandingthe statutory exception, but they make it plainthat licensing schemes may not be used tosubvert the exception.

The UK statute probably falls short of the EUDirective, inasmuch as rightholders are notrequired by it to cooperate with the beneficiariesof the exception.

What sort of cooperation is it that the EU Direc-tive requires? Reference has already been madeto the fact that Braille may be generated by wayof a computer-assisted process and to the factthat screen reader software can enable blindpersons to access digital files. Access to publish-ers’ or printers’ files would therefore facilitatethe production of accessible copies, whether inBraille or in audio formats, immensely. Publish-ers are often loath to part with those. The fearseems to be either that they will be put tounlawful use by libraries for the blind or, morelikely, that those institutions do not have digitalasset management regimes in place that wouldserve as guarantees against their unlawful use byunauthorized persons. That apprehension is allthe more acute in cases concerning digitalmedia, in respect of which perfect copies maybe made if mechanisms to guard against un-authorized copying are not utilized.

To that end, the UK Copyright, Designs andPatents Act provides:72

If the master copy is in copy-protected elec-tronic form, any accessible copy made of itunder this section must, so far as it isreasonably practicable to do so, incorporatethe same, or equally effective, copy protec-tion (unless the copyright owner agreesotherwise).

The Act contains no provision obliging the copy-right owner to cooperate with regard to the dis-abling of the copy protection in question, butsince the copyright owner is entitled to havesimilar copy protection incorporated into theaccessible copy, the Act appears to imply suchan obligation.73

But can member states go so far as to obligecopyright owners to part with their digital files

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in order to facilitate the speedy production ofaccessible copies in alternative formats for thebenefit of people who read differently? Strictlyspeaking, if the production process is notactually dependent on access to those files, theanswer is probably in the negative. But publish-ers would do well to start paying attention to thisproblem and to cooperate with libraries for theblind in order to make digital files available tothem.74 If under the EU Directive they can beobliged to cooperate in respect of access to elec-tronic media in copy protected form, it would beto their advantage to cooperate further and toreach agreements with such libraries regardingwhat would satisfy publishers’ requirements foracceptable digital asset management standards.This need is an all the more pressing one,because of what has been said with regard tointermediate copies or digital copies, the makingof which authorized by most of the exceptionsanalysed here.

Libraries Serving People with Print-Disabilities and Digital Rights

Management

Increased cooperation between libraries for theblind and publishers is also in the interests ofreaders. Libraries for the blind themselves tendto be fearful of the freedom and the responsibil-ities conferred on them by those exceptions. Andwhere the accessible media are digital media,they tend to be extra cautious, for the samereasons as publishers. There is therefore a veryreal risk that interlibrary loan operating pro-cedures and increasing cooperation betweenlibraries for the blind may not provide readerswith the potentially increased access to booksthat recent technological advances make all themore possible.

The DAISY Consortium75 was established topromote an internationally recognized standardfor digital books that is to enhance access for allpeople with print-disabilities.76 Unless a measureof international consensus can be achieved fairlysoon with regard to the acceptable managementof the digital assets this development wassupposed to have produced at the internationallevel, this Consortium will become transformedinto a club of developers and audio recordingtechnicians which exists for its own sake only;the impetus for the developing world to join thetechnological revolution it represents will havedissipated and large investments of time and

energy will have been wasted, primarily becausedigital talking books will not be exchanged freelyby way of interlibrary loan and the world willhave been shrunk by the very media that couldhave enlarged it.

None of this is necessary. Libraries for the blindshould, for their part, promote sound digitalasset management practices by agreeing stan-dards among themselves. If they don’t do so,individual libraries may resort to digital rightsmanagement practices that may be detrimentalto increased cooperation between them. Onesuch library that is likely to become a majorplayer in the digital talking books arena hasalready introduced a copy protection mechan-ism which is questionable in terms of legislationregulating anti-competitive practices.

Talking Book programs in the United Stateshave historically used some kind of technol-ogy that is not commonly available to thegeneral public, such as recording cassettesat half the speed of commercial recordingsso that they cannot be copied and played oncommercial machines by nondisabledreaders. In addition, until 1996, organiza-tions like NLS [National Library Service ofthe Library of Congress for the Blind andPrint-Handicapped] and RFB&D [Record-ings for the Blind and Dyslexic] first had toobtain explicit permission from the copy-right holders to produce any titles asTalking Books. Beginning in 1996, a newamendment to U.S. copyright law (knownas the Chafee Amendment) gave theseagencies blanket permission to make anytitle available, as long as it was produced ina format that is not generally available tothe public.

Since DAISY titles are essentially HTMLand MP3 files, RFB&D uses something itcalls intellectual property protection (IPP)to make sure that only RFB&D subscribersread the organization’s books. If you insertan RFB&D DAISY book CD into anapproved player, you are asked to enter yourpersonal identification number (PIN) toverify that you are an RFB&D subscriber.Once you enter your PIN on the player’skeypad, you can listen to any book fromRFB&D until you turn the player off. Whenyou power the player on again, you mustenter your PIN again. Players that have notbeen approved by RFB&D will not playRFB&D books.


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While the process of authorizing a playerinvolves installing a software key in theplayer’s permanent memory, it can nolonger be accomplished by users becauseRFB&D has stopped sending out keys onCD. Instead, subscribers must now eitherbuy their players directly from RFB&Dor ship their players to RFB&D to haveauthorizations installed. In addition,RFB&D now requires subscribers to signcopyright agreements (available at http://www.rfbd.org/copyright%20indiv.htm).

Why is RFB&D doing all this? There isrampant fear among publishers that peoplewill start to post books online illegally, justas they have done with music on Napsterand elsewhere. These issues are now alsocovered under a U.S. law known as theDigital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998,which is the result of an international treatyunder the World Intellectual PropertyOrganization. Of course, it is not legal orappropriate for people to redistributeRFB&D or other titles. However, we hopethat the benefits to users of DAISY technol-ogy will not be overshadowed by anticopy-ing concerns, even if the process seems to beexcessive or burdensome on consumers.77

The Need for International Cooperation

An international effort to standardize statutoryexceptions to copyright protection will be animportant step towards affirming internationaltrust in what libraries for the blind and thoseserving disadvantaged communities do. It willalso contribute much towards a framework thatcan assist those countries that have not as yetenacted such exceptions in their own jurisdic-tions, but who might want to do so. Once adegree of international cooperation has beenestablished, the legitimacy of what many aretrying to achieve ought also to become evidentto the publishing industry. If that stage can bereached, it will no doubt pave the way forincreased access to the means that should bothspeed up the production of accessible formatbooks and increase the amount of books towhich people with print-disabilities may haveaccess.

The alternative is file sharing for a good cause.78

To the reader, the results will be second rate; tothe publishers, the results may be disastrous,

because combating it is unlikely to be a popularcause.

In April 2004 the General Assembly of the Inter-national Council on English Braille, meeting inToronto, adopted the following resolution:

This General Assembly affirms the principleof unrestricted international interlending ofreading materials in alternative formatsamong recognized blindness agencies.Therefore the Executive Committee of ICEBshould work through the Braille Authorityof North America and with other relevantnon-governmental organizations and gov-ernmental agencies to give non-citizens ofthe United States access to Braille and otheraccessible format materials produced in theUnited States through the development ofappropriate international protocols andlegislative change if necessary.

This resolution is unfortunate. It unjustifiablytargets the US, while other libraries for the blind,probably unbeknown to their members, labourunder constraints no different from those thatinhibit interlending practices in the US itself. Butit highlights two key points: the first is that it isessential that misunderstandings are eradicatedbefore they become totally entrenched; thesecond is that this ought to happen at the inter-national level so that all who read differently,may benefit.

Notes and references

1. The term “people who read differently” has beenborrowed from http://www.andersleezen.nl.

2. Robert S. Boynton. The tyranny of copyright? NewYork Times, January 25, 2004.

3. op. cit.4. Christopher May, Digital rights management and

the breakdown of social norms. First Monday,volume 8, number 11 (November 2003). http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_11/may/index.html.

5. See also David Marquand. The decline of thepublic. Marston Book Services Ltd., 2004; SivaVaidhyanathan. The state of copyright activism.First Monday, volume 9, number 4 (April 2004),and the authorities there cited.

6. IFLA. The Glasgow Declaration on Libraries,Information Services and Intellectual Freedom.August 2002. http://www.ifla.org/faife/policy/iflastat/gldeclar-e.html. (Feb 23, 2004)

7. http://www.daisy.org.8. See in this regard Richard Poynder. The inevitable

and the optimal. Information Today, Vol. 21, No. 4,April 2004. http://www.infotoday.com/it/apr04/poynder.shtml.

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9. Neil Witt and David Sloan. Access as the norm, notas an add-on. Times Higher Education Supplement,Friday, April 30, 2004.

10. Copyright Act. (R.S., 1985, c. C-42, s. 32; R.S., 1985,c. 10 (4th Supp.), s. 7; 1997, c. 24, s. 19).

11. Public Law 104 of 1997.12. After the senator that introduced the measure.13. The Chafee amendment to chapter 1 of title 17,

United States Code, adds section 121 thereto.14. Act no. 63 of 1968.15. Sections 135ZN, 135ZP, 135ZQ.16. Subsections (3) and (4) of section 135ZP.17. Directive 2001/29/EC, of the European Parliament

and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on theharmonization of certain aspects of copyright andrelated rights in the information society.

18. In article 5(3)(b).19. Article 5(4) and 5(5).20. Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act of 2002.21. 1988 (c. 48).22. Section 31A(1).23. Section 31A(2) and (3).24. Section 31B(1).25. Section 31B(2) and (3).26. Copyright Act, section 32(1).27. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, section 31A(5).28. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, section

31B(12).29. Copyright Act, section 135ZZH(1) and (2), read

with Section 135ZP(1) and (2).30. USC Title 17 section 121(a).31. Large print is expressly excluded from the Canadian

exception; Copyright Act, section 32(2). See also theremarks below, concerning the definition of“specialised formats” in US law.

32. See text to note 22 above.33. See text to note 27 above.34. USC Title 17 section 121(c)(3)35. Copyright Act, 1968, section 10(3)(h).36. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, section 31F(2)

and (3).37. Section 32(1)(a).38. http://www.daisy.org/about_us/default.asp.39. Copyright Act, section 32(2).40. Section 121(c)(2).41. Section 121(a).42. http://www.loc.gov/nls/reference/factsheets/

copyright.html.43. Ibid.44. Section 32(1)(a).45. Section 31A(1)(a) and 31B(1)(a).46. http://www.copyright.com.au/institutions_assisting_

print.htm.47. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, section 31A(2)

and 31B(2).48. Copyright Act, 1968, section 135ZP.49. Section 31B(3) and 31A(3).50. Copyright Act, section 32(3).51. Section 31B(3).52. Section 31A(3).53. section 31B(4).54. USC title 17 section 121(b)(1)(b) and (c) in the US;

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act section 31A(4)and section 31B(5) in the UK; Copyright Act,section 135ZQ(4) in Australia.

55. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, section 31A(4).56. Section 31A(1) and 31B(1).57. Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, section

31A(1)(a) and 31B(1)(a).58. Section 31C of the Copyright, Designs and Patents

Act.59. Made under section 31A.60. See the remarks concerning the US dispensation in

section 4 above.61. Copyright Act, section 112(a)(ii) and (b)(ii)

regarding intellectual disabilities; section 135ZQ(1)regarding print-disabilities.

62. Section 31A(1) and section 31B(a).63. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and

Artistic Works of September 9, 1886, completed atParis on May 4, 1896, revised at Berlin onNovember 13, 1908, completed at Berne on March20, 1914, and revised at Rome on June 2, 1928, atBrussels on June 26, 1948, at Stockholm on July 14,1967, and at Paris on July 24, 1971 and amended onOctober 2, 1979.

64. Article 9(1).65. Article 9(2).66. Article 6(4).67. Section 31B of the Copyright, Designs and Patents

Act.68. Section 35D(1)(a).69. Section 35D(1)(b) A.70. Section 31D(2).71. Section 31D(3)(b).72. In section 35B(8).73. For an excellent discussion of this problem, see

George Kerscher and Jim Fruchterman. Thesoundproof book: exploration of rights conflict andaccess to commercial ebooks for people withdisabilities. http://www.daisy.org/publications/docs/soundproof/sound_proof_book.html.

74. See George Kerscher. DAISY for all: publishers’collaboration enabling print access.http://www.daisy.org/publications/docs/pub_print_access/ITD-2003.htm.

75. http://www.daisy.org/.76. http://www.daisy.org/about_us/default.asp.77. Jay Leventhal and Janina Sajka. A rosy future for

DAISY books. Access World, Volume 5 Number 1,January 2004. http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw050103.

78. That this is already happening is apparently generalknowledge; see Sandeep Junnarkar. In the virtualstacks, pirated books find eager thumbs. New YorkTimes, June 3, 2004.

Original paper no. 147 presented at the World Libraryand Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Con-ference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, insession 129. Libraries for the Blind with LibrariesServing Disadvantaged Persons. English original avail-able on IFLANET at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.


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George R. Ryskamp

George R. Ryskamp, JD, AG,Associate Professor of History,Brigham Young University, is theauthor of Finding Your HispanicRoots (Baltimore: GPC, 1997)and other books and articles, aswell as a frequent speaker atnational and internationalgenealogical and library confer-ences. His onsite research duringthe last 30 years in local, provin-cial and national archives inSpain, Portugal, Italy and France,as well as in a half dozen LatinAmerican countries, has in thelast three years been expanded toinclude immigration records asDirector of the Immigrant Ances-tors Project. He is currently theDirector of the Center for FamilyHistory and Genealogy at BYU andVice Chair of the InternationalCommission for Accreditation ofProfessional Genealogists. Hemay be contacted at: 2105 JFSB,Brigham Young University, Provo,Utah 84602, USA; [email protected]

European Emigration Records, 1820–1925


In one of the greatest migrations the world has seen, approxi-mately 55 million Europeans emigrated between 1821 and 1924.The vast majority went to the Americas — 33 million to the UnitedStates, 5.4 million to Argentina, 4.5 million to Canada, 3.8 millionto Brazil and the rest in smaller, but significant numbers to coun-tries from Chile to Mexico — melding with indigenous andprevious immigrants to enrich and forever change the recipientcountries and their cultures. While Ireland, Germany, Italy andEngland top the list in terms of numbers departing, every countryin Europe contributed to the flow. These statistics and associatedstudies are only a black and white sketch of the rich tapestry ofindividual emigrant experiences that make up this great migra-tion.

For the social historians and genealogists the stories of individualemigrants are more important than the statistics. They tell indi-vidual stories like that of Manuel Roso. In 1839 Spanish immi-grant Pedro Roso was becoming commercially successful as abaker in Puerto Rico, his adopted homeland. Earning money inPuerto Rico was so much easier than in the village of Puerto deSanta Maria in southern Spain that he sent a letter to his fatherrequesting that his younger brother, Manuel, join him in PuertoRico. On 17 August 1839, Manuel Roso was issued a passport bythe municipal authorities to travel the short distance to Cádiz.There he applied for and was granted another passport thatallowed him to continue his journey to meet his older brother,Pedro, in Puerto Rico. The passport that allowed him to make thefirst section of his journey is now found in the Provincial His-torical Archives of Cádiz.

In addition to that original passport, his file contains other docu-ments that tell even more about Manuel Roso and his brotherPedro. In a letter of permission to the civil authority in the Puertode Santa Maria written by the Rosos’ father, also named PedroRoso, the elder Roso identifies himself as a baker who resides inthe Puerto de Santa Maria. He states that he regrets having to partwith his younger son, but explains that it is in the boy’s bestinterest and asks that the passport be issued to allow his son tojoin his older brother. The passport file also includes a copy of thebaptismal record of Manuel Roso, giving his exact birth date andplace as well as his parents and their marriage place. Manuel was17 years old when he left his home in Puerto de Santa Maria andtraveled to Puerto Rico.

Stories like that of Manuel Roso’s can be found throughoutEurope during the nineteenth century. Under a wide variety ofcircumstances, rich, poor, convict, free, single, married, seekingeconomic opportunity or fleeing political or religious oppression,emigrants left homes and often families to go to the New World.The records exist to tell those emigration stories, not only collec-tively, but also individually. This paper will look at the types ofrecord that exist to document the individual emigrant’s story and

how and where to find them. Of interest arethose that name specific persons and give detailsabout their unique experiences.

Especially valuable for the genealogists are thosethat give the particular place of origin of theemigrant, as that allows for the tracing of ances-tral lines in the country of origin.

Arrival Records

The best-known records for telling the emigra-tion story are the passenger lists prepared at thetime of the arrival of the ship in the destinationcountry. Perhaps most famous are those of EllisIsland, but many others exist, not only for otherports and times in the United States, but forother countries and ports, such as those at theHotel de Inmigrantes in Buenos Aires. The bestof these offer extensive detail about each immi-grant, including the key place of birth. Many areaccessible in published accounts and Internetsites.

For those tracing the story of an individualimmigrant, even the best passenger lists tell onlypart of the story, and most do not even do that.Over half of those in the United States do notgive key details such as place of birth, and fewgive story details such as reasons for emigrating.In Latin America, even where arrival records arepreserved, the information given is even less. Forexample, in passenger lists for the years1891–1930 for the port of Buenos Aires,Argentina, during only 4 years was the place ofbirth for the immigrant given. For all of thesereasons the records of emigration, generallyfound in Europe, need to be consulted to give amore complete understanding of the emigrationprocess and its individual stories.

Departure Records

As part of the Immigrant Ancestors Project,sponsored by the Center for Family History andGenealogy at Brigham Young University, Provo,Utah, work has been done to identify recordsproduced in Europe that document the emigra-tion experience and provide the place of birth ofthe emigrant. Records have been located inmunicipal, provincial, state and national govern-ment archives, as well as in university andprivate archives in Germany, Spain, Italy,France, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Thisresearch has revealed a mosaic of laws, regula-

tions and practical applications that produced awide variety of records documenting the emigra-tion experience of individual emigrants as theyworked through requirements imposed on thembefore they could emigrate.

Passenger lists

Just as passengers were recorded in most portsas they disembarked, so they were often listed asthey sailed from the ports of Europe. In all fiveof the largest mass emigration ports lists weremaintained: Hamburg, Bremen, Liverpool, LeHavre and Naples. Sadly only those of Hamburghave survived the ravages of war and bureau-cratic archival cleansing. The Hamburg recordshave been microfilmed and indexed.

Existing passenger lists have been found forsmaller ports, such as Lisbon and Porto,Portugal; Llanes, Spain; and Bordeaux and LaRochelle, France; and even, for scattered yearsbefore mass migration, in Naples. The informa-tion in these records varies from only the name,age and port of destination to more detaileddescriptions of passengers including their placesof birth. At this time, practically none of thesehave been indexed and many have only beenrecently identified and have not been the subjectof academic study. Finding others that may existwill require visits to municipal and provincialarchives in port cities in each European country.

Other port of departure records

Often, one of the greatest challenges thatconfront genealogists is to locate the birthplacesof immigrant ancestors. Of the 55 million Euro-peans who emigrated between 1820 and 1920only about 14 percent can be found in passengerlists, arrival or departure, that tell their birth-place. Practically none of the 17 million whowent to Latin America appear on such records.The best place to go to find the unknown birth-places of immigrants is the emigration records inthe home country.

Passenger lists were only one form, albeit themost common, to control passenger departures.Other types of records found at the port ofdeparture included:

Passports. Often prepared on printed forms or inregister books, these show that the emigrantreceived a passport, often identifying thespecific ship of departure. The forms includethe emigrant’s name, destination, profession,


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birthplace, age and physical description.These collections often precede or are mergedinto the passports issued by provincial author-ities, as described below. Passport booksfound in Genoa, Italy are of this type.

Passengers in transit. In many cases shipsstopped to pick up passengers at intermediateports before sailing for the Americas. Ships’captains may have been required to file a list

of such passengers, as was the case in Porto,Portugal and Naples, Italy by the mid-1880s.

Health records. In some ports the only require-ment or one significant requirement was ahealth check performed by a port physician orby one provided by the shipping company.These checks may have resulted in a singlepage certificate of good health, that is, freefrom diseases such as tuberculosis or

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Figure 1. Page from a Passport Register. Santander, Cantabria, Spain.

glaucoma, the same as were checked byUntied States port authorities before admit-ting immigrants.

Passenger contracts. A unique record so farlocated only in Spain was the contractbetween the ship’s captain or owners and thepassengers. Beginning in 1853 a royal orderstipulated that each of these contracts had tolay out exactly the quality of transportation tobe provided, including exact quantity andquality for food and water rations, as well asthe destination of the ship and what thepayment terms were for each passenger. Thesehad to be written before a notary andapproved by the subgobernador. Unfortu-nately they did not have to be placed in thenotary’s register, although many were. Thecompany was required to keep a copy, as wasthe local provincial government and a copywas sent with the ship to be filed upon arrival.While scattered examples are found innotarial registers in port cities, in most casesthe companies kept these in their ownarchives. The Transatlantic Company, by farthe largest providing passenger service, keptits contracts filed in its central archive inMadrid. Much of that archive, including all ofthe contracts, was ‘lost’ during a transfer ofcompany headquarters in the 1970s.

Approval to emigrate before departure

Governments, for paternalistic reasons and/orfor control of population movement, enactedprocedures to regulate emigration. Requirementsto emigrate that existed in most, if not all, coun-tries at some time included:

1. that the emigrant have completed militaryresponsibilities

2. that he or she was not wanted for criminaloffences or trying to flee any authority

3. that he or she was not trying to abandon hisfamily, and

4. that he or she, if under age, had permissionfrom father or other family authority.

The gathering of this documentation washandled by the port authorities, the local provin-cial governments or by a provincial level policeauthority such as the Questura in Italy or thePrefeture in France.

The key difference from the passports requiredfor movement internally in most countries, aswell as those issued at the port for populationmovement control, was the preparation of

documentation that proved that the emigrantmet the requirements discussed above. Toaccomplish this, a file was created for eachemigrant or emigrant family with types of docu-mentation such as the following:

Certificate of Personal Identification — this issimilar to our identification cards today,including a description of the emigrant, hisaddress of residence, his birthplace, age andother identifying information.

Parent/Spouse Authorization — each emigrantmay have required to show authorizationfrom his/her spouse if married and fromhis/her parent if single and under the age ofmajority, usually 25 or 30 years.

Baptismal Record or Certification of Freedom toEmigrate — the baptismal record might onlybe required if the emigrant was under acertain age and those over that age couldsimply have an authorized statement of theireligibility to emigrate.

Criminal Record — or in most cases the emigrantneeded a document certified by a judge, policeor civil authority of his home or last residencedistrict, that certified that he had no criminalrecord.

Certificate of Completion of Military Service — aman was required to have a statement by ajudge, police or civil authority of his homedistrict that certified that he had met hismilitary obligation, either by service or byhaving stood for the draft and not been taken.

Often these passport records come in two parts,a register book of all passports issued (or appliedfor) and a collection of individual files, one foreach applicant or applicant family, containingthe documentation discussed above. Withoutdoubt the researcher should try to go to the fileand not stop at the register book, even when itgives the place of birth. The file will contain themost interesting material about the emigrant,often including statements as to reasons for emi-grating. Records of this type have thus far beenfound in Germany, Spain and Italy, but werelikely required at least at some time period in allcontinental European countries.

Published Announcements

At certain time periods, the way in which munic-ipal authorities were able or required to ascer-tain that the proposed emigrant was qualified toemigrate was to publish a notice of the intendedemigration in the official provincial governmentbulletin. In Spain and Italy, where some of these


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have been found, the bulletins were issuedweekly or more frequently. Again, the timeperiod during which this procedure was used islimited and their use not fully studied.

British and Irish Pre-Departure Records

In the British Isles the attitude toward emigrationwas different from that in the rest of Europe.Aside from passenger lists, other forms of emigra-tion control used on the continent do not appearamong British records. Rather than attempting toprevent the departure of those with criminalrecords or who were in debt, the authorities inthese countries encouraged emigration as a wayof dealing with the poor. Vestry minutes andestate records exist that identify those whosepassage was paid as a means of meeting localobligations imposed by the poor laws. Trans-portation to colonies appears regularly in quartersessions records as a sentence for criminalactivity. A variety of records exist relating toindentured servitude and other similar ways ofacquiring passage. For these reasons the searchfor emigration records in the British Isles offers aseries of challenges and potential solutions notfound in the rest of Europe

After Arrival Records

Consular records

All European countries maintained consulatesworking to meet the needs and often to protectthe interests of their citizens. Many of these con-sulates kept records of transactions undertakenby their citizens residing in the destination coun-tries. Most commonly these appear to recordrequests for passports, identification proofs, reg-istration of births, or assistance with an inheri-tance or other legal problem in the country oforigin. On occasion the consul appears to gobeyond this to an effort to identify all emigrants.In either case these records identify emigrantsand provide more of the story of the emigrationprocess.

Home town censuses and emigrant lists

Even after emigration the emigrants were stillconsidered residents of their home towns. Assuch they are often listed in local censuses, withan annotation as to where they are living and thedate of emigration. Some municipalities alsokept register books of those who had emigrated.

George R. Ryskamp

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Figure 2. Pages from an Italian Passport Application file. Naples, Italy.

Little has been done to identify these types ofrecords and less to extract the information thatthey contain.

Military absence records

Both youth of the age for military service andlocal authorities responsible for the draft recog-nized that emigration was a means of avoidingmilitary service. Although little study has been

done of illegal emigration during this period, thelargest group of illegal emigrants was most likelyyoung men of conscription age. In Italy, provin-cial conscription lists often identify missingyouths as having emigrated. In Spain, lists ofthose who did not report for draft registrationwere published in the provincial bulletins dis-cussed above, which identified the countrieswhere the men were thought to have gone or thatthey were thought to be in a port city such as


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Figure 3. Published notice of intent to emigrate, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain.

Cadiz, apparently a euphemism for indicating thatthey had emigrated or were likely trying to do so.

Finding Emigration Records

Arrival passenger lists in the United States havebeen available on microfilm for decades.Numerous published sources have providedindexes to specific ports for specific time periodsor specific ethnicities. During the last threeyears, beginning with the Ellis Island website,online indexes to these records have been avail-able. Recent developments on sites such aswww.stevemorse.org and www.ancestry.comhave further opened the possibilities for search-ing arrival passenger lists and other immigrantsources in this country. Work on Canadianimmigration records has recently begun, but islimited so far primarily to the early years of the20th century. Little has been done to indexarrival lists in Latin America, although the workdone by the Centro de Estudios MigratoriosLatinoamericanos (Avenida Independencia 20,1099 Buenos Aires, Argentina) which hasindexed arrivals at the port of Buenos Aires,Argentina 1882–1926, offers hope that suchrecords will be more readily available in thefuture. At this time, however, even a comprehen-sive list of where such arrival records can befound would be most helpful, especially wheremany Latin American immigrants arrived in onecountry but ultimately settled in another.

Finding European emigration records can bemore challenging. Except for the Hamburg pas-senger departure lists, which are available onmicrofilm with indexes and with indexescurrently being placed online, no other majorcollection of departure lists exists and only ahandful of those for smaller ports are currentlybeing indexed. To find the wide variety ofrecords discussed above one must turn to theoriginal records still to be found in archives inthe home country.

The vast majority of the European emigrationrecords described above are to be found in theprovincial level archives in Europe. Obviously tomake it possible to search those, one must knowthe province or department from which theemigrant came or the port from which he sailed.Once that is known, perhaps from arrival pas-senger lists, then there must be a search throughthe bundles for those years. This is a task thatcan generally only be done on site, although insome instances such as certain German

provinces the records are available on microfilmthrough the LDS Family History Centers. Listsidentifying the provincial level archives exist foreach country, often with website addresses.

Some emigration records are found at thenational archives level, such as consular recordsat the Archivo General de la Administración inAlcala de Henares, passenger lists at the ArquivoNacional Torre do Tombo in Lisbon. Informa-tion for specific archives can be found at http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_archives/pages/Archives/, which lists all national archives inEurope.

Illegal or Extralegal Emigration

Recognition must be made that in addition to theproblems with locating records and significantmissing or destroyed emigration records, therewere those who went without meeting legalrequirements or registering on the passengerlists. The number of draft age youths who areidentified as having emigrated is indicative ofthis problem. Likewise in port authority orpolice records there are discussions of actionssuch as unscheduled ship inspections taken toidentify illegal emigrants who are on board.Another manifestation of this problem are shipcrew members who deserted upon arrival in theAmericas.

The Immigrants Ancestors Project atBrigham Young University

Emigration records, such as passport files, pas-senger contracts, vestry minutes, consularrecords are rich in genealogical information, butlargely untouched simply because they are noteasily available. Few are microfilmed. Most areaccessible only by visiting the archives contain-ing the records and are rarely indexed or sorted.The Immigrants Ancestors Project at BrighamYoung University (IAP) looks for emigrationrecords in European home countries.

The IAP goals center on those hard-to-find emi-gration records:

1. Identify emigration records2. Acquire copies of those records3. Extract data on individuals who appear in

those records4. Place extracted data in an online index/

database available free on the Internet.

George R. Ryskamp

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Work is progressing well on the first two goals.In addition to German emigration files that havebeen microfilmed, passport records from Cadizand Santander in Spain for the middle years ofthe 19th century have been identified, copiedand partially extracted. Major collections fromSpanish consular offices all over the world havebeen identified and arrangements for copyingare being made. Emigration records from munic-ipal archives in Galicia and Asturias have beencopied and await extraction. This spring, studentinterns worked with great success finding andcopying more of these in several archives in theBritish Isles and the Spanish Basque provinces,as well as in Rome and Naples in Italy andLisbon and Porto in Portugal. In all cases copiesof emigration record collections identified havebeen or are being acquired.

The copies are then digitized and arranged insmall batches. Extraction by volunteers is thekey to success for the Project. Utilizing softwarecreated for the Project, volunteers all over theworld, working via the Internet, are sent thesmall batches of emigration records to extract.The extracted data is then sent back to theCenter for Family History and Genealogy,where trained student supervisors check extrac-tions for accuracy before they are added to thedatabase. The data from those small extractedbatches will be continually added to create theonline database until there will be millions ofimmigrants with their places of origin. Theinitial database with thousands of names isfound at http://immigrants.byu.edu. Also foundthere are lists of archives, research tools and anextensive bibliography of books and articlesabout immigrants and the immigration experi-ence.

At present the project focuses on emigrants fromGermany, Spain, Ireland, England, Scotland,Wales, Italy and France, but plans are to addother countries as resources permit. The IAPneeds large numbers of volunteers to extractrecords. Volunteers receive online training inreading the records and research resources tohelp in the extraction process. Volunteers maysign up on line at http://immigrants.byu.edu.

Even with generous support of time and effortfrom volunteer extractors and of office space,personnel and faculty time from BYU, a projectof this magnitude needs donated funds. Dona-tions made to the IAP pay wages for student

researchers, provide copies of identified records,and support computer program developmentand maintenance.

Notes

1. Archivo Histórico Provincial de Cadiz, GobiernoCivil, Pasaportes.

2. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index: A guide topublished records of more than 2,923,000 immigrantswho came to the New World between the sixteenthand the mid-twentieth centuries. (Detroit: GaleGroup, 1998.): John Philip Colletta. They came inships. (Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Co.,1997).

3. See for example: www.ellisisland.org,www.stevemorse.org, www.ancestry.com,http://home.stt.net/~wee-monster/ei.html,www.immigrantships.net,www.olivetreegenelgy.com/ships/search_ships.shtml .

4. See immigrants.byu.edu and familyhistory.byu.edu.5. The Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850–1934 resource

guide at www.familysearch.org.6. Access to many archives throughout Europe can be

made through http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_archives/pages/Archives/or throughindividual national archival sites such as thefollowing: http://aer.mcu.es/sgae/index_aer.jsp,www.iantt.pt, http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/, http://www.bundesarchiv.de/,http://www.archivesdefrance.culture.gouv.fr/.http://www.pro.gov.uk/.

7. The following are some of the archives in Spain, Italyand Portugal where students from the Center forFamily History and Genealogy at Brigham YoungUniversity worked in the Spring of 2004 gatheringrecords for the Immigrant Ancestors Project: ArchivoGeneral de la Administración — Alcalá de Henares,Archivo Nacional de Cataluña, Archivo del Reino deGalicia, Archivo General de la Administración delPrincipado de Asturias, Archivo Histórico Provincialde Asturias, Archivo Histórico Provincial de Cáceres,Archivo Histórico Provincial de Cádiz, ArchivoHistórico Provincial de Cantabria, Archivo HistóricoProvincial de Toledo, Archivo Histórico Provincial deVizcaya, Archivo Histórico Municipal de Llanes,Archivo de Protocolos de Guipúzcoa, Archivo Foralde Vizcaya, Archivo de la Diputación Provincial deCáceres, Archivo de la Diputación Provincial deBarcelona, Archivo Histórico de la Biblioteca deCantabria, Hemeroteca Municipal de Santander,Archivio del Minutero degle Afari Esseri d’Italia,Roma, Archivio di Stato di Napoi, Instituto NacionalTorre de Tombo, Lisboa and Arquivo Distrital deOporto.

Original paper no. 117 presented at the World Libraryand Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Con-ference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, insession 84, Genealogy and Local History. Englishoriginal available on IFLANET at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog 04.htm.


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Alastair G. Smith

Alastair G. Smith is SeniorLecturer, School of InformationManagement, Victoria Universityof Wellington. Prior to enteringacademia, he worked in databasedevelopment at the NationalLibrary of New Zealand, as aspecial librarian and as a sci/techreference librarian. His researchinterests are in the use of onlinelearning and the evaluation ofInternet information resourcesand Web search engines. Contactaddress: School of InformationManagement, Victoria Universityof Wellington PO Box 600,Wellington, New Zealand. Tel. +64 (4) 463 5785. Fax: +64 (4)463 5446. E-mail: [email protected].

Citations and Links as a Measure of Effectiveness ofOnline LIS Journals


Introduction

How important are LIS e-journals, and how can they be evalu-ated? Traditionally, measures based on citation counts such asISI’s Journal Impact Factor have been important in measuring thesuccess of journals. The growth of publishing on the web hasraised the possibility of new measures. A number of writers haveseen an analogy between citations in print sources, and linksbetween web sites. Ingwersen (1998) proposed the Web ImpactFactor (WIF) as the online equivalent of the ISI Journal ImpactFactor. The Journal Impact Factor is based on the citation countsof a journal over a specified period of time, compared with thecitable articles published in the journal. In contrast, the WebImpact Factor is based on the number of links made to a web site,compared with the size (usually the number of pages) of thewebsite.

The term ‘e-journal’ can have narrower and wider meanings. Awide interpretation includes any journal available electronically,including online versions of conventional print journals availablefor subscription from publishers or aggregators. However for thepurpose of this study, e-journals are open access periodicals onlyavailable over the Internet that include a review process for atleast part of their content.

This exploratory study examines counts for conventional citationsand links to a sample of LIS e-journal websites, and calculatesWIFs for the e-journals. The differences between these measuresof e-journal impact are discussed.

In the second part of the study, samples of links to the e-journalsare studied to determine the extent to which they are similar toconventional citations, and to what extent they serve differentfunctions.

Literature Review

Studies of electronic publishing, and metrics for the web, havebeen widespread in the last decade. A sub-discipline of bibliomet-rics, called variously ‘webometrics’ or ‘cybermetrics’, has emerged.

A number of studies examine the increasing importance of elec-tronic sources in research dissemination. Bar-Ilan, Peritza andWolman (2003) found that electronic sources are indispensablein modern university scholarship. Herring (2002) noted a greateruse of electronic resources in a study of citation patterns in schol-arly electronic journals. Lawrence (2001) found online articleswere more highly cited, indicating both that online availabilityencouraged use, and also implies that online citations are

important as research linkages. However webcitations can be ephemeral: Casserly and Bird(2003) found that slightly more than half theweb citations in a sample of LIS articles werestill available; although searching the webincreased the availability to almost 90 percent.Oppenheim and Smith (2001) noted an increas-ing tendency by LIS students to cite Internetsources in their dissertations. Shin (2003) foundthat the impact factor of journals increasedwhen they became available in electronic form,indicating that the greater availability of the elec-tronic format lead to more citations.

The growth of e-journals in information sciencewas examined by Hawkins (2001) who foundthat the number of articles per year had risenfrom 26 in 1995 to 250 in 2001. Koehler, Aguilarand Finarelli (2000) compared a small sample ofe-journals in LIS with a paper journal, and founddifferences in the characteristics of articles.Although more women had articles in the elec-tronic forms, these authors felt that whether ajournal was electronic did not affect its presenceor behaviour as an information science journal.

Are web links equivalent to journal citations?Both Kim (2000) and Prime, Bassecoulard andZitt (2002) found that citations and ‘sitations’(web links) are made for very different reasons.A survey of 414 links between websites in theac.uk domain by Wilkinson et al. (2003) foundonly two links that were equivalent to journalcitations. On the other hand Smith (2003) in astudy of research oriented websites, found thatabout 20 percent of links were broadly equiva-lent to research citations. Chu (2003) investi-gated 1400 links to academic websites, andfound that about 25 percent were made fromteaching/learning motivations. Vaughan andThelwall (2003) used sites in the disciplines ofLIS and law to investigate factors influencingthe creation of links to a site. They found thatage and content were important factors.Thelwall (2003) investigated 100 random inter-site links to UK university home pages, andfound four types of motivation for linking: own-ership, social, general navigational, and gratu-itous.

There is some evidence of a link between JournalImpact Factor and WIF. An early study of e-journal links by Harter and Ford (2000) foundno correlation between links to e-journal articlesand conventional ISI citation measures,although they suggested that links to e-journalhome pages might be a new measure of scholarly

communication. However Vaughan and Hysen(2002) found a relationship between externallinks and the Journal Impact Factor of LISjournals. Vaughan and Shaw (2003) comparedbibliographic and web citations to articles in LISjournals. Many of the web citations represented‘intellectual impact’, and journals with tables ofcontents available on the web had more webcitations. An and Qiu (2003) found a correlationbetween impact factors of Chinese engineeringjournals and the WIFs of the journal web sites.

Rousseau (2002) argues that care must be exer-cised when using impact factors, and that abattery of different impact factors should beevaluated. This implies that WIFs or a similarweb based impact factor could be valuable insupplementing evaluation of LIS e-journals.Marek and Valauskas (2002) have also exploredthe use of web logs, recording hits, to evaluatethe use of electronic journal articles, and identify‘classic’ articles.

There are valid arguments about the reliability ofusing commercial search engines to evaluateweb links for bibliometric studies. Bar-Ilan(2001) found disparities in the coverage of linksto the home page of the online journal Cyber-metrics.

Methodology

LIS e-journals studied in this paper were thosethat were open access (non-charged subscrip-tion) periodicals only available over the Internet,with articles that underwent some kind of peerreview process. A selected list was taken fromHawkins (2001) and other sources.

The ISI databases were searched for citations toLIS e-journals. Those that had citations werethen searched on AltaVista, to determine theoverall number of links, and their Web ImpactFactor. A sample of links to the e-journals wasexamined, to determine whether the links weresimilar to conventional citations, or whetherthey served different purposes.

Institute of Scientific Information citationcounts

Bibliometric studies of conventional journals areoften done using the Journal Impact Factor cal-culated by ISI and published in their JournalCitation Reports. However few LIS e-journalsare included in the Journal Citation Reports.

Citations and Links as a Measure of Effectiveness

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Instead, the Dialog version of ISI’s citationindexes Science Citation Index (1990–), SocialSciences Citation Index (1972–) and Arts andHumanities Citation Index (1980–) was used tofind total citation counts, using the ‘cited work’search. These indicate the number of times ajournal has been cited by the journals indexed byISI. An initial version of this study used the Webof Knowledge version of the ISI databases, butthis appears to be less comprehensive for biblio-metric versions than the Dialog version (I amindebted to Ronald Rousseau for pointing outinconsistencies in the data in an initial version ofthis paper). Dialog was searched in August 2004.

A limitation with using the ISI databases is thatcitation data is dependent on the accuracy withwhich original authors entered the citation data.Consequently journals can appear under differ-ent forms (e.g. DLIB and D-Lib), and differentjournals can be cited similarly (e.g. JEP is theabbreviation for both the Journal of ElectronicPublishing and the Journal of EconomicProgress). In the current study, the ISI guide tocitation formats was consulted, but other likelyabbreviations were searched. Where citationswere likely to be to other journals, the full articlerecord was retrieved to determine if the subjectmatter, volume and issue numbering, etc. wasconsistent with a citation to the required e-journal.

The ten LIS e-journals for which citations werefound in the ISI databases, and which wereincluded in the study, were:

Ariadne: http://www.ariadne.ac.ukCybermetrics: http://www.cindoc.csic.es/cyber

metrics/D-Lib Magazine: http://www.dlib.org/First Monday: http://firstmonday.orgInformation Research: http://InformationR.net/ir/Journal of Digital Information: http://jodi.ecs.

soton.ac.ukJournal of Electronic Publishing: http://www.

press.umich.edu/jepJournal of Information, Law and Technology:

http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jiltLIBRES: Library and Information Science

Research Electronic Journal: http://libres.curtin.edu.au/

PACS-R: Public Access Computer SystemsReview: http://info.lib.uh.edu/pr/pacsrev.html

PACS-R has in fact ceased publication, but hadsufficient links in both the ISI databases and inthe Web to be worthy of study.

Web links and Web Impact Factors

As a comparison with the citation counts fromISI databases, links from websites to the e-journals were measured. In addition, the WebImpact Factor, a measure analogous with theJournal Impact Factor, was calculated. Thismeasure, proposed by Ingwersen (1998), is theratio of the number of links made to a web site,divided by the number of pages at the web site.

Although as noted in the literature review, thereare reservations about the use of commercialsearch engines for studying web phenomena,they provide coverage of the web that is notavailable elsewhere. While several web searchengines can provide counts of links to a site, andthe number pages present at the site, in thecurrent study the AltaVista advanced searchengine (http://www.altavista.com/web/adv) wasused, since it provides for the use of Booleanoperators, and appears to apply these withgreater consistency than other search engines.Searches were carried out in March 2004.Shortly after this the AltaVista database wasreplaced by a different version that no longercounts link in the same way.

For each of the e-journals, a search was carriedout to determine the number of external links,and the number of pages at the site. The numberof external links to the e-journal website wasdetermined by:

link:xxx and not host:xxx

Where xxx is the URL of the e-journal website.

In the current study, only external links werecounted, since this excludes internal navigationlinks and overcomes differences in whether linkswithin the site are made relatively (e.g. ahref=“file.htm”) or absolutely (e.g. a href=http://ejournal.org/file.htm). Arguably, links betweenarticles in the same e-journal should be counted,since these are analogous to citations, but it wasassumed that these would be a small proportionof the total links. This assumption was supportedby the examination of a sample of e-journal linksundertaken in the current study (see below).

Where the e-journal resided in a subdirectoryrather than having its own domain (for exampleInformation Research is located in a subdirec-tory at InformationR.net/ir/, while D-Lib has itsown domain dlib.org) the URL: command wasused instead of the host: command, i.e.

Alastair G. Smith

78

link:xxx and not url:xxx

The number of pages at the site was determinedby the commands:

host:xxx

or

url:xxx

E-journals have an added dimension to the tra-ditional ‘title varies’: they also have ‘URL varies’.Several journals had changed URLs (e.g. Journalof Digital Information changed from journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/jodi to jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk). Onthe other hand, some journals changed title, butstayed at the same URL (e.g. E-JASL: TheElectronic Journal of Academic and SpecialLibrarianship formerly the Journal of SouthernAcademic and Special Librarianship). Wherealternate sites or mirrors were used, an OR’dsearch was used to find links, for example

(link:journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/jodi orlink:jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk) and not(url:journals.ecs.soton.ac.uk/jodi orhost:jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk)

However the number of pages was estimated byusing the main URL, since an estimate of theamount of information at the site was required,which would be inflated if pages at both thecurrent and past URLs were counted.

In the case of D-Lib (which has a number ofmirror sites, including one in Argentina) this wasnot possible, since the complexity of the Booleanstatement required appeared to be too great forAltaVista to handle:

(link:dlib.org or link:ukoln.ac.uk/lis-journals/dlib/ or link:dlib.anu.edu.au/ orlink:gwdg.de/edoc/aw/d-lib/ orlink:dlib.org.ar/ orlink:dlib.ejournal.ascc.net/) and not(host:dlib.org or url:ukoln.ac.uk/lis-journals/dlib/ or host:dlib.anu.edu.au/ orurl:gwdg.de/edoc/aw/d-lib/ orhost:dlib.org.ar/ orhost:dlib.ejournal.ascc.net/)

Results from this search statement were incon-sistent, so the estimate for external links to D-Lib was based just on the main dlib.org site; testsearches indicated that most links were to thissite.

The pages found by a web crawler are notnecessarily all those present at the site, and candepend on a number of factors:

• depth of crawling by spider• structure of articles: whether a single page, or

multiple pages• whether different formats are available of the

same article, for example Library Philosophyand Practice articles appear in both PDF andHTML

• the extent to which pages are included in thejournal’s directory that have other informatione.g. directions to authors, etc.

Arguably a better measure would be the numberof articles included in the journal; however herethere are problems with differing definitions ofwhat constitutes an article, so this measure wasnot pursued.

The count of external links to the e-journal site,and number of pages at the e-journal site, wasused to calculate the Web Impact Factor of thee-journal.

Nature of linking to LIS e-journals

In order to investigate the nature of links madeto LIS e-journals, and the extent to which theywere analogous to conventional citations, asample of pages that linked to each of the e-journals was examined.

A search was carried out on AltaVista advancedsearch for links:

link:xxx

where xxx is the URL of the e-journal, as above.

AltaVista was set to search the whole world, andfor pages in all languages. Site collapse (whichmeans that only one page from each site is dis-played) was turned off. The searches and exam-ination of sites were carried out in March 2004.Both external and internal pages were searchedfor, since one of the aims was to look at all pagesthat linked to the e-journal, including thosemade from the same e-journal.

A feature of AltaVista advanced search from asampling point of view is that the display orderappears to be random, unless a ranking term isprovided. However in order to ensure that arandom sample of links was used, every 50thitem retrieved was examined, up to a total of 20


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items. In some cases fewer than 1000 pageslinked to the e-journal in which case every 20thitem was examined. If a page didn’t work, or nolonger included a link to the e-journal (forexample if it was a news page that changedfrequently), the next page in the results list wasexamined.

Pages linking to the e-journal were classifiedaccording to the scheme in the Table 1. Classifi-cation was carried out by the researcher.

Results and Discussion

This section discusses the results of the differentforms of citation and linking to LIS e-journals.

The counts from ISI citation databases and fromthe AltaVista searches are shown in Table 2. Inaddition, the Google Page Rank (http://www.google.com/technology/) is included — this is ameasure used by the Google search engine torank results, and is a score out of 10 derivedfrom the number of links to a site. In this case itwas measured using the Google tool bar (http://toolbar.google.com/) .

There appears to be only a slight relationshipbetween the number of ISI citations and thenumber of external links. D-Lib, Ariadne andFirst Monday have relatively high citationcounts and links. LIBRES has a low number ofcitations and links. On the other hand severaljournals with low numbers of ISI citations(Information Research, JoDI, JEP, and JILT)have significant numbers of web links. Cyber-metrics and PACS-R have significant numbers ofISI citations, but relatively few external links (in

the case of PACS-R this may be because thejournal has ceased).

The Web Impact Factor of the journals alsovaries, with JILT at a low of 0.94 and PACS-R ata high of 15.21. While this may be a useful indi-cation of the influence of a journal on the web,it may also indicate that, for the reasons notedpreviously, AltaVista is an imperfect tool fordetermining the total number of pages at a site;and also that the number of pages may be a poormeasure of the information content of a site. Theexceptionally high WIF for PACS-R may be dueto AltaVista not having indexed all pages at thesite, and also due to the fact that many issues ofPACS-R, often comprising several articles, wereposted as a single page.

D-Lib’s high ISI citation count is interesting,and may indicate that it crosses the dividebetween LIS and computer science: ISI ScienceCitation Index has a good coverage of computerscience literature, where many of the citations toD-Lib appear to come from.

The Google Page Rank has been extremely suc-cessful as a ranking mechanism for the searchengine, and web managers place great value onoptimizing the Page Rank of their sites. For thesee-journals, the Google Page Rank is relativelyhigh, at 7 or 8, except for Cybermetrics at 6. Asa comparison, the web site of the Guardiannewspaper has a Page Rank of 8, and that of theNew Scientist has a Page Rank of 9.

Perhaps the significant point about these variousmeasures is that they illustrate that e-journalshave a variety of qualitative measures thatcan be used to evaluate them, and perhaps as

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1. Link to a formal article in the e-journal:a. From another e-journal article, conference paper or similar document that could be

considered the online equivalent of a conventional research publication.b. From an article in same e-journalc. From an online article by same authord. From non-article website, e.g. an online bibliography, researcher home page, teaching

resource, etc.2. Link to a whole issue of an e-journal3. Link to the e-journal as a whole

a. From a list of e-journalsb. From another source

4. Link to non-article material provided at the e-journal website: news, directories etc5. Internal navigation link in e-journal, e.g. a link from an article back to the journal home page.

Table 1. Classification of links to e-journals.

e-journals become more widely accepted, a richerrange of evaluative measures will be available.

The study of a sample of links to the e-journalsare listed in the Appendix. A summary of themost significant types of links is listed in Table 3.This shows number of links of each type as a per-centage of the total links to each e-journal.

Almost 60 percent of links to these e-journalswere to journal articles, indicating that themajority of links were to content, rather than tohome pages, navigation links, etc. On the otherhand, just over 30 percent of links were to thejournal as a whole. While these links do indicaterecognition of the journal, many of these linksare from directory listings of e-journals, so all e-journals, regardless of quality or importance, willhave links of this type.

It appears that the different publications havedifferent ‘profiles’ with regard to the sources ofcitations. Cybermetrics and LIBRES had rela-tively high numbers of links to the journal as awhole. This could mean that they haven’t estab-lished a large body of articles to be cited, andconsequently their links come mainly fromsources that list e-journals in general, rather thanspecific articles.

D-Lib was most cited from formal publications.This isn’t surprising given its origins in both thelibrary and computer science field. It alsohappens to be the most highly cited by ISIdatabase journals.

On the other hand most other LIS e-journalswere more highly linked from sources other thanformal publications (e.g. from online biblio-graphies, personal home pages, online teachingresources, etc). This could be because these pub-lications are more specifically concerned withthe general Internet, particularly in the case ofFirst Monday.

Some types of links reflected the construction ofthe e-journal site. For example JoDI, JILT, andJEP had a relatively high proportion of internallinks.

In examining the sample of linking pages somefeatures specific to particular journals werenoted, which reflected their particular character.Links to Ariadne were often from projectwebsites to articles written about the project, aform of self citation. Cybermetrics (hosted inSpain but in English) had noticeably more linksfrom non-English language sites, and from sitesin non-English language countries. First Monday


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E-Journal Title ISI citns External Pages Web Googlelinks Impact Page

Factor Rank

Ariadne 151 7202 1502 4.79 8

Cybermetrics 168 580 113 5.13 6

D-Lib Magazine 790 14857 1497 9.92 8

First Monday 80 9494 851 11.16 8

Information Research 179 2209 392 5.64 7

Journal of Digital Information (JoDI) 92 4313 599 7.20 7

Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP) 147 3852 420 9.17 8

Journal of Information, Law and Technology 48 2897 3089 0.94 7(JILT)

LIBRES: Library and Information Science 20 438 124 3.53 7Research Electronic Journal

PACS-R: Public Access Computer Systems 255 1506 99 15.21 7Review

Table 2. Citation and link counts.

articles were particularly popular as citationsfrom cached discussion lists.

The assumption made in using an external WIF,rather than the overall WIF, that relatively fewlinks are made between articles in the same e-journal, was borne out. Only 4 percent of totallinks were between articles in the same e-journal.

Conclusions

What lessons does this study have for users andpublishers of LIS open access e-journals?

First, e-journals in LIS are becoming a significantbody of literature, as evidenced by the fact thatthey appear in significant numbers in ISI’s citationcount, if not yet in the formal Journal CitationReports. This means that authors can be confidentthat by publishing in e-journals, their work will berecognized and cited in mainstream literature.

Second, analysis of links made to e-journalsindicates that a majority are to article content,

indicating that links are performing some of thefunctions of conventional citations. This indi-cates a maturing of e-journals as a medium.

Third, e-journal publishers need to be aware ofdifferent measures of effectiveness. The Webprovides a greater range of measures than areavailable in the print environment. As well asmeasures such as the Journal Impact Factor,based on conventional citations, measures basedon numbers of links, such as Web Impact Factor,are available. It must be appreciated, however,that these are measuring different features thanthe conventional citation count. Furtherresearch needs to be conducted to evolve newmeasures.

Some other, perhaps more minor, points relateto how e-journals are constructed and managed.Journal publishers have been keen to have highcitation counts. Recognition on the Web, par-ticularly by the Google page rank, can bepromoted by links. Links from sites that arethemselves highly linked promote visibility onthe web, for example when searching Google. By

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E-journal title Link Link from All Links to Internalfrom other links to Journal Navigation

formal types journal as a linkspubln of web articles whole (5)

(1a,b,c) pages (1a,b,c,d) (3a,b)(1d)

Ariadne 15 50 65 25 5

Cybermetrics 5 0 5 90 0

D-Lib Magazine 50 40 90 0 10

First Monday 10 75 85 10 5

Information Research 10 55 65 20 10

Journal of Digital Information (JoDI) 10 35 45 35 15

Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP) 10 50 60 20 20

Journal of Information, Law and 0 50 50 35 15Technology (JILT)

LIBRES: Library and Information 0 20 20 65 0Science Research Electronic Journal

PACS-R: Public Access Computer 15 50 65 25 5Systems Review

OVERALL PERCENT 12.5 44.5 57 31 8

Table 3. Percentages of types of pages linking to LIS e-journals.

providing links between e-journals (as is donefor example by the list of digital resourcesprovided by Information Research at http://informationr.net/fr/freejnls.html) LIS e-journalscan raise their overall visibility on the web. Amethodological issue that arose in this study wasthe structure of e-journal URLs: bibliometricstudies of e-journals could be aided by publish-ers having a standard ‘root’ URL for the journaland articles, and changes of URL increase thecomplexity of tracking links.

Open access e-journals in LIS are coming of age,and in a relatively short time have become amature medium for the reporting of scholarshipand research. As well as providing a publishingavenue, this exploratory study indicates that theyare also becoming an instructive area for biblio-metric research. As noted by Lawrence andothers in the literature review, the convenienceof open access e-journals makes them an attrac-tive resource for users and increasingly theyare becoming accepted as credible sources ofscholarship.

References

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Bar-Ilan, J. (2001) How much information the searchengines disclose on the links to a web page? – A casestudy of the Cybermetrics home page. In Proceedingsof the 8th International Conference on Sciento-metrics and Informetrics, Sydney 16–20 July 2001.Sydney: Bibliometric and Informetric ResearchGroup, UNSW. pp. 63–73.

Bar-Ilan, J., Peritza, B.C. and Wolman, Y. (2003) Asurvey on the use of electronic databases and elec-tronic journals accessed through the web by theacademic staff of Israeli universities. Journal ofAcademic Librarianship, 29 (6), 346–361.

Casserly, M. and Bird, J. (2003) Web citation availability:analysis and implications for scholarship. Collegeand Research Libraries, 64 (4), 300–317.

Chu, H. (2003) Reasons for sitation (hyperlinking): whatdo they imply for webometric research? Paper pre-sented at the International Conference on Sciento-metrics and Informetrics, 9th. 25–29 August 2003,Beijing.

Harter, S. P. and Ford, C. E. (2000) Web–based analysesof e-journal impact: approaches, problems, andissues. JASIS, 51 (3), 1159–1176.

Hawkins, D.T. (2001) Bibliometrics of electronicjournals in information science. InformationResearch, 7 (1). http://InformationR.net/ir/7-1/paper120.html

Herring, S.D. (2002) Use of electronic resources inscholarly electronic journals: a citation analysis.College and Research Libraries, 63 ( 4), 334–340.

Ingwersen, P. (1998) Web Impact Factors. Journal ofDocumentation, 54 (2), 236–243.

Kim, H.J. (2000) Motivations for hyperlinking in schol-arly electronic articles: a qualitative study. Journal ofthe American Society for Information Science, 51(10), 887–899.

Koehler, W., Aguilar, P. and Finarelli, S. (2000) A biblio-metric analysis of select information science printand electronic journals in the 1990s. InformationResearch, 6 (1). http://informationr.net/ir/6-1/paper88.html

Lawrence, S. (2001) Online or invisible? Nature, 411(6837), 521.

Marek, K. and Valauskas, E.J. (2002) Web logs as indicesof electronic journal use: tools for identifying a‘classic’ article. Libri, 52 (4), 220–230.

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Prime, C., Bassecoulard, E. and Zitt, M. (2002) Co-citations and co-sitations: a cautionary view on ananalogy. Scientometrics, 54 (2), 291–308.

Rousseau, R. (2002) Journal evaluation: technical andpractical issues. Library Trends, 50 (3), 418–.

Shin, E.-J. (2003) Do Impact Factors change with achange of medium? A comparison of Impact Factorswhen publication is by paper and through parallelpublishing. Journal of Information Science, 29 (6),527–533.

Smith, A.G. (2003) Classifying links for substantive WebImpact Factors. Paper presented at the ISSI 2003,Beijing. pp. 305–311.

Thelwall, M. (2003) What is this link doing here? Begin-ning a fine-grained process of identifying reasons foracademic hyperlink creation. Information Research,8 (3 paper no. 151). http://informationr.net/ir/8-3/paper151.html

Vaughan, L. and Hysen, K. (2002) Relationship betweenlinks to journal Web sites and impact factors. AslibProceedings, 54 (6), 356–361.

Vaughan, L. and Shaw, D. (2003) Bibliographic and Webcitations: What is the difference? Journal of theAmerican Society for Information Science and Tech-nology, 54 (14), 1313–1322.

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E-journal title Classification (from Table 1)

1a 1b 1c 1d 2 3a 3b 4 5 Total

Ariadne 1 1 1 10 1 5 0 0 1 20

Cybermetrics 1 0 0 0 0 14 4 1 0 20

D-Lib Magazine 6 3 1 8 0 0 0 0 2 20

First Monday 2 0 0 15 0 2 0 0 1 20

Information Research 0 2 0 11 0 2 2 1 2 20

Journal of Digital Information (JoDI) 1 1 0 7 1 4 3 0 3 20

Journal of Electronic Publishing (JEP) 2 0 0 10 0 3 1 0 4 20

Journal of Information, Law and 0 0 0 10 0 4 3 0 3 20Technology (JILT)

LIBRES: Library and Information 0 0 0 4 2 13 0 1 0 20Science Research Electronic Journal

PACS-R: Public Access Computer 2 1 0 14 0 0 2 1 0 20Systems Review

TOTAL LINKS IN CLASS 15 8 2 89 4 47 15 4 16 200

% OF LINKS IN CLASS 7.5 4 1 44.5 2 23.5 7.5 2 8 100

Appendix: Classification of a Sample of Links to LIS E-Journals

Original paper no. 049 presented at the World Library and Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Conference,Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, in session 149, Library and Information Science Journals. Englishoriginal available on IFLANET at: http://www. ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.

Habent sua fata libelli. Manuscripts and their creators are subjectto the dictates of time. Their fates are not predictable, yet theyreflect the deeds and misdeeds of history.

The manuscript collections formed in mediaeval monasteries andthe migration of monks from one country to another broughtwisdom and concrete texts from one monastery to another — alltoo well known to be retold here. The history of European post-mediaeval culture owes much, if not all, to those whose ‘profes-sion’ it was to separate manuscripts from one collection andintegrate them into another. Learning and teaching, the exchangeof ideas and texts, are acts of cultural education due, in part, tothe migration of handwritten texts.

Our most famous European manuscript collections were createdwhen secular power succeeded to the spiritual and intellectualreign of monastic communities. Emperors, kings, and princesattracted scholars to their courts for the conservation of knowl-edge of the past. After the migration of mediaeval manuscriptsfrom one monastery to another, there was an intense movementof men and books. The invention of printing and the growinginterest of the middle class in knowledge and education sooncaused a worldwide exchange of ideas, which continues to thisday. The 19th century inquiring mind, the opening of borders andnew means of transport; in the 20th century, two world wars, andtyranny and expulsion caused migration to an extent not previ-ously known. All this is reflected in the manuscript collections oflibraries and archives worldwide.

The life of Alexander von Humboldt is also a story of migration.Born on 14 September 1769 in Berlin, Humboldt started hislifelong travels in 1789 when he was registered as student atGöttingen University. From Göttingen, he travelled to Lüttich,Brussels, Gent, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Isle of Helgoland,Berlin, and on to Saxony where at the Freiberg Bergakademie,he continued his studies. Almost every day of the next few yearstook him yet to another place: as Oberbergmeister, he visited allthe small villages of Frankonia. This was followed by a trip toItaly:

Ich bereite mich jetzt ernsthaft zu einer großen Reise außer-halb Europas. (Letter to A.G. Werner, 21 December 1796)

After the idea of sailing from Marseille to the northern parts ofAfrica failed, Humboldt finally received permission from theSpanish king, Charles IV, to go on an expedition to the Spanishcolonies. On 5 June 1799, he and his companion Aimé Bonplandboarded a ship in La Coruña, and on 16 July, they arrived inCumaná, Venezuela. During the next four years, Humboldt

Jutta Weber

Jutta Weber studied Latin andRomance Languages, with a Doc-torate in Latin. Since 1982, shehas worked in the Staatsbiblio-thek zu Berlin, since 1985 in theDepartment of Manuscripts asHead of the German Union Cata-logue for Modern Manuscriptsand Letters. She has been actingas coordinator of the EuropeanUnion-funded projects MALVINEand LEAF. Since 2004 she hasbeen Deputy Director of theDepartment of Manuscripts of theStaatsbibliothek zu Berlin,responsible for literary archives,modern manuscripts and letters.She is a member of the StandingCommittee of the IFLA Section onRare Books and Manuscripts andeditor the Section newsletter. DrWeber may be contacted at:Deputy Director, Department ofManuscripts, State Library Berlin,Potsdamer Str. 33, Berlin 10785,Germany. Tel. +49 30 2662844. Fax: +49 30 2662842. E-mail: [email protected]

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The Manuscript Collections of Europe: a mirror ofmigration, separation and reunification as seen inthe Alexander von Humboldt Collection in Berlin


explored Venezuela by way of the Orinoco Riverand also travelled to Cuba, Colombia, Peru, andMexico.

In Mexico he learned about the confiscatedBoturini collection of illustrated manuscriptsthat would hold his interest for a long time:

Der größte Teil von Boturinis Handschriften. . . ist von Personen, welche den Wert der-selben gar nicht kannten, zerrissen,gestohlen und zerstreut worden, und das,was noch heutzutage im Palast desVizekönigs davon übrig ist, besteht bloß indrei zusammengebundenen Päckchen. . . .Man wird ganz unwillig, wenn man die Ver-lassenheit sieht, in welcher sich diese kost-baren Überreste einer Sammlung befinden,die soviel Sorgen und Mühe gekostet hat,und die der unglückliche Boturini mit demallen unternehmenden Menschen eigenenEnthusiasmus in der Vorrede zu seinem“Historischen Versuch” “das einzige Gut”nennt, welches er in Indien besitze und daser nicht gegen alles Gold und alles Silber derNeuen Welt vertauschen möchte. (Alexan-der von Humboldt, in: Vue des Cordillières)

It is well established that the manuscriptsHumboldt bought at the auction of papers of thescholar Antonio León y Gama, which took placein Mexico in 1803, had been part of the famousBoturini Collection. The collection had beengathered between 1736 and 1742 by the Italianhistorian and archaeologist Cavaliere LorenzoBoturini. The collection, which comprised some500 paintings and manuscripts, included olderitems gathered by Alva Ixtlilxochtli andSegüenza y Góngora. The collection wasdestroyed by the viceroy’s administration in 1742and Boturini was imprisoned, since foreignerswere not allowed to possess manuscripts con-cerning the history of New Spain. Today, 42 ofthese manuscripts are preserved at the Bib-lioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia delInstituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia(INAH) in Mexico City. In 1828, FriedrichWilken, director of the Royal Library in Berlin,wrote in his history of the library that, inJanuary 1806, a curious collection acquired inthe kingdom of New Spain in the year 1803 waspresented to the library by the baron Alexandervon Humboldt. Wilken documents thirteenAztec fragments written in hieroglyphics onpaper produced from the fibres of the AgavaMexicana and a codex written in similarhieroglyphics.

With this reference to Humboldt’s manuscriptsthat migrated with him to Europe, we shall havea look at the literary remnants, manuscripts,documents, books and objects, as well as themanuscripts of his scholarly work, correspon-dence, diaries and reports that constitute theAlexander von Humboldt Collection preservedat the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. The completecollection comprises more than 100,000 docu-ments and manuscripts. Among these are manu-scripts Humboldt found, bought, or collectedduring his travels to South America, Russia andSiberia, and which he brought back or sent toBerlin. Many institutions in the countries hevisited still preserve documents that testify to hispresence there. His letters are likewise preservedin institutions all over the world.

The Humboldt collection at the Staatsbibliothekcomprises:

• Fourteen boxes containing the manuscripts,different notes, and correspondence concern-ing the ‘Kosmos,’ and three boxes containingthe correspondence of Alexander vonHumboldt (about 11,000 sheets, which formthe ‘Nachlaß Alexander von Humboldt,’ pur-chased by the Staatsbibliothek in 1932).

• Fifteen boxes containing the papers ofHumboldt (purchased between 1868 and1893), now preserved in Krakow.

• Fourteen Aztec illustrated manuscripts (pur-chased in 1805).

• Some Armenian and Chinese prints andmanuscripts, and 21 Javanese manuscripts(purchased between 1829 and 1843).

• Selected books of his private library (pur-chased between 1860 and 1866).

• Eight diaries of his journeys and other manu-scripts (on deposit, private possession).

The Humboldt collection contains an array ofbooks, manuscripts, letters, documents andspecial items that were once part of other collec-tions before he acquired them. They travelledaround the world until they reached Berlin,where they were preserved in Humboldt’sprivate library. This is very nicely described in aletter of Humboldt, addressed to the ‘Oberpost-direktor zur Hofen in Aachen’, 1851, which theStaatsbibliothek was able to buy some weeksago:

. . . Es liegt mir sehr am Herzen, die wichti-gen Manuskripte meiner amerikanischenReise, die grossen Theils von BonplandsHand sind, recht sicher nach Paris befördern

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zu lassen, weil sie bis zu Bonplands Tode inVerwahrung der Professoren des Jardin desPlantes bleiben sollen. Ich habe sie in einblechernes Kästchen gepackt . . .

Along with his other papers, they eventuallybecame part of the Humboldt Collection of theStaatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Since almost all books and special collections ofthe Staatsbibliothek were evacuated from Berlinduring World War II, the Humboldt Collectionwas also dispersed for safekeeping in differentparts of the country. One part of the collectionwas brought to Marburg and stored in the uni-versity library; it was eventually returned toBerlin after the war, once a new building for theStaatsbibliothek was constructed in West Berlin.Another part was taken to Silesia and stored inthe monastery of Grüssau; some time after thewar, it was transported to the university libraryof Krakow, where it remains today. The docu-ments still owned by the Humboldt family weretaken to Russia after the war and preserved inthe Lenin Library; they were returned to EastBerlin in 1957.

Taking into account that both parts of the col-lection, which were separated in the eastern andthe western parts of Berlin after the war, werereunited only when the manuscript collectionsfrom the east were rejoined with those in thewest in the new building of the Staatsbibliotekzu Berlin in 1997, the Humboldt Collection is aparticularly fascinating example of migration,separation and reunification of manuscripts.Habent sua fata libelli.

Why do libraries and archives collect andpreserve the papers of famous persons? Thehistory of culture and science cannot be writtenwithout knowledge of such letters and manu-scripts, and intellectual life would not bepossible were we to stop collecting theseremnants of former times. To preserve thecontent of the papers for a broader public, thescholarly community started preparing criticaleditions of famous peoples’ complete worksspanning several hundred years. Scholars fromevery discipline have been working on theirfavourite authors; publication of an edition oftheir literary texts is the conditio sine qua nonof an author’s publicity.

What is the special importance of the edition ofthe works of Alexander von Humboldt? I wouldlike to come back to the beginning of my paper

and to Humboldt’s colourful way of life. In theirattempt to find out the reasons for whatHumboldt did, where he went, what he saw, andwhat he thought, scholars began to draw a morecomplete picture of his life. The Alexander vonHumboldt edition, published by the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaft-en since 1959, has presented interesting and newviews on his work and how it influenced laterscholars’ work. The fact that Humboldt’s papersare preserved in such a complete state providesa detailed background for this editorial work,something that is not always available.

The Humboldt papers, on the other hand, arevery fine examples of the migration of manu-scripts in modern times. There are severalreasons why manuscripts may change location:

1. First, there is the acquisition of a collection byan institution or a private person.

2. If the collection is acquired by a privateperson, then it may eventually be sold by thisprivate person to an institution.

3. Once in public ownership, the collection maybe moved from one building to another orfrom one town to another, which is normallya problem only for those who were used tohaving the collection at hand, together withthe necessary reference works.

4. But moving a collection from one institutionto another should not occur. Libraries andarchives are obliged to preserve their collec-tions forever, which is why those who wanttheir private papers preserved in public insti-tutions do so. There must be a very specialreason for moving a collection from one insti-tution to another: institutions should not letthis become a normal occurrence.

There are also other relevant questions whentalking about the migration of manuscripts. At atime when art objects reach incredibly highprices when sold at auction, manuscripts canalso become objects of desire, which creates thefollowing problems. Manuscripts are uniqueobjects, which are very closely connected to thepersons who created them, received them (e.g.,letters), or inherited them:

1. The value of a collection or of a single manu-script might be regarded as one of a verynormal merchandising object: whoever paysthe highest price can own it.

2. Manuscripts may be acquired by a person oran institution with the best connections.

3. The manuscript’s content, which should be of

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primary value, recedes behind its superficialmarket value and might eventually becomelost.

These and other reasons may be clear enough todemonstrate that migration, separation, andreunification of manuscripts need to be observedtoday more closely even than in the past.

When a mediaeval monk took a manuscript toanother monastery to instruct his fellow monks,discuss what he learned from that manuscript, orallow its text to be copied, little damage occurredto the actual manuscript. But even though itscontents became more widespread, its knowl-edge remained within the typical scholarly com-munity of the monks.

During the Renaissance, non-monastic scholarsfound Greek and Roman manuscripts in monas-teries copied by mediaeval monks and took itupon themselves to publish their content for dis-semination to a broader public. They often tookthose manuscripts to their private libraries andkept them there. Many of them were destroyed,but some wound up as part of a public collec-tion. Nonetheless, the scholarly intention ofacquiring knowledge from these manuscriptswas the reason for collecting and preservingthem in the first place.

In modern times, when scholars like LorenzoBoturini or Alexander von Humboldt went toanother part of the world to collect manuscriptsthat were by no means known in their owncountries, we can point out a difference to whatwe said before: a person coming from anothersociety tries to instil his own knowledge and hisown cultural background onto a foreign culture.This might not, in all instances, be detrimentalfor the manuscripts, since some of them mightonly survive because a person took them out ofan unsafe surrounding at a particular moment;but in every instance, the manuscript left a placefor which it was created and to which it normallybelonged.

But what happens when this original location isnot secure, when the collection to which themanuscript belonged is destroyed and wheneven worse conditions are expected to come?Who can really judge the worse action: theperson who was not able to prevent the destruc-tion of a collection, or the person who tried tosave what could be saved? And what does itmean ‘to save’? Saving it for the near future in acountry where at that moment the conditions

seem to be more stable than in the country fromwhich the manuscript was taken? And howcould these persons or institutions guaranteesecure preservation of the manuscript in the newplace? All these are valid questions, but it is notwhat I want to discuss now any further. Timeschange, and the knowledge of what has to bedone for the good of a manuscript also changesor (hopefully) ameliorates during that time.

What happens during and after a war, whenmanuscripts are removed from a building or atown to a safer place, which in fact turns out tobe not safe enough and from where a new sepa-ration of the collection starts? Or when a collec-tion after the war remains in the new locationand the former owners do not have any lawfulmeans to get the collection back? Or when a col-lection is scattered all over the world and noinformation exists about its former content?

These are all common questions regarding theEuropean manuscript collections. They are verydifficult questions, and they will become evenharder to answer in the near future. Though wemight not be able to find solutions to theproblems of former times, we must explore everymeans to prevent them from happening again.

But allow me to come to the last reason for themigration of manuscripts. The sale of manu-scripts is an event that is well known since theearly 19th century. We learned that Alexandervon Humboldt bought the Aztec manuscripts atan auction. Who bids the highest receives the lot.But who bought the other manuscripts? Are theystill extant? Where are they to be found?

After speaking about the migration and separa-tion of manuscripts, let us now come to thereunification of manuscripts. Buying as manymanuscripts as possible cannot be the onlyreason for our work, as I stated above. It alsocannot be our only interest to demonstrate ourmight when acquiring manuscripts, which byhistory, content, and context do not belong toour institutions. At a time when personal andfinancial resources are reduced, and when thegrowing technical networks allow for differentforms of cooperation, it should be possible toavoid the mistakes of our predecessors, whichwe have complained about ever since. There isalso another reason why it is high time now toact more responsibly: the production of hand-written texts, of manuscripts, seems to be comingto an end very soon. I don’t know whether ourgrandchildren will still learn to write by hand

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and whether they will learn to read handwrittentexts.

Before I end my talk, I would like to invite youto help build an alliance of institutions thatprefers to cooperate in regard to the above ques-tions than to outdo one another in purchasing.We cannot turn back the wheels of history, norwould it be wise to try to do so. There are somany unresolved problems, and we wouldbecome very unhappy trying to deal with all ofthem. But we can act together in the future.There are several conditions that tend to guaran-tee the success of this enterprise:

1. Technical conditions for the exchange ofinformation are better than ever.

2. Standards of cataloguing have begun to beaccepted widely by many institutions.

3. Security in our institutions is becomingstandard.

4. Information about our collections is beingstandardized.

5. Search engines and networks provide easyaccess to information about our collections.

6. Digitized images of our manuscripts can beaccessed all over the world.

7. The common use of authority data makes ourcollections easily searchable.

8. Communication between institutions is betterthan ever.

9. Readers can communicate their interests andquestions directly by e-mail or telephone andreceive prompt replies to their informationrequests.

Why not take advantage of some of the byprod-ucts of the information society? History isruthless concerning people and books, butpeople can follow the tracks of books and, withtechnical support, make virtually visible todaywhat has been separated in the past.

The most important work of libraries all over theworld is to communicate the understanding ofhistory and the knowledge of scientific work. Inthe future, when we become even more success-ful at eliminating borders, when we cooperate onprojects that show our common culturalheritage, when we make this visible to each andeveryone, then we will be useful not only tothose whose profession drives them to use ourdocuments, but also to those countries and

institutions whose names easily escape our ownfield of vision. The knowledge of what is kept inlibraries of far-away countries is diminishingproportionately to the degree of their distance.Let us use the opportunity of this meeting withcolleagues from all over the world to start a newbeginning. Let us look together to other conti-nents, whose books and manuscripts are pre-served by us but are no longer known in thecountries from which they came. And vice versa.Be curious to learn what the other culturaltradition has made of ‘your’ manuscripts, and letus show our treasures to one another.

It is a bold desire to prevent or undo the migra-tion and separation of cultural heritage material.A transparent demonstration of what is kept inour libraries in cooperative databases ornetworks is a good basis for further cooperation.What we need is a program that will enable usto use the same standards of description of thematerial in question and a tool that bringstogether virtually all those collections that havebeen separated worldwide. I do believe that sucha tool, be it a network or a combination ofnetworks, will help us to overcome virtually theseparation of collections and will lead us to theirreunification. Coming from a part of the worldwhere reunification on the basis of mutualunderstanding is part of our day-to-day work, Iam confident that such action can be highly suc-cessful in our sector.

In this respect, the motto of this IFLA congressis highly relevant: Using our resources to makeour manuscript collections ‘Tools for Educationand Development’ is not simply an invitation tofind new ideas through global cooperation buta promise that we owe our colleagues world-wide.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank Mr Robert Cammarota forhis invaluable help with the English version ofmy text.

Original paper no. 077 presented at the World Libraryand Information Congress, 70th IFLA General Confer-ence, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 22–27 August 2004, insession 120, Rare Books and Manuscripts. Englishoriginal and French and Spanish translations availableon IFLANET at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/prog04.htm.

The Manuscript Collections of Europe

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REPORT

More than 900 helpers, fire fighters, technicianteams, Red Cross, employees of the Library andof the Foundation of Weimar Classics and ArtCollections, volunteers from nearby culturalinstitutions and from the city government andmany Weimar citizens worked day and nightsince the fire to evacuate the valuable art worksand tens of thousands of books. It took threedays to fully extinguish the flames.

A good chance of success is in sight for thedamaged library building. One of the most beau-tiful library halls in Germany will be able to bereconstructed by 2007, the 200th anniversary ofthe death of Duchess Anna Amalia, to whom weowe this ‘artwork room’. The second gallery of therococo hall and the roof above it no longer exist,but the building itself, declared part of theUNESCO World Heritage, will be able to bestabilized and restored, thanks to intelligent firefighting. Fortunately, a team of architects andspecialized planners had already been formed inpreparation for the renovation and could be con-sulted during the night of the fire. The additionalexpenses due to the fire in the building already inneed of renovation remain on a realistic scale.The financers from the national and state govern-ment gave their permission to start the planningphase on 29 September 2004, after private donorshad also pledged their support. The first compli-cated task is to dry out the building, into whichwater commensurate with twice the amount ofannual precipitation soaked. The rococo hall willreappear in old, not new splendour.

The 35 oil paintings with ducal portraits fromthe 16th to the 18th century in the 2nd Galleryare irreplaceable. Solely the ceiling painting byJohann Heinrich Meyer ‘Genius of Fame’ afterAnnibale Carracci will be replaced by a copy.The material damage, even the damage done tothe other art works by water from fire hoses, willfortunately be covered by insurance.

The heaviest damage was done to the books:50,000 volumes have been counted as completely

lost, and to a certain extent 62,000 volumes werebadly damaged by water and fire. This includestwo-fifths of the books published before 1850,i.e. more than one tenth of the entire collectionof the Herzogin Anna Amalia Library. Before thefire, the book collection counted one millionvolumes.

Book Restoration

Already during the night of the fire, the firstwater-soaked books were individually wrappedand brought to the Centre for Book Main-tenance in Leipzig to be freeze-dried. During thenext few days, the partly severely charred anddampened codices salvaged from the burnedbuilding were sent to the freezing facilities. Thiswas the saddest and most difficult part of theclean up work, keeping librarians, restorers andvolunteers busy for days, during which theyexcellently mastered the task. It was a raceagainst time, because mildew can grow as earlyas 24 hours after wetness sets in. The 28,000objects rescued from the charred remains willonly be partly restorable. As soon as an exactanalysis is possible, it will become apparent inwhich books the amount of text lost is too large,only fragments of books were left, or the attemptto replace the loss would be more sensible thanrestoration. That means that at some later time,the estimated number of 50,000 books totallylost will have to be increased.

The rescue, cleaning and drying of the damagedbooks went very well, thanks to the excellentcooperation of all involved. They will bereturned to Weimar bit-by-bit during the courseof one year and stored in a rented temporarymagazine. There, because of the deformedcovers of the books, the volumes will be laid flaton the shelves rather than stood upright. Anyremaining bad smell can evaporate, if possible atall, and they can be individually examined. Alldamaged objects must first be found in the cata-logues of the library, because at present no one

The Herzogin Anna Amalia Library after the FireMichael Knoche

can say for sure which books were destroyed bythe fire and which were damaged and will bereturned. A new data bank will be compiled todocument and classify the damages. This experttask will last well into 2006. Only then can therestoration begin on a large scale, apart fromseveral pieces demanding immediate attention.Part of the restoration can be done in thelibrary’s own workshop for book restoration andconservation or in workshops of partnerlibraries, and part will be commissioned to thirdparties. The restoration of the 62,000 books is achallenge that will occupy the library for morethan ten years.

The immediate care of the books up to thedrying stage was possible with the help of thestate of Thuringia and above all due to the fastand generous immediate help of the nationalgovernment. The German Research Association(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) also madegenerous help available. However, the subse-quent individual restoration will only be possiblewith private support. For that purpose, a sumestimated at almost 20 million Euros will beneeded. Therefore, donations, however modest,from third parties are very welcome. To date, 8million Euros have been donated by 15,000 indi-viduals, businesses and foundations, and havebeen collected by benefit events, and schoolprojects, the sale of publications, by bets, artauctions and penalty fees.

Compensation for Losses

Total losses occurred among works dating fromthe 16th to 20th centuries, in particular from the17th and 18th centuries. These include Duchess

Anna Amalia’s (1739–1807) culturally and his-torically significant music collection, dating fromthe 18th and 19th century including 2,100 musicbooks and over 700 music manuscripts. Largeparts of the universal scholarly library of the firstLibrary Director, Konrad Samuel Schurzfleisch(1641–1708) must also be written off. Further-more, many texts written by members of the‘Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft’ (The FruitfulSociety), the first German academy founded in1617 in Weimar, and large parts of the collectionof Balthasar Friedrich von Logau (1645–1702)from Breslau (Silesia), including beautifuleditions of baroque literature, were burned. Oneof the most complete series of Jean Paul printswas located in the middle of where the fireraged.

The older a book, the more unique its outerappearance (e.g. cover, colouring) and its indi-vidual history, which is often recognizable (e.g.exlibris or marginalia of a previous owner). Ascore from Anna Amalia’s music collection or avolume from Conrad Samuel Schurzfleisch’s col-lection on the early modern period is morevaluable and more important for the history ofthe library than the same volume from any otherorigin. Therefore, restoration will always be pre-ferred, as long as the difference in cost in com-parison to replacement is not too high. Theprivate donations are to be used primarily forbook restoration.

The 35,000 volumes lost to the flames are mostlikely replaceable. In addition, there were 27,000books severely damaged by the fire. On theaverage, each book will cost EUR 800. Thereplacement process will take many years. It hasbeen an enormous help that book lovers andlibraries throughout the world have offered tocontribute a title to the Herzogin Anna Amalia

The Herzogin Anna Amalia Library

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The Rococo Hall of the Herzogin Anna AmaliaLibrary before the fire (photograph: StiftungWeimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen, S.Geske).

The Night of the 2nd September 2004 (photo-graph: Maik Schuck).

Library that they have found in the data bank oflosses (http://www.anna-amalia-bibliothek.de).The fund ‘Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft’(Fruitful Society), which was furnished with agenerous initial amount of money by theDeutsche Bank, is to be built up by further dona-tions and the interest earned will be used topurchase of new volumes.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to reconstruct thecollection on a one-to-one basis. This is out ofthe question as far as unique pieces of the musiccollection and the essays from the 17th centurywith handwritten comments are concerned. Butit is also doubtful whether replacements can befound for many printed works, which are veryrare or particularly of regional provenance. Whocould furnish replacement copies of the four-page discourse ‘Von der Tröstung der sterben-denn Menschen’ (About the Comforting ofDying People) by Wolff Stöckel from 1525, orthe ‘Nothwendige und nützliche Ordnung, wiees mit dem Jagen und allem Weidewerg gehaltenwerden solle’ (Necessary and useful rules forhunting and the care of grazing animals) writtenby the Counts of Schwarzburg and Hohnsteinfrom 1623? In the long term, it would be morefeasible to purchase complete, specialized col-lections of similar value, which correspond tothe emphases of the old collection, rather thanrequiring the replacement of each and every lostbook. This would be especially desirable in thearea of baroque literature, which is so importantfor the profile of the library.

View Forwards

The fire was also responsible for the fact thatabout 40 offices for librarians are temporarilynot usable. New offices in diverse buildings ofthe Foundation of Weimar Classics and Art Col-lections (Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunst-sammlungen) had to be sought. The logistics ofbook transport from house to house and theinfrastructure between colleagues had to be re-designed. This kind of inconvenience is easier toshoulder, knowing the long-planned addition tothe library, which is connected to the originalbuilding underground, will be finished in a fewweeks. The underground magazine, whichbelongs to that, was opened in advance so itcould be utilized during the night of the fire forthe storage of the undamaged books evacuatedfrom of the library. At present, over 900,000books from the various temporary magazineshave been moved into the underground

magazine, which is between the old and the newlibraries.

The preparations for the institution of the newresearch centre continue: 100,000 volumes,sorted according to subject areas, will be avail-able there, directly accessible from the shelves,as well as 130 modern work places for use byresearchers. The planned opening in February2005 will be on time. From this time on, theservice for local readers as well as interlibraryloan will be resumed. The working conditions inthe new research centre will reflect the standardof a 21st century research library.

The Herzogin Anna Amalia Library was seri-ously damaged by the largest library fire inGermany since World War II. However, we mustnot forget that the largest part of the valuablecollection was left untouched. That includes themedieval autographs, the early autographalbums, incunabula (early printed books datingfrom before 1500), the globes and 10,000 mapsfrom the 16th to the 19th centuries, the largestFaust collection in the world, the Shakespearelibrary, Nietzsche’s private library, the librariesof Liszt, the von Arnim family or Georg Haar,and the main core collection of the classicalperiod, etc. In this case, the fact that the collec-tion had been stored in various temporary loca-tions was a stroke of luck. Even the originalbuilding was not lost. The fire did not touch itsadditions or the library tower at all. Hundreds ofart works were evacuated from of the rococohall in time.

Everything that was rescued and brought intosafety will enable us to hold fast to the conceptof the library as a research library for literatureand cultural history with an emphasis onGerman literature from the Enlightenment tothe Late Romantic period. In the future, theHerzogin Anna Amalia Library will be able tofulfil its function of being a living monumentand an active library. The thread of culturaltransmission will be newly tied to future gener-ations.

About the author

Dr. Michael Knoche is Direktor der Herzogin AnnaAmalia Bibliothek, Stiftung Weimarer Klassik undKunstsammlungen, Postfach 2012, D-99401Weimar, Platz der Demokratie 4, 99423 Weimar,Germany. Tel. /3643/545200, Fax -220. E-mail:[email protected]. Website: http://www.anna-amalia-bibliothek.de/en/presse.html

Michael Knoche

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NEWS

IFLA President’s Message

The following message was sent toIFLA members on 30 December2004 by Kay Raseroka, IFLA Presi-dent:

Colleagues in tsunami affectedcountries:

On behalf of the members of theInternational Federation of LibraryAssociations and Institutions,please accept our heartfelt condo-lences and sympathy at this time ofdevastation, loss of life and utterdestruction that you are experienc-ing as citizens of the countriesaffected by the tsunami/sea surgedisaster.

As the Federation, we request ourmembers to heed the urgent appealsfor help and contribute in any waypossible, through the nationaland/or international relief effortsthat are being mobilized throughoutthe world. Library and informationservices specific needs for conserva-tion, preservation and restorationwill no doubt engage IFLAmembers urgently and for months tocome as soon as information isreceived through various communi-cation channels.

We urge, further, that members ofthe Federation, who have informa-tion on needs or have the means tohelp in kind and materially do soand share information throughIFLA-L, to facilitate IFLAmembers’ appreciation of assistancerequired and development of co-ordinated strategies for long termassistance.

IFLA will be reminding inter-national organizations of the impor-tance of rapidly re-establishinglibrary services in order build com-munity confidence and provide thenecessary information to assistreconstruction, health services andeducation. We encourage nationallibrary associations in major donorcountries to urge aid organizationsto support the early restoration oflibrary services.

Kay RaserokaIFLA President30 December 2004

Sri Lankan Libraries NeedUrgent Assistance

Sri Lanka plunged in to crisis asgiant tidal waves lashed the south-ern, northern, and eastern coasts ofthe country causing over 12,000deaths and massive lost of property.

The sudden rise in sea-level, aphenomenon known as tsunami,had been unleashed by a massiveearthquake measured at 8.9 Richterscale, near northern Sumatra,Indonesia at 6.58 a.m. (Sri Lankantime) on Sunday 26th December2004.

According to the US Geologicalsurvey this was the fifth largestquake for a century and the biggestfor 40 years. A wall of water as highas 50 feet triggered by the earth-

quake hit the Sri Lankan coastaround 9.45 a.m. (Sri Lankan time).In some areas in Sri Lanka the killerwaves had travelled as far as 5 kilo-metres inland and sucked in almostevery thing standing in its way. It isestimated that over one millionpeople in the country have beenaffected by this phenomenaltragedy.

Amidst this catastrophe a largenumber of school libraries, com-munity libraries, children libraries,public libraries, libraries belong toreligious institutions and a largenumber of private/home libraries inthe affected areas either have eitherbeen completely destroyed orseverely affected. In this hour ofcalamity the National Library andDocumentation Services Board(NLDSB) of Sri Lanka seeks assis-tance from the international com-munity and especially from theIFLA members to reconstruct/repair the damaged libraries and therestoration of the damaged booksand other library material.

According to the preliminary esti-mates the damage to the buildingsand to the other infrastructure facil-ities is huge and the donations in theform of either library material orfinancial assistance are soughtfrom the international library com-munity.

Monetary donations can be sent tothe NLDSB account no. 00251620073963 at the Peoples Bank, ParkStreet Branch, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

For further details please contact:Upali Amarasiri, Director General,NLDSB, 14, Independence Avenue,Colombo 7. Sri Lanka. Websitewww.natlib.lk, www.lankapage.com.E-mail: [email protected]. Tel. +9411 2687581, Facsimile: +94 112685201.

Tsunami News

NEWS CONTENTS

Tsunami News . . . . . . . . . . . . 93IFLA Policies and

Programmes . . . . . . . . . . . 94From the Secretariat . . . . . . . 96Membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97From the Divisions and

Sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Future IFLA Conferences. . . . 101Grants and Awards. . . . . . . . 102IFLA Publications . . . . . . . . . 103From other Organizations . . . 103Other Publications . . . . . . . . 106

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Many thanks in advance for yoursupport.

W.A. Abeysinghe, ChairmanNational Library and Documenta-tion Services Board, Sri Lanka.

Upali Amarasiri, Director General,National Library and Documenta-tion Centre and National Libraryand Documentation ServicesBoard, Sri Lanka.

Division VIII Support

IFLA/Division VIII joins theNational Library and Documenta-tion Services of Sri Lanka (NLDSB)in requesting IFLA community andthe World as a whole to come to theaid of Libraries in the areas affectedby the Tsunami disaster. Any assis-tance in terms of books, ideas ormessages of comfort would be ofgreat help to the professional com-munity in the affected areas.

Jacinta Were, Chair, Division VIII.E-mail: [email protected] [email protected].

Sri Lanka DisasterManagement Committee

Following the recent tsunami disas-ter, UNESCO, IFLA and a numberof Sri Lankan organizations, with theassistance of the National Libraryand Documentation Centre, haveformally established the Sri LankaDisaster Management Committeefor Libraries, Information Servicesand Archives (SL DMC for LISA).

It comprises representatives fromthe National Library and Documen-tation Services Board, the Depart-ment of National Archives, SriLanka Library Association, theNational Institute for Library andInformation Sciences, NationalScience Foundation, from the Min-istries of Culture, Education andHigher Education and fromUNESCO and IFLA.

In draft already are a Constitu-tion, Objectives and an Action Plan.

The DMC for LISA’s primary aimwill be to rehabilitate libraries,archives and information servicesdestroyed or damaged by the

tsunami after completion of a surveyof the damage.

This is now nearly completedespite the many difficultiesoccasioned by damaged roads andmissing bridges and debris every-where and more recently floodingfrom the monsoon rains.

A primary aim will be to take theopportunities provided by the disas-trous tidal waves, three in all, to moveforward and develop libraries andinformation services appropriate tothe Information Society. Lists ofrequirements are nearly ready andthese will be agreed at a meeting onMonday (10th of January 2005) afterwhich it is intended to be very specificin the requests for monies, library fur-niture and equipment, IT equipment,books and AV and other materialsand also advice and expertise.

The list will be widely publicizedand is available on IFLANET:http://www.ifla.org/V/press/tsunami04.htm.

Russell BowdenHonorary Fellow of IFLAKottawa, Sri Lanka.

News

IFLA Policies and Programmes

IFLA’s Three Pillars:Society, Members and

Profession

Meeting during the World Libraryand Information Congress, 71stIFLA General Conference, inBuenos Aires, Argentina, in August2004, the Governing Board of IFLAdecided to endorse a new model forIFLA’s operations, the three pillars,which recognizes that IFLA’s corefunctions relate to the societal con-texts in which libraries and informa-tion services operate, IFLA’smembership and professionalmatters. These three pillars are sup-ported by the infrastructure offeredby IFLA HQ, IFLANET and theFederation’s governance structures.

The Society Pillar focuses on therole and impact of libraries and

information services in society andthe contextual issues that conditionand constrain the environment inwhich they operate across the world.

The Profession Pillar focuses onthe issues covered by the long estab-lished Core Activities and the Sec-tions and Divisions. They lie at thecore of professional practice andhelp libraries and information serv-ices to fulfil their purposes and toshape responses to the needs ofclients in a rapidly changing globalenvironment.

The Members Pillar is central toIFLA. It includes the servicesoffered to members, management oftheir membership of IFLA, confer-ences and publications.

All three pillars and the under-lying infrastructure are interdepend-

ent and not mutually exclusive.They offer a way of understandingand presenting IFLA holistically tothe library and information sectorand to governments and the widercommunity.

Adapted from a statement issued byKay Raseroka, IFLA President, andAlex Byrne, IFLA President Elect,on 10 December 2004.

The IFLA position on theGeneva Declaration on

the Future of WIPO

IFLA has joined several hundredother non-governmental organiza-tions and individuals in signing theGeneva Declaration on the Futureof the World Intellectual Prop-erty Organization issued on 29

September 2004 (see ‘From otherOrganizations’, below, for the fulltext of the Declaration. — Ed.).

IFLA has taken this actionbecause IFLA’s core values includethe “belief that people, communitiesand organizations need universaland equitable access to information,ideas and works of imagination fortheir social, educational, cultural,democratic and economic well-being.”

Furthermore, IFLA’s professionalpriorities call for IFLA to assume “adual responsibility, both to the pro-ducers of intellectual property andto libraries as representatives ofinformation users, because safe-guarding and providing access toproducts of the mind are fundamen-tal to the growth of knowledge.”

While IFLA recognizes andapplauds recent moves by WIPOthat may respond to these profes-sional imperatives — such as a newfocus on adequate protection of tra-ditional knowledge and the needs ofthe print disabled, and greater open-ness to NGOs like IFLA that repre-sent the public interest — theDeclaration rightly points out toWIPO and its member states thatWIPO has thus far inadequatelyprotected and promoted the balancebetween users and owners that isfundamental to effective intellectualproperty regimes.

IFLA therefore hopes that theDeclaration will bring to WIPO’sattention a number of importantissues that have serious implicationsfor education, libraries and otherproviders of information.

Freedom, prosperity and thedevelopment of society and of indi-viduals are fundamental humanvalues. They will be attained onlythrough the ability of well-informedcitizens to exercise their democraticrights and to play an active role insociety. Constructive participationand the development of democracydepend on satisfactory education aswell as on free and unlimited accessto knowledge, thought, culture andinformation.

IFLA proclaims the fundamentalright of human beings both to accessand to express information withoutrestriction. IFLA and its worldwidemembership support, defend andpromote intellectual freedom asexpressed in the United NationsUniversal Declaration of HumanRights. This intellectual freedomencompasses the wealth of humanknowledge, opinion, creativethought and intellectual activity.

IFLA asserts that a commitmentto intellectual freedom is a coreresponsibility of the library andinformation profession worldwide,expressed through codes of ethicsand demonstrated through practice.

IFLA therefore urges WIPO toaddress the following importantissues, as a matter of urgency,guided by the principles articulatedby James Boyle:

1. The imbalance inintellectual property laws

The preamble of the WIPO Copy-right Treaty succinctly states “theneed to maintain a balance betweenthe rights of authors and the largerpublic interest, particularly educa-tion, research and access to infor-mation, as reflected in the BerneConvention”.

IFLA is fully supportive of thisstatement. However, the balance hasbecome distorted, at the expense ofconsumers of information. IFLA,therefore, urges WIPO to addressthe issues affecting the delicatebalance between just demands ofrights-owners and consumers ofinformation. Of particular concernis the ever-lengthening extension ofcopyright terms, which is rapidlydiminishing the public domain inorder to benefit the owners of a tinyminority of works that are still beingexploited commercially.

2. Monopoly on information

The monopolization of informationvia restrictive intellectual propertyrules in both the print and digitalenvironments, by rights owners, hasled to a serious imbalance in the

provision and accessing of informa-tion, which negatively affects educa-tion, research and development, notonly in developed countries butmore specifically, in developingcountries. Efforts to develop newprotections for databases contain-ing facts and other public domainmaterial are especially troubling.

3. Technological protectionmeasures

The WIPO Copyright Treaty states“the need to introduce new inter-national rules and clarify the inter-pretation of certain existing rules inorder to provide adequate solutionsto the questions raised by neweconomic, social, cultural and tech-nological developments.” IFLAbelieves that educational anddevelopmental needs have not beensufficiently taken into account infinding appropriate solutions.

More restrictive intellectual prop-erty laws, technological protectionmechanisms and digital locking-updevices, as well as the overriding ofpermitted ‘fair use’ applicationsby contractual enforcement, havecreated serious barriers to accessinginformation and promotingresearch and innovation.

IFLA is particularly concernedthat the legitimate professionalactivities of libraries are being seri-ously hampered in the process.

4. The digital divide widens

The chasm between the “digitallyadvanced” and “digitally deprived”continues to widen. Sophisticatedintellectual property laws and tech-nological transfer to developingcountries have in many ways exac-erbated the problems related toaccess to information and develop-ment. Developing countries arebeing expected to adhere to verystrict international agreements,which developed countries did nothave to, when they were in thedeveloping stage. Technologicalactivity consists mainly of learningto use, maintain, sustain andadvance imported technologies, at ahigh price, rather than encouraging

IFLA Policies and Programmes

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innovation and independence at thedomestic level in developing coun-tries. Current international copy-right rules are therefore fosteringthe dependence of developing coun-tries on advanced countries ratherthan bridging the divide.

5. Free Trade Agreements

IFLA is concerned that some devel-oped countries are imposing strictercopyright laws on other countries,which far exceed the minimumrequirements of the Berne Conven-tion and the TRIPS Agreement.Many developing countries find itextremely difficult to adhere tocurrent international intellectualproperty agreements. Now they arehaving to adopt even stricter copy-right regimes, in exchange for favor-able trade provisions, but are beingset up for failure as they will not beable to honour these agreements.

IFLA therefore urges WIPO andthe WTO to work together to adopt

a totally new approach to intellec-tual property worldwide, taking intoaccount the very different needs ofdeveloped and developing coun-tries. IFLA supports the Proposal ofArgentina and Brazil for a “Devel-opment Agenda” at WIPO.

Intellectual property laws need tobe reviewed at the international anddomestic level to ensure appropriatelaws for countries at different stagesof development. These laws mustfacilitate access to knowledge,advance innovation, acceleratedevelopment and restore thebalance between the just demandsof rights-owners and consumers.

Links

The Geneva Declaration on theFuture of WIPO. http://www.futureofwipo.org/.

UNESCO Public Library Manifesto.1994. http://www.ifla.org/VII/s8/unesco/manif.htm.

Glasgow Declaration on Libraries,Information Services and Intellec-tual Freedom. http://www.ifla.org/faife/policy/iflastat/gldeclar.html.

Boyle, James. A manifesto on WIPOand the future of intellectual prop-erty. Duke Law and TechnologyReview, 0009: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/2004dltr0009.html.

Further information: WinstonTabb, Chair, IFLA Committee onCopyright and other Legal Matters(CLM), Dean of UniversityLibraries and Sheridan Director,Johns Hopkins University, TheSheridan Libraries, 3400 NCharles Street, Baltimore, Mary-land 21218-2683, United States.Tel. +(1)(410) 5168328. Fax+(1)(410) 5165080. E-mail:[email protected]. URL: http://www.ifla.org/III/clm/CLM-GenevaDeclaration2004.html.

News

From the Secretariat

Resignation of IFLASecretary General

It is with great regret that IFLAannounces that the SecretaryGeneral, Mr R. Ramachandran, hasresigned for personal reasons effec-tive 31 December 2004. IFLA isvery grateful to him for his service tothe Federation during his tenure ofthe post.

Drawing on his wide experiencegained during a distinguished careerin librarianship in Singapore andSoutheast Asia, Mr Ramachandranbrought new perspectives to IFLAwhich have enhanced the planningprocesses.

IFLA wishes Mr Ramachandranwell in his future endeavours andthanks him for his contributions toglobal librarianship.

Kay Raseroka, IFLA President22 December 2004

Appointment of NewSecretary General

IFLA is delighted to announce theappointment of its new SecretaryGeneral, Professor Peter Johan Lor,who will assume the position on 15February 2005.

Professor Lor currently holds thepost of Professor Extraordinary atthe Department of InformationScience, University of Pretoria,South Africa. Born in the Nether-lands, Peter emigrated to SouthAfrica where he studied at theuniversities of Stellenbosch andPretoria — later studying at Caen inFrance. Following appointments asUniversity Librarian at the Uni-versity of Bophuthatswana, Assis-tant Director of the State Library,Pretoria, and Professor in theUniversity of South Africa’s Depart-ment of Library and InformationScience, Peter Lor was the Directorof the State Library. He sub-sequently became the National

Librarian and Chief ExecutiveOfficer of the National Library ofSouth Africa, which was formed inNovember 1999 by the amalgama-tion of the State Library with theSouth African Library. In addition,he has served on the boards ofdirectors of a number of non-profit

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foundations, including the boards ofSABINET (the South AfricanBibliographic and Information Net-work), the Foundation for Libraryand Information Services Develop-ment (as its Executive Director),and the Book DevelopmentFoundation. He also serves on theExecutive of the Pretoria Citizens’Advice Bureau.

Professor Lor has been a veryactive contributor to IFLA and cur-rently chairs the Advisory Board ofIFLA’s Action for Developmentthrough Libraries Programme (ALP)and the interim standing committeeof IFLA’s Section of Library andInformation Science Journals. Hechaired the Conference of Directorsof National Libraries from 1996 to2000 and has served as a member ofthe International Advisory Commit-tee of the Council on Library andInformation Resources, WashingtonDC. From 1996 to 1998 he was vice-chairperson of the Standing Con-ference of African National andUniversity Libraries in Eastern,Central and Southern Africa.

Peter Lor was actively involved indeveloping policy for library andinformation services for post-apartheid South Africa and played aleading role in the formation of theLibrary and Information Associa-tion of South Africa (LIASA), a new,inclusive organization that replacedthe former separate associations.He regards this as one of his biggestand most satisfying professionalachievements.

Professor Lor brings this wealthof administrative, academic andassociation experience to the post ofSecretary General. He believes pas-sionately that good libraries areessential for the quality of life ofindividuals and communities. Whenaccepting the appointment, Peterstated that he is “thrilled to serveIFLA as Secretary General becauseIFLA has a unique role to empowerlibrary and information profession-als. Individually and through ourorganizations we enable participa-tion by all in the knowledge societyand we make an essential contribu-tion to building an informed, toler-

ant, just and cooperative worldcommunity.”

Welcoming the appointment,IFLA President Kay Raseroka saidfrom Gaborone, Botswana that sheis delighted that IFLA has secured aprofessional colleague of such highcalibre to fill the important post ofSecretary General:

IFLA’s participation in theWorld Summit on the Informa-tion Society has demonstratedthe major contribution thatlibraries and information serv-ices make to society. Through itsservices to members and itsstrong professional programs,coupled with engagement inpublic policy arenas, IFLAworks to create a moreinformed, just and safer world;to preserve heritage; to supporteducation and research; and topromote democratic participa-tion and tolerance. As SecretaryGeneral, Peter Lor will help usinfluence international agendasfor the good of humanity.

Membership

New Members

IFLA is very pleased to welcome thefollowing 31 new members, whojoined our community between 17August and 31 December 2004.

National Association

Association Nationale des Informa-tistes, Morocco

Institutions

Österreichische Akademie derWissenschaften, Bibliothek undArchiv, Austria

Hainan University Library, ChinaMunicipal Library Prague, Czech

RepublicLyngby-Taarbæk Kommunes Bib-

lioteker, DenmarkBibliothèque municipale du Lyon,

FranceHellenic American Union, Greece

Metropolitan Ervin Szabo Library,Hungary

National Library of Indonesia/Perpustakaan Nasional RI.,Indonesia

Università Commerciale LuigiBocconi, Biblioteca, Italy

Biblioteca del Congreso, MexicoNational Library of Thailand,

ThailandNottingham Trent University, United

Kingdom

One-person Resource Centres

European Centre for DevelopmentPolicy Management, Netherlands

Personal Affiliates

Ms Samira Hassan, AustraliaBerthelet Siewe Tchouake,

CameroonMs Agnès Macquin, FranceJulio Anjos, PortugalMs Debbie Ann Quintana, Puerto

Rico

Tony McSeàn, United KingdomFrederick Augustyn, United StatesEswara Reddy Deva, United StatesKazim Mirza, United StatesMs Tonyia Tidline, United StatesClay Williams, United States

Student Affiliates

Ms Shawna Sadler, CanadaMac-Nelson Korbla Kumadey,

GhanaBaltazar Macamo, MozambiqueJohn Davis, United StatesMs Jennifer Madden, United StatesCraig Martin, United States

Changes to the NationalAssociation membership

category

Following the approval by the IFLAMembership for changes to thismembership category, current IFLANational Association members have

now entered a transition periodregarding changes to their fees,voting rights, and free Section allo-cations.

For existing members: AllNational Associations must nowprovide their total operatingexpenses (in their local currency)for each of the three years2001–2003. For determining eachAssociation’s fee, the three figureswill be averaged and converted toEuros; this will determine theappropriate band for the fee. Pleaserefer to the chart below for rates.The difference between the feeunder the old system and the newfee, either increase or decrease, willbe phased in over the next threeyears.

The chart shown below indicatesthe corresponding voting rights andsection allocations which will applyto the National Associations in eachof the fee bands. However, becausewe are in an election period for2005, it is not possible to implementthese changes at this time. There-fore, each association’s currentnumber of votes and Section regis-trations will apply for the 2005

nominations and elections. Thechanges will be implemented inadvance of the 2006 invoices. Thenew number of voting rights willcome into effect for any voting pur-poses taking place after September2005.

National Association membersshould note that transitional fees for2005–2007 will not be subject toannual inflation-related increases;but fees for additional section regis-trations and handling charges willbe subject to these increases.

A default rate for 2005 has beenset for National Associations whohave not supplied the requestedoperating expenses information.This rate will be the association’s2004 fee plus 20%.

For potential members: AnyNational Associations joining afterAugust 2004 will be subject to thenew system of fees. They will needto provide information regardingtheir operating expenses for2001–2003, in local currency. Theirfee, voting rights, and Section allo-cation will be determined accordingto the new bands. Questions from

potential new association membersshould be directed to Kelly Moore atIFLA HQ.

New MembershipCategory: Other

Associations

The new category, approved byCouncil, is now open to applicants.

Members of this category mayinclude any associations which donot fit either the International Associ-ations or National Associationscategory. It is intended to allow sub-national (ie. provincial/state) associ-ations to join membership.

The fees for this category will bebanded into 3 levels, using the samebanding divisions as currently existfor Institutional and InternationalAssociation members. These arebased on the UNESCO Scale ofAssessment and the United NationsList of Least Developed Countries.

For those Other Associationsbased in countries whose UNESCOfigure is 0.251 or higher, the fee is

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Operating expenses Fee(euros) (euros) Votes Free sections

less than 10 000 200 10 2 + Management of Library AssociationsSection and appropriate Regional Section

10 000–25 000 220 10 2 +

25 000–50 000 300 10 2 +

50 000–100 000 650 20 4 +

100 000–250 000 1000 20 4 +

250 000–500 000 2000 20 4 +

500 000–750 000 3000 30 8 +

750 000–1 000 000 5000 30 8 +

1 000 000–3 000 000 7000 30 8 +

3 000 000–7 000 000 10000 40 16 +

7 000 000–10 000 000 15000 40 16 +

more than 10 000 000 20000 40 16 +

The New Bands.

From the Divisions and Sections

99

EUR 450. For those in countrieswhose figure is between 0.001 and0.250, the fee is EUR 340. For thosein the countries on the UN list, thefee is EUR 200.

Each Other Association will have2 votes. They may join 2 sectionsfree of charge, in addition to auto-matic registration in the Manage-ment of Library AssociationsSection and, if appropriate, the rele-vant Regional Section (Africa, Asia& Oceania, Latin America & theCaribbean).

The application form, section reg-istration form, and full details ofthe benefits of membership in thiscategory are available on themembership pages of IFLANET<www.ifla.org>.

Changes to InvoicingProcedures for All

Members

The IFLA Governing Board, at itsDecember 2004 meeting, approveda proposal to change some of theprocedures for the issuing ofannual invoices, the administration

of benefits, and the termination ofmembership for members inarrears with their dues. Thechanges will come into effect as ofJanuary 2006.

Membership will be confined tothe year for which the fee has beenpaid, and the date of invoicing willbe moved from November toJanuary.

The invoicing and administrationprocedure will be as follows:

• Invoices for 2006 membershipwill be sent in January 2006(instead of the previous Nov-ember).

• When the fee has been paid,members will receive a receipt ofpayment. They will automaticallyreceive an invoice in January 2007for that year’s fee.

• Two reminder invoices for 2006will be sent as necessary: the firstin mid-April, the second in earlyJune.

• Benefits will be suspended formembers who have not paid theirinvoice by 30 June 2006; after thisdate, unpaid members would beconsidered to be ‘in arrears’. Theywill not receive the IFLA Journal

or other publications issued, andthey will not be able to exercisevoting rights.

• For members in arrears, a finalreminder will be sent in earlyOctober, stating that the member-ship will be terminated if the fee isnot paid by end of year.

• A list of members in arrears will bebrought to the Governing Boardfor their December 2006 meetingand will be proposed for deletion;however, any member who paysbetween the time of that meetingand the end of year will beremoved from this deletion list.

• A final letter notifying members oftheir deletion will be sent earlyJanuary 2007.

• Any former Member or Affiliatewho wishes to return to member-ship after they have been deletedwill be subject to a re-joining fee.

All questions about IFLA member-ship should be directed to:

Kelly Moore, Membership Manager,IFLA Headquarters, Box 95312,2509 CH The Hague, Netherlands.Tel: +31–70–3140884. Fax: +31–70–3834827. Email: [email protected].

From the Divisions and Sections

Government Libraries

The Government Libraries StandingCommittee has taken on the task ofwriting Guidelines for GovernmentLibraries. The Guidelines Committeeis composed of people from sevencountries and from three IFLA Sec-tions. In addition to the GovernmentLibraries Section there is also partic-ipation from the Government Infor-mation and Official PublicationsSection and the Library and ResearchServices for Parliaments Section.

The Committee has defined agovernment library as:

Any library that is created bygovernment to serve govern-ment with the primary audiencebeing government although the

actual audience served may bebroader than only government.

The Committee selected 15 areasas the preliminary topics of theguidelines. They are:

Government typologiesFunctions related to the political

authorityCooperationFunctions for usersAccess to informationPreservation and permanent accessCommon management practicesAdvocacy for role of librariesProtecting privacyOrganization across department

linesMeeting needs of staffDissemination of government publi-

cationsStaffing and personnel

Marketing and PRFinancial, technology, and material

resources.

The Committee plans to have afirst draft to present in Oslo. Inputfrom interested people is welcome.Please contact Nancy Bolt at [email protected].

A complete documentation of theone-day offsite workshop organizedby the IFLA Section of GovernmentLibraries and co-hosted by theGerman Federal Ministry of theInterior and the Federal ForeignOffice in Berlin 2003, ‘Germangovernment libraries since unifica-tion — experiences and perspec-tives’, edited in cooperation with theIFLA Section of GovernmentLibraries, has been published inGermany in March 2004 as

‘Parlaments- und Behördenbiblio-theken international: Der Weltkon-gress Bibliothek und Information inBerlin 2003.’ Arbeitsgemeinschaftder Parlaments- und Behörden-bibliotheken, 2204, 76 S., Illustr.(APBB-Arbeitshefte 55).

Knowledge Management

The keen interest that the IFLAcommunity has shown in Knowl-edge Management (KM) over thepast few years led to the transforma-tion of the Knowledge ManagementDiscussion Group into a Section in2004. We hope that this interest willcontinue and our activities willattract many members for this newSection of IFLA.

The Section will provide an inter-national platform for professionalcommunication — directed toincrease the awareness of knowl-edge management and to meet theneed for a deeper understanding ofits many dimensions and relevanceto library and information scienceprofessionals. By tracking the devel-opments of the field, the Section willfacilitate the practical implementa-tion of knowledge managementwithin the IFLA community. Thenew Section will support the devel-opment and implementation of aknowledge management culture inlibraries and information centres.

Since the KM area encompassesmany dimensions of the organiza-tional management, the activities ofthe Section are intended to be inte-grated and linked to other relevantSections and divisions of IFLA andto other professional organizations.The aim is to provide both theoreti-cal and practical knowledge infocused areas of knowledge man-agement, which will be accom-plished by:

• disseminating the results of rele-vant research

• education and training pro-grammes

• conferences and workshops• sharing case studies and best prac-

tice examples• improving the measures of per-

formance• presentation of advanced informa-

tion technologies for the exchangeof knowledge and experience in anorganizational context

• setting up a virtual discussiongroup and home page/portal

The existing KM Discussion Listfunctions as the main communica-tion channel within the Section,[email protected]. Admissionto the list is free. To subscribe go tohttp://infoserv.inist.fr/wwsympa.fcgi/info/kmdg-l. Then click on“Subscribe” and enter your e-mailaddress and follow the rest of theinstructions. Visit our homepage onIFLANET to get a fuller picture ofthe Knowledge ManagementSection’s work, http://www.ifla.org/VII/s47/index.htm

Irene Wormell

Metropolitan LibrariesSection — 2004

Conference

The 2004 Conference and mid-termmeeting of the MetropolitanLibraries Section took place in thevibrant city-state of Singapore, 26September–1 October, well attendedand with great success. The host andorganizer was the National LibraryBoard Singapore (NLB). With anattendance of 43, the delegates rep-resented 29 metropolitan libraryservices from 18 countries in Asia,Australia, Europe and the US. Therewere also 18 very welcome localparticipants from various libraryservices in Singapore.

Presentations and papers weregiven by speakers from NLB andfrom among the participants. Topicsincluded:

• innovation in libraries in Singa-pore: value options for libraries in

offering new services to theemerging generation of users

• Singapore’s New NationalLibrary Building (NNLB), a flag-ship building due for completionin 2005, which will also be an artsand cultural venue

• the relationship between the NewSouth Wales State Library and thePublic Library Network, plus themajor issues facing planners ofpublic library buildings, includingecologically sustainable develop-ment (ESD)

• an update on key library develop-ments in the United Kingdom

• the use of Information Architec-ture techniques in Pittsburgh tomake libraries more user-friendly

• a Reading Promotion programwhere the Houston library askedeveryone to read the same book atthe same time and to cometogether to discuss it

• the Core Competencies of infor-mation professionals in fusionlibraries

• how Hong Kong Public Librariesevolved to meet growing needs forinformation, lifelong learning,cultural enrichment and recre-ation — particularly the role oftechnology

• a Hub for Cooperation andExchange: how Paris publiclibraries exchange informationand cooperate with other librarieswithin the city and region of Paris

• the Congress of Southeast AsianLibrarians (CONSAL): coopera-tion among the current member-ship from Brunei, Cambodia,Laos, Philippines, Singapore,Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam,Thailand and Myanmar.

These ten presentations, plusthe conference Programme andSummary, with a selection of photo-graphs taken by Tomas Rehak,Director of the Municipal Library ofPrague, are on the Section’s webpages at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s46/index.htm (click on AnnualConference Reports .2004 Singa-pore), or via the IFLANET What’sNew page http://www.ifla.org/I/whatsnew/new.htm.

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Future IFLA Conferences

101

Oslo 2005

World Library and InformationCongress: 71st IFLA Counciland General Conference. Oslo,Norway, 14–18 August 2005. Theme:Libraries: a voyage of discovery;linking the future to the past.

Division and Section meetings (heldduring the Oslo Conference unlessotherwise indicated).

Audiovisual and MultimediaSection

Open Forum: Access to Audiovisualand Multimedia Materials

Further information: MonikaCremer. E-mail: [email protected].

Library Services toMulticultural PopulationsSection

Satellite conference: The Multicul-tural Library: Staff Competence forSuccess. 10–12 August, 2005,Stockholm, Sweden.

Further information: www.ifla-stockholm2005.se.

Education and ResearchDivision

Program on recruitment and careersin the library and informationscience profession.

Further information: Niels Ole Pors,([email protected]). See also at: http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/call-2005-div7.htm.

Management and MarketingSection, Public LibrariesSection and Library Theoryand Research Section

Satellite meeting: Management,marketing, evaluation and pro-motion of library services, based onstatistics, analyses and evaluation in

your own library. 9–11 August 2005.Bergen, Norway.

Further information: Trine Kolderup-Flaten E-mail: [email protected].

Genealogy and Local HistorySection and Geography andMap Libraries Section

Programme theme: Navigating theWorld of Ancestors.

Further information: Mel Thatcher.E-mail: [email protected].

Africa Section

Open Forum: Change in InformationNeeds: Challenging Roles of Librariesand Information Centres in Africa.

Further information: Henri Sene.E-mail: [email protected].

Mobile Libraries Section

Nordic Mobile meet: 12th–14thAugust 2005. Oslo, Norway.

Open session during WLIC.

Theme for both events: A Voyage toDiscovery — Libraries on the Move.

Further information: Ian Stringer.E-mail: [email protected].

University and ResearchLibraries Section andStatistics and EvaluationSection

Open Program: Library quality inthe institutional environment.

Further information: MichaelHeaney. E-mail: [email protected].

LIS Journals Section

Open session. Theme: LIS Journals— a Voyage of Discovery beyondAnglo-American shores.

Further information: LudmilaKozlova. E-mail: [email protected].

Library Theory and ResearchSection and Education andTraining Section

Program theme: International Per-spectives on Library and InformationScience Research and Education.

Further information: Niels Ole Pors,([email protected]).

Library Building andEquipment Section andReference and InformationServices Section

Satellite meeting: The PhysicalLibrary and Beyond — Library asPlace and the Library in Cyber-space. 11–12 August 2005. Finland.

Contacts and more information:Tuula Haavisto. E-mail: [email protected].

Women’s Issues Section

Program theme: Women and WorldPeace.

Further information: Leena Siitonen.E-mail: [email protected].

9th ILDS Conference

The 9th IFLA Interlending and Doc-ument Supply International Confer-ence will take place in Tallinn,Estonia from 20 to 23 September2005 under the theme ‘MakingLibrary Collections AccessibleLocally and Worldwide. Tallinn isthe capital of the Republic ofEstonia. The old town of Tallinn isamong the best preserved medievalEuropean cities and is included inthe UNESCO World Heritage List.

The conference venue will be theConference Centre of the NationalLibrary of Estonia. Along with theconference programme the atten-dees will be able to visit Estonian

Future IFLA Conferences

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IFLA Publications

libraries and enjoy a diverse socialprogramme.

The list of conference subthemes

is now available at the conferencewebsite at http://www.nlib.ee/ilds.This website will also offer all newupdates concerning the conference

as well as background informationon Tallinn and Estonia.

Additional information: [email protected].

Grants and Awards

IFLA/OCLC Early CareerDevelopment Fellowship

2006

The IFLA/OCLC Early CareerDevelopment Fellowship pro-gramme provides early career devel-opment and continuing educationfor library and information scienceprofessionals from countries withdeveloping economies.

The Program Guidelines andApplication for the IFLA/OCLCFellowship 2006 are now posted onthe OCLC web site. The links to thefiles, available in PDF and Wordformats, are accessible under the2006 Application details at the fol-lowing location: http://www.oclc.org/institute/resources/fellowships/ifla/default.htm.

Best LIBRI Student Paper

Since 1950, through 55 volumes,LIBRI International Journal ofLibraries and Information Serviceshas been a leader among scholarlyjournals in the international libraryworld. As part of its strategy toremain one of the premier library

journals, LIBRI is issuing a call for‘Best Student Paper of 2005’. Thiscompetition supports LIBRI’s goalof publishing the best articles fromthe next generation of library andinformation science professionals.The publishers of LIBRI, K.G. SaurVerlag, are proud once again torecognize the very best article withthis special award.

Students at all levels* are invitedto submit articles with clarity andauthority. There is no stated theme.Research papers should address oneof the significant issues facingtoday’s librarians and informationprofessionals. Case studies, bestpractices, and pure research papersare all welcome.

Length: approx. 5000 wordsLanguage: EnglishDeadline: May 31, 2005

The best paper will be selected byan independent panel consisting ofselected members of the EditorialBoard, the Advisory Board andother international experts. Sub-missions will be judged on the basisof

• originality of thought and obser-vation

• depth of research and scholarship• topicality of problems addressed• the international readership of the

journal

The article will be published inthe 2005: 3 issue. The author of thewinning article will be honouredwith an award of USD 500.00 anda complementary subscription toLIBRI for 2006. If the quality ofcompetition warrants, some papersmay be designated as honourablemention and the authors willreceive complementary subscrip-tions to LIBRI for 2006. The normalprovision to the author of 25 off-prints applies to all winners.

Manuscripts should be sent tothe LIBRI Editorial Office, Stats-biblioteket, Universitetsparken, DK8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. Elec-tronic submissions are encouragedand may be submitted to [email protected]. Author instructionsare available at the LIBRI site athttp://www.librijournal.org/authorinst.html.

* Exception: Senior informationscholars returning to school foradditional degrees outside the fieldof library and information scienceare not eligible for this award.

Newspapers in Central and EasternEurope. Zeitungen in Mittel- undOsteuropa. Edited by HartmutWalravens in cooperation withMarieluise Schilling-Gayette.München: Saur, 2005, 251 p. (IFLAPublications 110). ISBN 3–598–21841–9. Price: EUR 78.00 (IFLAMembers EUR 58.00).

This book contains the Proceed-ings of a special IFLA Conferenceheld in Munich in August 2003. Thesituation of newspapers collection

was reviewed in the part of theworld that had undergone a com-plete change of the political andeconomical situation during the1990s. The papers focus on a widearray of issues related to newspaperlibrarianship. They are grouped intothe following categories: acquisitionpolicies, copyright issues for news-paper collection management, digi-tization and electronic newspapers,new technologies of paper conser-vation, storage and text manage-ment.

There are approximately 35 shortarticles in total; these are a mix ofEnglish and German texts. AllGerman papers are provided withan English abstract.

Published by: K.G. Saur Verlag,PO Box 701620, 81316 Munich,Germany. Tel: +49–89–76902–300.Fax: +49–89–76902–150/250).E-mail: [email protected]: http://www.saur.de.

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Geneva Declaration onthe Future of the World

Intellectual PropertyOrganization

Humanity faces a global crisis in thegovernance of knowledge, technol-ogy and culture. The crisis is mani-fest in many ways.

• Without access to essential medi-cines, millions suffer and die;

• Morally repugnant inequality ofaccess to education, knowledgeand technology underminesdevelopment and social cohesion;

• Anticompetitive practices in theknowledge economy imposeenormous costs on consumersand retard innovation;

• Authors, artists and inventors facemounting barriers to follow-oninnovation;

• Concentrated ownership andcontrol of knowledge, technology,biological resources and cultureharm development, diversity anddemocratic institutions;

• Technological measures designedto enforce intellectual propertyrights in digital environmentsthreaten core exceptions in copy-right laws for disabled persons,libraries, educators, authors andconsumers, and undermineprivacy and freedom;

• Key mechanisms to compensateand support creative individualsand communities are unfair toboth creative persons and con-sumers;

• Private interests misappropriatesocial and public goods, and lockup the public domain.

At the same time, there areastoundingly promising innovationsin information, medical and otheressential technologies, as well as insocial movements and businessmodels. We are witnessing highlysuccessful campaigns for access todrugs for AIDS, scientific journals,genomic information and otherdatabases, and hundreds of innova-tive collaborative efforts to createpublic goods, including the Inter-

net, the World Wide Web,Wikipedia, the Creative Commons,GNU Linux and other free andopen software projects, as well asdistance education tools andmedical research tools. Technolo-gies such as Google now providetens of millions with powerful toolsto find information. Alternativecompensation systems have beenproposed to expand access andinterest in cultural works, whileproviding both artists and con-sumers with efficient and fairsystems for compensation. There isrenewed interest in compensatoryliability rules, innovation prizes, orcompetitive intermediators, asmodels for economic incentives forscience and technology that canfacilitate sequential follow-on inno-vation and avoid monopolistabuses. In 2001, the World TradeOrganization (WTO) declared thatmember countries should “promoteaccess to medicines for all.”

Humanity stands at a crossroads— a fork in our moral code and a testof our ability to adapt and grow.Will we evaluate, learn and profitfrom the best of these new ideas andopportunities, or will we respond tothe most unimaginative pleas tosuppress all of this in favor of intel-lectually weak, ideologically rigid,and sometimes brutally unfair andinefficient policies? Much willdepend upon the future direction ofthe World Intellectual PropertyOrganization (WIPO), a globalbody setting standards that regulatethe production, distribution and useof knowledge.

A 1967 Convention sought toencourage creative activity by estab-lishing WIPO to promote the pro-tection of intellectual property. Themission was expanded in 1974,when WIPO became part of theUnited Nations, under an agree-ment that asked WIPO to take“appropriate action to promotecreative intellectual activity,” andfacilitate the transfer of technologyto developing countries, “in orderto accelerate economic, social andcultural development.”

As an intergovernmental organiz-ation, however, WIPO embraced aculture of creating and expandingmonopoly privileges, often withoutregard to consequences. The contin-uous expansion of these privilegesand their enforcement mechanismshas led to grave social and eco-nomic costs, and has hampered andthreatened other important systemsof creativity and innovation. WIPOneeds to enable its members tounderstand the real economic andsocial consequences of excessiveintellectual property protections,and the importance of striking abalance between the public domainand competition on the one hand,and the realm of property rights onthe other. The mantras that “more isbetter” or “that less is never good”are disingenuous and dangerous —and have greatly compromised thestanding of WIPO, especiallyamong experts in intellectual prop-erty policy. WIPO must change.

We do not ask that WIPOabandon efforts to promote theappropriate protection of intellec-tual property, or abandon all effortsto harmonize or improve these laws.But we insist that WIPO work fromthe broader framework described inthe 1974 agreement with the UN,and take a more balanced and real-istic view of the social benefits andcosts of intellectual property rightsas a tool, but not the only tool, forsupporting creative intellectualactivity.

WIPO must also express a morebalanced view of the relative bene-fits of harmonization and diversity,and seek to impose global conform-ity only when it truly benefits all ofhumanity. A “one size fits all”approach that embraces the highestlevels of intellectual property pro-tection for everyone leads to unjustand burdensome outcomes forcountries that are struggling to meetthe most basic needs of their citi-zens.

The WIPO General Assemblyhas now been asked to establish adevelopment agenda. The initial

From other Organizations

proposal, first put forth by the gov-ernments of Argentina and Brazil,would profoundly refashion theWIPO agenda toward developmentand new approaches to supportinnovation and creativity. This is along overdue and much needed firststep toward a new WIPO missionand work program. It is not perfect.The WIPO Convention should for-mally recognize the need to takeinto account the “developmentneeds of its Member States, partic-ularly developing countries andleast-developed countries,” as hasbeen proposed, but this does not gofar enough. Some have argued thatthe WIPO should only “promotethe protection of intellectual prop-erty,” and not consider, any policiesthat roll back intellectual propertyclaims or protect and enhance thepublic domain. This limiting viewstifles critical thinking. Betterexpressions of the mission can befound, including the requirement inthe 1974 UN/WIPO agreement thatWIPO “promote creative intellec-tual activity and facilitate the trans-fer of technology related toindustrial property.” The functionsof WIPO should not only be topromote “efficient protection” and“harmonization” of intellectualproperty laws, but to formallyembrace the notions of balance,appropriateness and the stimula-tion of both competitive and collab-orative models of creative activitywithin national, regional andtransnational systems of innova-tion.

The proposal for a developmentagenda has created the first realopportunity to debate the future ofWIPO. It is not only an agenda fordeveloping countries. It is anagenda for everyone, North andSouth. It must move forward. Allnations and people must join andexpand the debate on the future ofWIPO.

There must be a moratorium onnew treaties and harmonization ofstandards that expand andstrengthen monopolies and furtherrestrict access to knowledge. Forgenerations WIPO has respondedprimarily to the narrow concerns ofpowerful publishers, pharmaceuti-

cal manufacturers, plant breedersand other commercial interests.Recently, WIPO has become moreopen to civil society and publicinterest groups, and this openness iswelcome. But WIPO must nowaddress the substantive concerns ofthese groups, such as the protectionof consumer rights and humanrights. Long-neglected concerns ofthe poor, the sick, the visuallyimpaired and others must be givenpriority.

The proposed developmentagenda points in the right direction.By stopping efforts to adopt newtreaties on substantive patent law,broadcasters rights and databases,WIPO will create space to addressfar more urgent needs.

The proposals for the creation ofstanding committees and workinggroups on technology transfer anddevelopment are welcome. WIPOshould also consider the creation ofone or more bodies to systematicallyaddress the control of anticompeti-tive practices and the protection ofconsumer rights.

We support the call for a Treatyon Access to Knowledge and Tech-nology. The Standing Committee onPatents and the Standing Commit-tee on Copyright and Related Rightsshould solicit views from membercountries and the public on ele-ments of such a treaty.

The WIPO technical assistanceprograms must be fundamentallyreformed. Developing countriesmust have the tools to implementthe WTO Doha Declaration onTRIPS and Public Health, and “use,to the full” the flexibilities in theTRIPS to “promote access tomedicines for all.” WIPO must helpdeveloping countries address thelimitations and exceptions in patentand copyright laws that are essen-tial for fairness, development andinnovation. If the WIPO Secre-tariat cannot understand the con-cerns and represent the interests ofthe poor, the entire technical assis-tance program should be moved toan independent body that isaccountable to developing coun-tries.

Enormous differences in bargain-ing power lead to unfair outcomesbetween creative individuals andcommunities (both modern and tra-ditional) and the commercial enti-ties that sell culture and knowledgegoods. WIPO must honor andsupport creative individuals andcommunities by investigating thenature of relevant unfair businesspractices, and promote best practicemodels and reforms that protect cre-ative individuals and communitiesin these situations, consistent withnorms of the relevant communities.

Delegations representing theWIPO member states and theWIPO Secretariat have been askedto choose a future. We want achange of direction, new priorities,and better outcomes for humanity.We cannot wait for another genera-tion. It is time to seize the momentand move forward.

The text of the Geneva Declarationon the Future of WIPO, in Arabic,English, French, Greek, Italian andSpanish, and a list of charter signa-tories, can be found in PDF, MSWord and HTML formats at:http://www.futureofwipo.org.

Information as PublicDomain: Access through

Libraries

DECLARATION of theInternational Conference‘Information as PublicDomain: Access throughLibraries’

On 27–29 October 2004 St. Peters-burg hosted the International Con-ference ‘Information as PublicDomain: Access through Libraries’,which was attended by over 120representatives of public authori-ties, academic research organiza-tions, libraries and other institutionsfrom Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus,Great Britain, Georgia, Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzia, Moldova, Russia, USA,Tajikistan and the Ukraine.

Having examined an extensiverange of agenda items, the

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participants of the Conference herebyconfirm their view that enablingaccess to public domain informationproduced by public authorities shouldbecome fundamental to the nationalinformation policies of all nationsstriving for democracy and freedom ofhuman development. Public authori-ties, as well as libraries, archives andvarious information services providersshould assume a primary responsibil-ity for the expansion of openness andmanagement of information as publicdomain. The mainstream principle ofinformation management should be asfollows: information produced bypublic authorities should be deemedpublicly available, and any exceptionsto this rule officially banning the saidaccess should be justified, minimizedand supported by the power of law.The national information policy andits legislative and regulatory supportshould be based on the presumption ofopenness of government information.

The participants of the Conferencetake note that any national informa-tion policy should reside on thedetermination to develop a knowl-edge society and a civil society.Libraries of today constitute an indis-pensable institution of civil societyand an effective tool for building it.Support of the development oflibrary services should be elaboratedin national information policies.

The participants of the Confer-ence take note of the need formeaningful efforts to implement thekey documents passed at the WorldSummit on Information Society, i.e.

the Declaration of Principles andPlan of Action (2003), as well as thePolicy guidelines for the develop-ment and promotion of governmentpublic domain information(UNESCO, 2004).

28 October, 2004

Tavrichesky Palace, SaintPetersburg

Adopted by Plenary Session

International TrainingProgram on Information

STIMULATE: Scientific and Techno-logical Information Management inUniversities and Libraries: an ActiveTraining Environment. (Edition 5).Brussels, Belgium, June–August 31,2005.

This initiative is aimed primarilyat persons with a university degreewho work in universities, informa-tion and documentation centers andlibraries and who have a few yearsof practical experience.

The main aim is to offer a stimu-lating learning environment to par-ticipants so as to sharpen their skillsin collecting, storing, retrieving, pre-senting and managing information.

The sessions will be organized asfollows:

first month = introduction level

second month = intermediate levelthird month = more advanced level.

Participants may participateduring only one or two of the threemonths, depending on expertise.However, the available scholarshipsare granted only to persons who willparticipate for the full three months.

Main areas of study:

Information and communicationtechnology for libraries and infor-mation centers

Information retrievalInformation architectureManagement in libraries and infor-

mation centers

Participation is free of chargefor 14 participants from developingcountries selected by the organizers.The detailed grant application formis available as a PDF file through theInternet from http://www.vlir.be/.

Contacts: Paul Nieuwenhuysen orPatrick Vanouplines, STIMULATE-ITP, University Library, Vrije Uni-versiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2,B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Tel. +322629 2429 (or 2609). Fax: +32 2629 2693 (or 2282). Telex: 61051vubco-b. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected]. Website: http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/itp/.

Other Publications

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Other Publications

‘The Quiet Struggle’available electronically

One of the main titles concernedwith information and libraries inAfrica, The Quiet Struggle by PaulSturges and Richard Neill, (2nd ed.1998) is now available electroni-cally at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/staff/psturges.html.There you can click on the high-lighted title of the book and you will

find a searchable and downloadabletext. Librarians, lecturers, scholarsand students are encouraged to useit freely, providing that if all or partsof it are re-used elsewhere, fullcredit is given to the authors. Pleasefeel free to mount the text on web-sites, print out the whole or parts ofthe book in as many copies as youwish, and quote from it, at length ifyou wish. A CD-ROM copy can besupplied on request from PaulSturges if this will be more con-venient.

Further information: Paul Sturges,Professor of Library Studies,Department of InformationScience, Loughborough University,Leics. LE11 3TU, UK. Tel. +44 1509223069. Fax: +44 1509 223053.

Renaissance LibraryCalendar 2005

The 2005 edition of the RenaissanceLibrary Calendar contains colour

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News

photographs of twelve beautiful oldlibraries from eight countries —Austria, Croatia, Malta, Portugal,Spain, Switzerland, the UnitedKingdom and the USA. Each photo-graph is accompanied by a well-

researched informative text aboutthe history and collection of thelibrary. Copies of the calendar canbe obtained at the RenaissanceLibrary website at http://www.renaissancelibrary.com.

For additional information: StuartUrwin, ISIM, Torsvagen 7b, 192 67Sollentuna, Sweden Tel. +46 875415 55. Fax: +46 8754 13 33. E-mail:[email protected].


INTERNATIONAL CALENDAR

May 11–14, 2005. Cape Town,South Africa.8th Bibliophilia Africana Con-ference. Theme: From papyrusto printout: the book in Africayesterday, today and tomorrow.Further information: 8th Biblio-philes’ Conference, NationalLibrary of South Africa, PO Box496, Cape Town, South Africa8000. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.nlsa.ac.za/bibliophilia.html.

May 15–21, 2005. Lexington, KY,USA.XIth IAALD World Congress.Theme: Globalization of informa-tion.Further information: ToniGreider. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: http://www.ca.uky.edu/AIC/worldcongress.htm.

May 30–June 3, 2005. Dubrovnikand Mljet, Croatia.Libraries in the Digital Age(LIDA) 2005.Further information: Coursee-mail: [email protected]. Coursewebsite: http://www.pedos.hr/lida.

June to August 31, 2005. Brussels,Belgium.STIMULATE: Scientific andTechnological InformationManagement in Universities andLibraries: an Active TrainingEnvironment. (Edition 5).Information about this trainingprogram can be found on thewebsite: http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/itp/.

June 15–17, 2005. Burleigh Court,Loughborough University, UK.Freedom and Information Con-ference. ***CANCELLED***Further information: Paul Sturges:[email protected].

June 15–19, 2005, University of Vic-toria, British Columbia, Canada.

ACH/ALLC 2005. InternationalConference on HumanitiesComputing and Digital Scholar-ship. 17th joint conference of theAssociation for Computers andthe Humanities (ACH) and theAssociation for Literary andLinguistic Computing (ALLC).Further information: AlejandroBia (PC Chair): [email protected] website: http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/achallc2005/.

July 6–8, 2005. Barcelona, Spain.7th ISKO-Spain Conference.The human dimension of knowl-edge organization.Further information: TechnicalSecretariat of the Conference,Departamento de Bibliotecono-mia i Documentació de la Uni-versitat de Barcelona, EdificiUB-Sants Melcior de Palau, 140,08014 Barcelona, Spain. Tel. +34(93) 403 57 67. Fax: +34 (93) 40357 72. E-mail: [email protected]: http://bd.ub.es/isko2005/.

July 6–8, 2005. Sarawak, Malaysia.KNOWLEDGE 2005: MakingLibraries Relevant.For further inquiries: Ms SalinaZawawi, [email protected] or; Ms Hayati Sabil,[email protected] or;Ms Kalthoum bt Adni, [email protected].

July 8–12, 2005. Hong Kong, China.33rd IASL [International Asso-ciation of School Librarianship]Conference. Theme: Informationleadership in a culture of change.Further information: Sandra Lee,Faculty of Education, 121 RunMeShaw Building, University ofHong Kong, Pokfulam Road,Hong Kong. Fax: (852)2517–7194. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: http://www.iasl-slo.org/conference2005.html.

July 31–August 3, 2005. Zagreb,Croatia.

14th European Conference onReading.Further information: [email protected]. Website: http://www.hcd.hr/conference.

August 9–11, 2005. Bergen,Norway.Satellite meeting to WorldLibrary and Information Con-gress. Theme: Management, mar-keting, evaluation and promotionof library services, based onstatistics, analyses and evaluationin your own library.Further information: TrineKolderup-Flaten E-mail: [email protected].

August 10–12, 2005. Stockholm,Sweden.The Multicultural Library: staffcompetence for success. Satel-lite conference to World Libraryand Information Congress.For more information: www.ifla-stockholm2005.se.

August 11–12, 2005. Finland.The Physical Library andBeyond — library as place andthe library in cyberspace. Satel-lite meeting to World Libraryand Information Congress.Contacts and more information:Tuula Haavisto. E-mail: [email protected].

August 11–13, 2005. Oslo, Norway.6th World Conference on Con-tinuing Professional Develop-ment and Workplace Learningfor the Library and InformationProfessions. Theme: Continuingprofessional development —preparing for new roles inlibraries: a voyage of discovery.Further information: Ian Smith,(Convenor — Program Commit-tee), Senior Librarian (Person-nel), La Trobe University Library,Bundoora, Victoria, 3086, Aus-tralia. Tel: +61 3 9479 1918. Fax:+ 61 3 9479 3018. E-mail: [email protected].

2005

August 12–14, 2005. Oslo, Norway.Nordic Mobile Meet. Theme: Avoyage to discovery — libraries onthe move.Further information: Ian Stringer.E-mail: [email protected].

August 14–18, 2005. Oslo, Norway.World Library and InformationCongress: 71st IFLA GeneralConference and Council.Theme: Libraries: a voyage of dis-covery; linking the future to thepast.For more information: IFLA 2005Oslo Secretariat, Ann MargretHauknes, Secretary General,Norwegian Library Association,Malerhaugveien 20, N-0661Oslo, Norway. Tel: +47 23243430. Fax: +47 22672368. E-mail:[email protected].

September 11–16, 2005. Riga,Latvia.37th Conference of the Metro-politan Libraries Section ofIFLA (formerly INTAMEL, theInternational Association ofMetropolitan Libraries). Theme:Libraries and lifelong learning:inspiring users and staff.Further information: DzidraSmita, Riga Central Library. Tel.+ 371 7037121. Fax: + 371 7037131. Email: [email protected]. Website: http://www.ifla.org/VII/s46/metro.htm.

September 18–23, 2005. Vienna,Austria.9th. European Conference onDigital Libraries (ECDL).Further information: Website:http://www.ecdl2005.org.

September 20–23, 2005. Tallinn,Estonia.9th Interlending and DocumentSupply Conference. Theme:Making library collections acces-sible locally and worldwide.For more information: JoscheNeven, IFLA CommunicationsManager, [email protected]: Poul Erlandsen, Chair, IFLADocument Delivery and Inter-lending Section, [email protected] information: [email protected].

September 20–23, 2005. Salvador,Brazil.9th World Congress on HealthInformation and Libraries.Further information: Elenice deCastro. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: http://www.icml9.org/.

November 16–18, 2005. Tunis,Tunisia.World Summit on the Informa-tion Society. Phase 2.Further information: Mr. A.Levin, Chief a.i., Coordination,External Relations and Commu-nication Units, InternationalTelecommunication Union (ITU),Place des Nations, CH-1211Geneva 20, Switzerland. Tel. +41(22) 730 6113. Fax: +41 (22) 7305881. E-mail: [email protected]: www.itu.int/wsis/.

August 22–28, 2006. Seoul, Korea.World Library and InformationCongress: 72nd IFLA GeneralConference and Council.

Theme: Libraries: dynamicengines for the knowledge andinformation society.For more information: IFLAHeadquarters, POB 95312, 2509CH, The Hague, The Nether-lands. Tel. +31 70 314–0884. Fax:+ 31 70 3834827.

2007. Durban, South Africa.World Library and InformationCongress: 73rd IFLA Counciland General Conference.Theme: Libraries for the future:progress, development and part-nerships.Further information from: Inter-national Federation of LibraryAssociations and Institutions(IFLA), PO Box 95312, 2509 CHThe Hague, Netherlands. Tel. +31(70) 3140884. Fax: +31 (70)3834827. E–mail: [email protected]: http://ifla.inist.fr/index.htm.

2008, Québec, Canada.World Library and InformationCongress: 74th IFLA GeneralConference and Council.Further information from: Inter-national Federation of LibraryAssociations and Institutions(IFLA), PO Box 95312, 2509 CHThe Hague, Netherlands. Tel. +31(70) 3140884. Fax: +31 (70)3834827. E-mail: [email protected]: http://ifla.inist.fr/index.htm.

2006

2007

2008

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International Calendar

Linda Ashcroft and Chris Watts.ICT Skills for Information Profes-sionals in Developing Countries:perspectives from a study of theelectronic information environ-ment in Nigeria.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 6–12

Changes in the provision of infor-mation brought about through theemergence of electronic informa-tion resources have created subse-quent changes in the skills neededby information professionals. Infor-mation professionals are nowexpected to be aware of and capableof using emerging information com-munication technologies, as well ashaving essential communicationskills. Professional bodies, such asCILIP in the UK and the ALA in theUS, recognize the importance ofcontinuing professional develop-ment in order to keep skills andexpertise up-to-date for all aspectsof work. The necessity of ICT skillshas a clear impact on referenceservice professionals, with the emer-gence of digital reference services. Aresearch project carried out atLiverpool John Moores Universityinto the provision of electronicinformation in Nigeria identified asignificant skills gap amongst infor-mation professionals. Collaborationand strategic management ofresources may be key to alleviatingthis problem.

Lynne Brindley. The British Libraryand E-Learning.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 13–18

Provides an overview of the BritishLibrary’s approach to e-learning,and describes how the Library’sonline learning resources are beingused by different groups of learners.It also touches on some of the chal-lenges of delivering a widely acces-sible learning programme, andraises questions which the new pos-sibilities offered by e-learning posefor national libraries.

Margareta Brundin. DemocracyBuilding Activities in the Swedish

Riksdag; the role of a parliamen-tary library.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 19–27

Describes the activities of a newoffice created by the Parliament ofSweden (the Riksdag) with theobjective of contributing actively toincreasing the public’s — and es-pecially young people’s — knowl-edge of and interest in the Riksdagand its work. The Riksdag Librarycontributes to satisfy the needamong the public for accurate andeasily accessible information aboutthe work and decisions of theRiksdag with its open-door policy,regional activities and training oflibrarians from all over Sweden.

Ann Curry. Unreliable Research:are librarians liable?IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 28–34

Examines the history and currentcases of research fraud and decep-tion, including the reasons forresearcher transgression — reputa-tion and career advancement, thechances of being caught, and theineffective gatekeeper roles served bypublishers and reviewers. It appearsthat librarians and LIS researchersare unlikely to conduct or publishunreliable research, but problemscan arise when librarians distributeunreliable research in their collec-tions. The wisdom of withdrawing allunreliable research from the collec-tion is questioned, however, as someof this research may contain grains oftruth that could result in future, reli-able research.

Emilia Ferreiro. Librarians andBasic Education Teachers in theContext of ‘Digital Literacy’.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 35–44

The paper looks critically at thenotion of ‘digital literacy’. Literacy isnot a static notion. Literacy require-ments change across time andplaces. Nowadays ICTs have intro-duced radical changes in the way ofproducing and disseminating texts.

However, they did not change theconceptual nature of the literacyprocess. The relationship betweenelementary school and the introduc-tion of new technologies is explored,leading to the conclusion that it istoo risky to bent on computers onlyto improve literacy results. Even inthe most developed countries theyare underused. Suggestion is madeon the particular role that librarianscan play to make a more effectiveuse of ICTs in educational contexts,as librarians have already adoptedthese technologies as a common andeffective tool while teachers arereluctant to use them.

Elizabeth Reade-Fong and Gary E.Gorman. NGOs, ICTs and Infor-mation Dissemination in Asia andOceania.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 45–51

Focusing on the situation in Asia andOceania, this paper looks at the wayin which NGOs utilize information,and to some extent ICTs, for sustain-able capacity building. It is hypothe-sized that communication strategiesthat take into account the socialnature of access, recognize the inter-action between face-to-face andonline communications, and combineInternet use with a broad range ofother new and old media provide thebest opportunities for sustainabledevelopment initiatives through theuse of ICT. This issue is addressedthrough a series of questions: Whatare the barriers to ICT adoption, andhow might its potential be realized?What is an appropriate mix of ICT-based information dissemination andtraditional print-based information?How do different cultures react wheninformation is accessed remotelyrather than face-to-face? How well doNGOs collaborate with one anotherin sharing development-related infor-mation? What are some of the facili-tators and barriers to more effectivecollaboration?

J.W. Roos. Copyright Protection asAccess Barrier for People whoRead Differently: the case for aninternational approach.

Abstracts


ABSTRACTS

IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 52–67

For people with print disabilities,copyright protection poses anaccess barrier. Although they havetraditionally used Braille and audiomaterials to satisfy their readingneeds, one should not, when con-sidering access issues, confine theanalysis to those media only. In arapidly changing technologicalenvironment, accommodations areneeded that will not become obso-lete due to technological changethat opens up new access opportu-nities. In a number of countries theproblems posed by copyright pro-tection as access barriers havereceived legislative attention in theform of attempts to remove them.Those attempts have not alwaysgiven rise to perfect solutions. Thispaper is concerned with accessbarriers to print posed by copyrightprotection, by successes as well asunfortunate by-products of previousattempts to deal with those barriers,by technological developments thataffect copyright protection, and ittries to isolate lessons learnt so far.

George R. Ryskamp. EuropeanEmigration Records, 1820–1925.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 68–75

Immigration records are wonderful,but often fail to give a completepicture of the emigrants and the

experiences and processes theywent through. European emigrationrecords provide extensive informa-tion about individual emigrants,often including the place of origin.No survey of all such records existsand there is not even a complete listof records types and locations forany single European country. Indescribing the work of the Immi-grant Ancestors Project at BrighamYoung University this paper identi-fies the various record types thatwere generated by emigrants in theprocess of emigration, giving exam-ples from several countries whereeach type of record may be found.

Alastair G. Smith. Citations andLinks as a Measure of Effective-ness of Online LIS Journals.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 76–84

Examines the use of citation countsand web links to evaluate online LISjournals. The Journal Impact Factor,a traditional metric for comparingjournals, is based on the citationcounts of a journal over a specifiedperiod of time, compared with thecitable articles published in thejournal. The Web Impact Factor(WIF) has been proposed as anequivalent metric for websites. TheWIF is broadly defined as the ratioof links made to a site, compared tothe number of information units(e.g. pages) at the site. The studycompares the WIFs of a sample of

online LIS journal websites withtheir conventional citation counts.Links to online journals are oftenconsidered to be equivalent to cita-tions, but there are significant differ-ences. Provides indications of howeffective the online medium is forcommunicating LIS research andoffers guidance for LIS authors andjournal editors to help them makeeffective use of online journals.

Jutta Weber. The Manuscript Col-lections of Europe: a mirror ofmigration, separation and reunifi-cation as seen in the Alexandervon Humboldt Collection inBerlin.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 85–89

Manuscripts and their creators aresubject to the conditions of history.The history of the Alexander vonHumboldt Collection in Berlin is ahistory of the migration of manu-scripts, the separation of parts of thecollection, and their reunification.This leads to some more generalobservations. What if the originallocation of a manuscript is not a safeone? How can we guarantee safepreservation of the manuscript inanother location? There are goodreasons to build an alliance of insti-tutions willing to cooperate withrespect to these questions. Since wecannot turn back the wheels ofhistory, we must act together nowand in the future.

Abstracts

110

Linda Ashcroft and Chris Watts.ICT Skills for Information Profes-sionals in Developing Countries:perspectives from a study of theelectronic information environ-ment in Nigeria. [CompétencesTIC pour les professionnels del’information dans les pays en voiede développement: perspectivesoffertes par une étude de l’envi-ronnement d’information élec-tronique au Nigeria.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 6–12

Les modifications des modes d’ap-provisionnement n informationssuscitées par l’émergence deressources électroniques d’informa-tion ont entraîné des modificationsdes compétences requises des pro-fessionnels de l’information. Ilsdoivent non seulement être aucourant des technologies émer-gentes d’information et de commu-nication (TIC), mais aussi être enmesure de les utiliser et disposerd’aptitudes fondamentales enmatière de communication. Lesorganismes professionnels tels queCILIP au Royaume-Uni et ALA auxEtats-Unis reconnaissent l’impor-tance d’une formation profession-nelle permanente afin de maintenirà jour les compétences et l’expertisedans tous les domaines d’activité. Lanécessité de disposer de compé-tences TIC a un impact évident surles professionnels des services deréférence, avec l’émergence desservices numériques de référence.Un projet de recherche mené àl’Université John Moores de Liver-pool, portant sur l’approvision-nement en information par voieélectronique au Nigeria, a mis enlumière un manque significatif decompétences chez les profession-nels de l’information. La collabora-tion et la gestion stratégique desressources peuvent être essentiellespour réduire ce problème.

Lynne Brindley. The British Libraryand E-Learning. [La BritishLibrary et l’apprentissage enligne.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 13–18

Offre une vue d’ensemble de l’ap-proche choisie par la British Libraryen matière d’apprentissage en ligneet décrit comment les ressourcesd’apprentissage en ligne de la biblio-thèque sont utilisées par différentsgroupes d’étudiants. Aborde égale-ment quelques-uns des défis consis-tant à fournir un programmed’étude largement accessible etsoulève les questions posées auxbibliothèques nationales par lesnouvelles possibilités qu’offre l’ap-prentissage en ligne.

Margareta Brundin. DemocracyBuilding Activities in the SwedishRiksdag; the role of a parliamen-tary library. [Des activitésfavorisant la démocratie auRiksdag suédois; le rôle d’une bib-liothèque parlementaire.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 19–27

Décrit les activités d’un nouveaubureau créé par le Parlement deSuède (le Riksdag), ayant pourobjectif de contribuer activement àmieux faire connaître le Riksdag etses travaux auprès du public — par-ticulièrement les jeunes — et à sus-citer l’intérêt pour cette institution.Avec sa politique portes ouvertes,ses activités régionales et la forma-tion de bibliothécaires venus detoute la Suède, la bibliothèque duRiksdag aide à satisfaire la demandedu public en matière d’informationsaccessibles sur les travaux et lesdécisions du Riksdag.

Ann Curry. Unreliable Research:are librarians liable? [Larecherche peu fiable: les biblio-thécaires sont-ils responsables?]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 28–34

Examine les cas de fraude et detromperie dans la recherche par lepassé et à l’heure actuelle, ainsi queles motifs ayant incité le chercheur àcette transgression: réputation etavancement de carrière, risques dese faire prendre et inefficacité durôle de gardien joué par les éditeurset les critiques. Il semble peuprobable que les bibliothécaires et

chercheurs en science bibliothé-caire et information mènent ou pub-lient des recherches peu fiables,mais des problèmes peuvent surgirlorsque les bibliothécaires diffusentdes recherches de ce type dans leurscollections. L’auteur s’interroge surle bien-fondé de retirer cependanttoutes les recherches peu fiables dela collection, dans la mesure oùcertaines de ces recherches peuventcontenir des parcelles de véritépouvant servir à des recherchesfiables dans l’avenir.

Emilia Ferreiro. Librarians andBasic Education Teachers in theContext of ‘Digital Literacy’.[Bibliothécaires et professeurs del’enseignement primaire dans lecontexte de ‘l’alphabétisationnumérique’.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 35–44

Cet article examine d’un œil cri-tique la notion “d’alphabétismenumérique”. L’alphabétisme n’estpas une notion statique. Les exi-gences en matière d’alphabétismechangent en fonction du temps etdu lieu. À l’heure actuelle, les tech-nologies de l’information et de lacommunication ont introduit deschangements radicaux dans lafaçon de produire et de diffuser lestextes. Cependant, elles n’ont paschangé la nature conceptuelle duprocessus d’alphabétisation. Larelation entre l’école élémentaire etl’introduction de nouvelles tech-nologies est étudiée, ce qui mène àconclure qu’il est trop risqué des’appuyer uniquement sur les ordi-nateurs pour améliorer les résultatsen matière d’alphabétisation, car ilssont insuffisamment utilisés, mêmedans les pays les plus développés.Des suggestions sont faites sur lerôle particulier que les bibliothé-caires peuvent jouer pour mieuxutiliser ces technologies dans descontextes éducatifs, dans la mesureoù les bibliothécaires ont déjà com-munément adopté ces technologiescomme un outil efficace, alors queles professeurs rechignent encore àles utiliser.

Sommaires


SOMMAIRES

Elizabeth Reade-Fong and Gary E.Gorman. NGOs, ICTs and Infor-mation Dissemination in Asia andOceania. [ONG, TIC et propaga-tion des informations en Asie et enOcéanie.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 45–51

En se concentrant sur la situation enAsie et en Océanie, cet article étudiela façon dont les organisations nongouvernementales utilisent l’infor-mation et, jusque dans une certainemesure, les technologies de l’infor-mation et de la communication(TIC) afin d’établir une capacitédurable. L’hypothèse est avancéeque les stratégies de communicationqui tiennent compte de la naturesociale de l’accès, reconnaissentl’interaction entre les communica-tions face à face et en ligne, et com-binent l’usage d’Internet avec unevaste gamme d’autres médiasanciens et nouveaux, fournissent lesmeilleures possibilités pour des ini-tiatives de développement durablegrâce à l’usage des TIC. Cette prob-lématique est abordée par le biaisd’une série de questions: quels sontles obstacles à l’adoption des TIC etcomment concrétiser leur poten-tiel? Quel est le mélange appropriéentre la propagation des informa-tions fondées sur les TIC et les infor-mations imprimées traditionnelles?Comment différentes culturesréagissent-elles lorsqu’il est possibled’accéder aux informations à dis-tance et non pas face à face?Comment les organisations nongouvernementales collaborent-ellesentre elles afin de partager les infor-mations concernant le développe-ment? Quels sont les aspects quifacilitent une collaboration plus effi-cace ou bien la compliquent?

J.W. Roos. Copyright Protection asAccess Barrier for People whoRead Differently: the case for aninternational approach. [Protec-tion copyright comme obstacle àl’accès pour les personnes lisantautrement : un plaidoyer pour uneapproche internationale.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 52–67

Pour les personnes souffrant d’unhandicap visuel, la protection copy-

right constitue un obstacle à l’accèsaux informations. Bien qu’elles aienttraditionnellement utilisé le Brailleet le matériel audio pour satisfaireleurs besoins de lecture, il ne fautpas, au moment de considérer lesproblèmes d’accès, confiner unique-ment l’analyse à ces moyens. Dansun environnement technologiqueévoluant rapidement, il faut prévoirdes dispositions qui ne deviendrontpar obsolètes en raison de progrèstechnologiques ouvrant de nou-velles possibilités d’accès. Dans uncertain nombre de pays, les prob-lèmes posés par la protection copy-right comme obstacle à l’accès auxinformations ont fait l’objet de ten-tatives législatives visant à les sup-primer. Ces tentatives n’ont pastoujours donné lieu à des solutionsidéales. Cet article se penche sur leproblème des obstacles à l’accès audocument imprimé posé par la pro-tection copyright, sur les succèsaussi bien que sur les échecs de pro-duits annexes lors de tentativesantérieures pour supprimer cesobstacles, sur les développementstechnologiques qui affectent la pro-tection copyright. Il essaye égale-ment d’identifier les leçons à tirerjusqu’à présent.

George R. Ryskamp. EuropeanEmigration Records, 1820–1925.[Archives sur l’émigrationeuropéenne, 1820–1925.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 68–75

Les archives sur l’immigration sontremarquables, mais ne donnentgénéralement pas une image com-plète des émigrants, des expériencesqu’ils ont vécues et de ce par quoi ilssont passés. Les archives sur l’émi-gration européenne fournissenttoutes sortes d’informations indi-viduelles sur les émigrants, indi-quant souvent leur lieu d’origine.Mais il n’y a aucune étude englobanttoutes les archives de ce type, il n’ex-iste même pas une liste complètedes types d’archives et de leuremplacement pour aucun payseuropéen. En décrivant le travail duprojet de l’université BrighamYoung sur les ancêtres immigrants,cet article identifie les différentstypes d’archives générés par les émi-grants au cours du processus d’émi-

gration, en donnant des exemples dedifférents pays où chaque typed’archive peut être trouvé.

Alastair G. Smith. Citations andLinks as a Measure of Effective-ness of Online LIS Journals. [Cita-tions et liens comme une mesurede l’efficacité des revues en lignede science bibliothécaire et infor-mation.] IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 76–84

Examine l’usage du décompte descitations et des liens sur le Web pourévaluer les revues en ligne spécial-isées en science bibliothécaire etinformation. Le Facteur d’impactd’une revue, moyen de mesure tradi-tionnel pour comparer les revues, sefonde sur le décompte des citationsd’une revue sur une période detemps déterminée, comparé auxarticles pouvant être cités, publiésdans la revue. Le facteur de l’impactsur le Web (Web Impact Factor ouWIF) a été proposé comme moyende mesure équivalent pour les sitesInternet. Le WIF est courammentdéfini comme étant le rapport entreles liens vers un certain site et lenombre d’unités d’information (parex. les pages) que compte le site.L’étude compare les WIF d’unéchantillon de sites en ligne derevues de science bibliothécaire etinformation avec leurs décomptesconventionnels de citation. Lesliens vers des revues en ligne sontsouvent considérés comme équiva-lents aux citations, mais il y a desdifférences significatives. L’auteurfournit des indications sur le degréd’efficacité du média en ligne pourcommuniquer la recherche enscience bibliothécaire et informa-tion, et offre des conseils auxauteurs spécialisés en science bib-liothécaire et information ainsiqu’aux rédacteurs de revues afin deles aider à faire un usage efficace deleurs revues en ligne.

Jutta Weber. The Manuscript Col-lections of Europe: a mirror ofmigration, separation and reunifi-cation as seen in the Alexandervon Humboldt Collection inBerlin. [Les collections europé-ennes de manuscrits: migration,séparation et réunification

Sommaires

112

illustrées par le cas de la collectionAlexander von Humboldt àBerlin.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1,pp. 85–89

Les manuscrits et leurs créateurssont soumis au contexte historique.L’histoire de la collection Alexander

von Humboldt à Berlin est celled’une migration des manuscrits,d’une séparation de différentesparties de la collection et de leurréunification. Cela entraînequelques observations d’ordre plusgénéral. Que faire si l’emplacementd’origine d’un manuscrit n’estpas sûr? Comment pouvons-nous

garantir la conservation en toutesécurité du manuscrit à un autreendroit? Il existe de bonnes raisonsde s’allier avec des institutionsdésireuses de coopérer en lamatière. Dans la mesure où nous nepouvons pas réécrire l’histoire, ilnous faut agir ensemble dans leprésent et pour l’avenir.

Sommaires

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Linda Ashcroft und Chris Watts.ICT Skills for Information Profes-sionals in Developing Countries:perspectives from a study of theelectronic information environ-ment in Nigeria. [ICT–Fähigkeitenfür Informationsprofis in Entwick-lungsländern: Perspektiven auseiner Studie der elektronischenInformationsumgebung inNigeria.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 6–12

Der Wandel in der Verfügbarkeitvon Informationen infolge desAufkommens elektronischer Infor-mationsquellen hat einen gewissenEinfluss auf die Fähigkeiten gehabt,die Informationsprofis benötigen.Heute wird von den Information-sprofis erwartet, dass sie die neuentstehenden Informations – Kom-munikationstechnologien kennenund mit ihnen umgehen könnenund dass sie über wichtigeKommunikationsfähigkeiten verfü-gen. Professionelle Instanzen, wiebeispielsweise die CILIP inGroßbritannien und die ALA inden USA, wissen um dieWichtigkeit einer ständigen weiter-führenden professionellen Ent-wicklung, um mit den Fähigkeitenund der Expertise in allen Bere-ichen dieser Arbeit auch weiterhinam Ball zu bleiben. DieNotwendigkeit moderner ICT–Fähigkeiten hat mit der Marktein-führung digitaler Referenzdiensteauch deutliche Konsequenzen fürdie Nachschlagedienste. Ein For-schungsprojekt an der John MooresUniversity in Liverpool, das sichmit der Bereitstellung elektronis-cher Informationen in Nigeriabeschäftigt, hat erhebliche Unter-schiede in den Fähigkeiten derInformationsprofis aufgedeckt. DerSchlüssel zur Lösung dieses Prob-lems kann in der Zusammenarbeitund der strategischen Verwaltungder Ressourcen liegen.

Lynne Brindley. The British Libraryand E-Learning. [Die BritishLibrary und E-Learning.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 13–18

Dieser Artikel bietet einenÜberblick über die E-Learning –Methoden der britischen Bibliothekund beschreibt, in welcher Weisedie Online-Lern-Ressourcen derBibliothek von unterschiedlichenGruppen von Studierenden genutztwerden. Zudem kommen einige derHerausforderungen zur Sprache,die mit der Weitergabe eines breitzugänglichen Lernprogramms ver-bunden sind. Außerdem werdenFragen angesprochen, die sich dennationalen Bibliotheken im Zusam-menhang mit den neuenMöglichkeiten stellen, die das E-Learning bietet.

Margareta Brundin. DemocracyBuilding Activities in the SwedishRiksdag; the role of a parliamentarylibrary. [Demokratie-förderndeAktivitäten im schwedischenReichtstag; die Rolle einer parla-mentarischen Bibliothek.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 19–27

Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit denAktivitäten eines neuen Büros, dasvom schwedischen Parlament (demReichstag) ins Leben gerufen wurde,um aktiv zur Verbesserung des Ein-blicks der Öffentlichkeit — und ins-besondere junger Leute — in denReichstag und seine Arbeit beizutra-gen. Die Riksdag Library [die Reichs-tagsbibliothek] trägt dazu bei, demBedarf der Öffentlichkeit anpräzisen und leicht zugänglichenInformationen über die Arbeit unddie Entscheidungen des Reichstagsentgegenzukommen. Dies basiertauf einer Politik der offenen Tür,hinzu kommen regionale Aktiv-itäten und Schulungen für Biblio-thekare aus ganz Schweden.

Ann Curry. Unreliable Research:are librarians liable?[Ungesicherte Forschungsergeb-nisse: Sind Bibliothekare dafürhaftbar?]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 28–34

Dieser Artikel beleuchtet dieGeschichte des Forschungsbetrugsund der diesbezüglichen Täuschung

und beschreibt auch aktuelle Fälle.Zudem kommen auch einigeGründe für die Ursachen zurSprache — das Ansehen des Forsch-ers und die Förderung derForschungskarriere, die relativgeringe Wahrscheinlichkeit einerEntdeckung und die ineffektivenTorhüterrollen der Verlage und Lek-toren. Es scheint, dass Bibliothekareund LIS-Forscher wenig geneigtsind, unzuverlässige Forschungs-projekte durchzuführen oderungesicherte Ergebnisse zu veröf-fentlichen. Probleme können jedochdann entstehen, wenn Biblio-thekare ungesicherte Forchungs-ergebnisse in ihren Sammlungenverbreiten. Dabei wird jedochandererseits der Sinn des Aus-schlusses aller ungesichertenForschungspublikationen aus denSammlungen auch wieder in Fragegestellt, da ein gewisser Anteil dieserForschungsprojekte unter Umstän-den auch einen Kern von Wahrheitenthalten und somit in der Zukunftdurchaus wieder verläßlicheForschungsprojekte nach sichziehen kann.

Emilia Ferreiro. Librarians andBasic Education Teachers in theContext of ‘Digital Literacy’. [Bib-liothekare und Grundschullehrerim Kontext der ‘digitalen Lese-fähigkeiten’.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 35–44

In diesem Artikel geht es um eine kri-tische Betrachtung des Konzepts der‘digitalen Lesefähigkeiten’. Die Lese-fähigkeit ist nämlich kein statischerZustand. Die Anforderungen an dieLesefähigkeit ändern sich vielmehrmit der Zeit und dem Ort. In unsererZeit haben die ICTs radikale Verän-derungen im Hinblick auf die Erstel-lung und Verbreitung von Texten mitsich gebracht. Dabei haben siejedoch die konzeptuelle Art desProzesses zur Erlangung der Lese-fähigkeit in keiner Weise beeinflusst.Ergründet wird zudem die Bezie-hung zwischen der Grundschule undder Einführung neuer Technologien.Daraus ergibt sich die Schluss-folgerung, dass es zu riskant ist, sich

Zusammenfassungen


ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEN

bei der Verbesserung der Lese-fähigkeiten ausschließlich auf denComputer zu verlassen. Selbst inhoch entwickelten Ländern gelang-en diese nicht in nicht allzu großemUmfang zum Einsatz. Dabei werdenauch Vorschläge zu der besonderenRolle unterbreitet, die die Biblio-thekare im Erziehungskontext zureffektiveren Verwendung der ICTsspielen können. Schließlich ist es so,dass die Bibliothekare diese Tech-nologien bereits jetzt als allgemeinesund effektives Werkzeug verwen-den, während sich die Lehrer hiereher zögernd verhalten.

Elizabeth Reade-Fong und Gary E.Gorman. NGOs, ICTs and Infor-mation Dissemination in Asia andOceania. [NGOs, ICTs und Infor-mationsverbreitung in Asien undOzeanien.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 45–51

Mit dem Schwerpunkt auf der Situ-ation in Asien und Ozeanien betra-chtet dieser Beitrag die Art undWeise, in der NGOs und in einemgewissen Ausmaß auch ICTs Infor-mationen zum Aufbau langfristigerKapazitäten verwenden. DieHypothese lautet, dass Kommu-nikationsstrategien, die die sozialenAspekte des Zugriffs berücksichti-gen, die Wechselwirkung zwischender persönlichen Kommunikationund der Online-Kommunikationerkennen und die Verwendung desInternets mit einer breiten Palettean weiteren neuen und altenMedien kombinieren, die bestenMöglichkeiten für langfristig stabileEntwicklungsinitiativen mit ICTbieten. Dieses Thema wird anhandeiner Reihe von Fragenkonkretisiert: Was sind die Barri-eren für ICT, und wie lässt sich dasdamit verbundene Potenzial real-isieren?

Welches ist die richtige Mischungaus ICT-basierter Informationsver-breitung und den traditionellen überDruckmedien übertragenen Infor-mationen? Wie reagieren unter-schiedliche Kulturen, wennInformationen aus der Ferneanstelle des persönlichen Kontaktsweitergegeben werden? Wie gutarbeiten die NGOs bei der gemein-

samen Nutzung entwicklungsbezo-gener Informationen miteinanderzusammen? Welches sind einige derStimulatoren und Barrieren für eineeffektivere Zusammenarbeit?

J. W. Roos. Copyright Protection asAccess Barrier for People whoRead Differently: the case for aninternational approach. [DasUrheberrecht als Zugangs-schranke für Menschen, die anderslesen: Argumente für eine interna-tionale Strategie.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 52–67

Für Menschen mit Lese-schwierigkeiten stellt das Urhe-berrechtsgesetz eine gewisseZugangsschranke dar. Obwohl sieihr Lesebedürfnis traditionell mitBraille sowie mit Audiomaterialiengestillt haben, sollte man die Analysebei der Betrachtung von Zugangs-fragen nicht nur auf diese Medienbeschränken. In einer sich schnelländernden technologischen Umge-bung werden Übertragungsmedienbenötigt, die nicht aufgrund technol-ogischer Änderungen ständig wiederüberaltert sind, wobei somit ständigwieder neue Zugangsmöglichkeiteneröffnet werden. In einigen Ländernhaben die bestehenden Probleme imZusammenhang mit dem Urheber-recht als Zugangsschranke durchausauch in die Gesetzgebung Einganggefunden; in diesem Zusammen-hang wurde versucht, das Urheber-recht ungültig zu machen. Ausdiesen Versuchen sind jedoch nichtimmer auch völlig zufrieden stel-lende Lösungen hervorgegangen.Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit denbestehenden Zugangsschranken beiDruckmedien aufgrund des Urhe-berrechtsgesetzes. Im Einzelnengeht es dabei um Erfolge wie auchunglückliche Nebenwirkungenvorheriger Versuche zur Entfernungdieser Zugangsschranken; zudemwerden technologische Entwicklun-gen erwähnt, die den Urheberschutzbeeinflussen. Schließlich versuchtder Artikel, die bisherigen Lektionenin diesem Bereich isoliert her-auszustellen.

George R. Ryskamp. EuropeanEmigration Records, 1820–1925.[Unterlagen über europäische

Auswanderungen zwischen 1820und 1925.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 68–75

Einwanderungsakten sind einewunderbare Sache, zeichnen jedochhäufig kein vollständiges Bild derAuswanderer und vernachlässigenviele der Erfahrungen undVorgänge, die diese mitgemachthaben. Europäische Auswan-derungsakten enthalten umfassendeInformationen über einzelneAuswanderer und nennen häufigauch den ursprünglichen Wohnort,aus dem diese kamen. Es gibt aberweder Übersichtslisten über allediese Unterlagen noch eine kom-plette Liste aller Arten von Unterla-gen und Standorte für ein einzigeseuropäisches Land. Bei derBeschreibung der Arbeit des ‘Immi-grant Ancestors Project’ an derBrigham Young – Universität identi-fiziert diese Veröffentlichung dieeinzelnen Arten von Unterlagen, diefür die Auswanderer bei deren Emi-grierung erstellt wurden. Dabeiwerden Beispiele aus diversenLändern angeführt, wo die einzel-nen Arten von Unterlagen aufgefun-den werden können.

Alastair G. Smith. Citations andLinks as a Measure of Effective-ness of Online LIS Journals.[Zitate und Links als Maßstab fürdie Effektivität von Online LIS —Journalen.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 76–84

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Ver-wendung von Zitierungshäu-figkeiten und Web-Links zurBeurteilung von Online – LIS –Journalen. Der so genannte ‘JournalImpact Factor’, ein traditionellesMaß zum Vergleich von Journalen,stützt sich auf die Zitierungshäu-figkeit eines Journals über einengewissen Zeitraum im Verhältnis zuden in diesem Journal publiziertenzitierbaren Artikeln. Der WebImpact Factor (WIF) [die Zitierung-shäufigkeit im Web] wurde alsäquivalentes Maß für Websitesvorgeschlagen. Der WIF ist grobdefiniert als das Verhältnis derLinks zu einer Site, relativ zurAnzahl der Informationseinheiten

Zusammenfassungen

115

(beispielsweise Seiten) auf dieserSite. Die Studie vergleicht die WIFseiner gewissen Auswahl von Online— LIS–Journal — Websites mit derjeweiligen konventionellen Zitier-ungshäufigkeit. Dabei werden dieLinks zu Online–Journalen häufigals äquivalent zu den Zitateneingestuft, hier gibt es jedoch ein-greifende Unterschiede. Der Artikelzeigt auf, wie effektiv dasOnline–Medium im Zusammen-hang mit der Kommunikation derLIS–Forschung ist. Hinzu kommenHinweise für LIS–Autoren undHerausgeber von Journalen, umdiesen bei der effektiven Nutzungder Online–Journale behilflich zusein.

Jutta Weber. The Manuscript Col-lections of Europe: a mirror ofmigration, separation and reunifi-cation as seen in the Alexandervon Humboldt Collection inBerlin. [Die Manuskriptsammlun-gen in Europa: ein Spiegel derMigration, Trennung und erneutenZusammenführung am Beispielder Alexander von Humboldt-Sammlung in Berlin.]IFLA – Journal 31 (2005) Nr. 1,S. 85–89

Manuskripte und ihre Autoren sindimmer auch den jeweiligengeschichtlichen Voraussetzungenunterworfen. Die Geschichte derAlexander von Humboldt — Samm-

lung in Berlin ist eine Geschichte derMigration von Manuskripen, derAbtrennung gewisser Teile dieserSammlung und ihrer erneutenZusammenführung. Daraus ergebensich einige allgemeinere Bemer-kungen. Was passiert, wenn derursprüngliche Standort einesManuskripts nicht sicher ist? Wiekönnen wir die sichere Kon-servierung des Manuskripts an eineranderen Stelle gewährleisten? Esgibt gute Gründe für einen Zusam-menschluss der Institutionen, die indiesem Bereich zusammenarbeitenmöchten. Da wir das Rad derGeschichte nicht zurückdrehenkönnen, müssen wir jetzt und in derZukunft gemeinsam handeln.

Zusammenfassungen

116

Linda Ashcroft y Chris Watts. ICTSkills for Information Profession-als in Developing Countries: per-spectives from a study of theelectronic information environ-ment in Nigeria. [Destrezas en TICpara los profesionales de la infor-mación en los países en vías dedesarrollo: perspectivas de unestudio del entorno de la informa-ción electrónica en Nigeria.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 6–12

Los cambios en el suministro deinformación provocados por laaparición de los recursos de infor-mación electrónicos han dado lugara los subsecuentes cambios en lascapacidades que necesitan los profe-sionales de la información. De losprofesionales de la información seespera ahora que conozcan y seancapaces de utilizar las nuevas tec-nologías de comunicación e infor-mación, así como que posean lasdestrezas comunicativas esenciales.Los organismos profesionales, comoCILIP en el Reino Unido y el ALAen EE.UU., reconocen la impor-tancia de continuar el desarrolloprofesional para mantener lascapacidades y la experiencia actual-izadas en todos los ámbitos detrabajo. La necesidad de tenerdestrezas en TIC tiene un claroefecto en los profesionales de servi-cios de referencia, con el nacimientode los servicios de referencia digi-tales. Un proyecto de investigaciónllevado a cabo en la Liverpool JohnMoores University sobre el sumin-istro de información electrónica enNigeria, identificó una diferenciaconsiderable de destrezas entre losprofesionales de la información. Lacolaboración y la gestión estratégicade los recursos puede ser la clavepara aliviar este problema.

Lynne Brindley. The British Libraryand E-Learning. [La BritishLibrary y el e-learning.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 13–18

Ofrece una visión general delenfoque de la British Libray sobre ele-learning, y describe cómo difer-

entes grupos de estudiantes estánutilizando los recursos de apren-dizaje en línea de la biblioteca.También menciona alguno de losretos de ofrecer un programa deaprendizaje con una gran accesibil-idad, y expone las preguntas queplantean las nuevas posibilidadesde e-learning a las bibliotecasnacionales.

Margareta Brundin. DemocracyBuilding Activities in the SwedishRiksdag; the role of a parliamen-tary library. [Actividades para lademocracia en el Riksdag sueco; elpapel de una biblioteca parlamen-taria.]IFLA Journal Vol. 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 19–27

Describe las actividades de unanueva oficina creada por el Parla-mento de Suecia (el Riksdag) con elpropósito de contribuir activamentea aumentar el conocimiento público— sobre todo el de los jóvenes — delRiksdak y su trabajo, así como quese interesen por él. La Biblioteca delRiksdag contribuye a satisfacer lanecesidad pública de disponer deinformación exacta y de fácil accesosobre el trabajo y las decisiones delRiksdag con su política de puertasabiertas, actividades regionales yformación de bibliotecarios de todaSuecia.

Ann Curry. Unreliable Research:are librarians liable? [Investi-gación poco fiable: ¿Son respons-ables los bibliotecarios?]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 28–34

Examina la historia y los casosactuales de fraude y engaño en lainvestigación, incluidos los motivosde la trasgresión de los investi-gadores: reputación y avance profe-sional, las posibilidades de serdescubierto, y los ineficaces papelesde guardianes realizados por edi-tores y revisores. Según parece, losbibliotecarios y los investigadoresdel LIS no están dispuestos arealizar o publicar estudios pocofiables, pero pueden surgir prob-lemas cuando los bibliotecarios

distribuyen estas investigaciones ensus colecciones. El acierto de retirartoda la investigación poco fiable dela colección es dudoso, ya que partede información podría conteneralgún indicio de verdad que en elfuturo podría constituir una infor-mación fiable.

Emilia Ferreiro. Librarians andBasic Education Teachers in theContext of ‘Digital Literacy’. [Losbibliotecarios y los profesores deeducación básica en el contexto dela ‘Alfabetización digital’.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 35–44

Este artículo analiza en un tonocrítico el concepto de ‘alfabeti-zación digital’ La alfabetización noes un concepto estático. Los requisi-tos de la alfabetización cambiansegún el momento y el lugar. En laactualidad, las TIC introducencambios radicales en el modo deproducir y distribuir los textos. Noobstante, no han cambiado la natu-raleza conceptual del proceso dealfabetización. Se estudia larelación entre la educación básica yla introducción de nuevas tec-nologías, llegando a la conclusiónde que es demasiado arriesgadoconfiar sólo en los ordenadores paramejorar los resultados de la alfabet-ización. Incluso en los países másdesarrollados están infrautilizados.Se realizan propuestas sobre elpapel concreto que deben desem-peñar los bibliotecarios para que lasTIC se utilicen con mayor eficaciaen los contextos educativos. Losbibliotecarios ya han adoptado estastecnologías como una herramientahabitual y eficaz, mientras que losprofesores se resisten a utilizarlas.

Elizabeth Reade-Fong y Gary E.Gorman. NGOs, ICTs and Infor-mation Dissemination in Asia andOceania. [ONGs, TICs y distribu-ción de la información en Asia yOceanía.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 45–51

Este artículo, que se centra el lasituación de Asia y Oceanía, analiza

Resúmenes


RESÚMENES

el modo en que las ONGs utilizan lainformación, y en cierta medida lasTIC, para crear capacidadessostenibles. Se plantea la hipótesisde que las estrategias de comuni-cación que tienen en cuenta la nat-uraleza social del acceso, reconocenla interacción entre las comunica-ciones cara a cara y en línea, y com-binan el uso de Internet con unaamplia gama de otros mediosnuevos y antiguos, proporcionan lasmejores oportunidades de iniciati-vas de desarrollo sostenible medi-ante el uso de las TIC. Esta cuestiónse plantea mediante una serie depreguntas: ¿Cuáles son las barreraspara la adopción de las TIC, y cómose podría realizar su potencial?

¿Cuál sería la mezcla apropiada dedistribución de información basadaen las TIC e información tradicionalimpresa? ¿Cómo reaccionan difer-entes culturas cuando se accede a lainformación remotamente en lugarde cara a cara? ¿Cómo colaboranlas ONGs entre ellas intercam-biando información relacionadacon el desarrollo? ¿Cuáles sonalgunos de los impulsores y barrerasde una colaboración más eficaz?

J. W. Roos. Copyright Protection asAccess Barrier for People whoRead Differently: the case for aninternational approach. [Protec-ción de la propiedad intelectualcomo barrera de acceso para laspersonas que leen de otra forma:las razones de un enfoque interna-cional.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 52–67

Para aquellas personas discapaci-tadas visualmente, la protección dela propiedad intelectual supone unabarrera de acceso. Aunque tradi-cionalmente han utilizado Braille ymateriales de audio para satisfacersus necesidades de lectura, al con-siderar el acceso no deberíamos lim-itarnos exclusivamente al análisis dedichos medios. En un entorno tec-nológico que cambia rápidamente,se necesitan métodos que no caiganen desuso debido al cambio tec-nológico que abre nuevas oportu-nidades de acceso. En múltiplespaíses los problemas creados porla protección de la propiedad

intelectual, como las barreras deacceso, han recibido atención legal amodo de intentos por intentarsuprimirlas. Estos intentos nosiempre han dado lugar a solucionesperfectas. Este artículo trata las bar-reras de acceso a la impresión quegenera la protección de la propiedadintelectual, los subproductos conéxito y los menos afortunados deintentos anteriores por intentaracabar con dichas barreras, y losdesarrollos tecnológicos que afectana la protección de la propiedad int-electual; además, intenta aislar laslecciones aprendidas hasta la fecha.

George R. Ryskamp. EuropeanEmigration Records, 1820–1925.[Registros de emigración europea,1820–1925.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 68–75

Los registros de inmigración sonextraordinarios pero, a menudo,impiden dar un panorama completode los emigrantes y las experienciasy procesos que vivieron. Los reg-istros de emigración europea pro-porcionan una informaciónexhaustiva sobre cada emigrante,incluyendo a menudo su lugar deorigen. No existe ningún estudio detodos estos registros, ni siquiera hayuna lista completa de los tipos deregistros y ubicaciones en cada paíseuropeo. Al describir el trabajo delProyecto de Antepasados Inmi-grantes en la Brigham Young Uni-versity, este artículo identifica losdistintos tipos de registros quegeneraron los emigrantes en elproceso de emigración, ofreciendoejemplos de varios países en los quese pueden encontrar cada tipo dearchivo.

Alastair G. Smith. Citations andLinks as a Measure of Effective-ness of Online LIS Journals. [Ref-erencias y vínculos como medidade la eficacia de los periódicos enlínea del LIS.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 76–84

Examina el uso de los recuentos dereferencias y vínculos web paraevaluar los periódicos en línea delLIS. El Journal Impact Factor(Factor de impacto de periódicos),

un sistema tradicional para com-parar periódicos, se basa en losrecuentos de referencias de un per-iódico en un tiempo determinado,comparado con los artículos quepueden citarse del periódico. ElWeb Impact Factor (Factor deimpacto web) se ha propuesto comoequivalente métrico para sitios web.El WIF se define a grandes rasgoscomo el número de vínculos quedirigen a un sitio, comparado con elnúmero de unidades informativas(páginas) del sitio. El estudiocompara los WIF de una muestra depáginas web de periódicos LIS consus recuentos de referencias con-vencionales. Los vínculos a los per-iódicos en línea suelen considerarseequivalentes a las referencias, perohay diferencias significativas. Esteartículo indica el grado de eficaciadel medio en línea para comunicarla investigación del LIS y ofrece unaguía para los autores del LIS y edi-tores de periódicos para ayudarles ahacer un uso eficaz de los periódi-cos en línea.

Jutta Weber. The Manuscript Col-lections of Europe: a mirror ofmigration, separation and reunifi-cation as seen in the Alexandervon Humboldt Collection inBerlin. [Las colecciones manu-scritas de Europa: un espejo de lamigración, separación y reunifi-cación según la Colección Alexan-der von Humboldt de Berlín.]IFLA Journal 31 (2005) Nº 1,p 85–89

Los manuscritos y sus creadoresestán sujetos a las condiciones de lahistoria. La historia de la ColecciónAlexander von Humboldt de Berlínes una historia de la migración demanuscritos, la separación de partesde la colección, y su reunificación.Esto conduce a algunas considera-ciones más generales. ¿Qué ocurresi la ubicación original de un manu-scrito no es segura? ¿Cómopodemos garantizar una conser-vación segura del manuscrito enotra ubicación? Son rezones depeso para crear una alianza de insti-tuciones que deseen cooperar conrespecto a estas cuestiones. Comono podemos volver atrás en eltiempo, debemos actuar juntosahora y el futuro.

Resúmenes

118

Linda Ashcroft and Chris Watts. ICT Skills for Information Pro-fessionals in Developing Coun-tries: perspectives from a study of the electronic information envi-ronment in Nigeria.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 6–12[Линда Ашкрофт и Крис Ватс. Информационные компьютерные технологии для профессионалов в области информатики в развив-ающихся странах: перспе ктивы, основанные на изучении условий использования электронной инфо-рмации в Нигерии.Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 6–12]

Изменения в обеспечении инфо-рмацией, вызванные появлением источников электронной инфо-рмации, создали значительные изменения в уровне навыков, необходимых профессионалам в области информационных техно-логий. От них не ожидается, что они обладают знаниями и способны использовать возникающие новые информационные технологии или обладают значительными навыками коммуникации. Профессиональные организации, такие как CILIP в Великобритании и ALA в США признают важность непрерывного профессионального развития с целью модернизации навыков и знаний во всех видах работы.

Lynne Brindley. The British Library and E-Learning.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 13–18[Лин Бриндли. Британская библиотека и дистанционное образование через интернет.Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 13–18]

Дает обзор, как Британская библио-тека подходит к дистанционному обучению и как учебный материал из библиотеки на Интернете используется различными группами обучающихся. Также затрагиваются некоторые проблемы составления широкодоступной учебной прогр-аммы и поднимаются вопросы, какие из новых возможностей

дистанционного обучения прием-лимы для национальных библиотек.

Margareta Brundin. Democracy Building Activities in the Swedish Riksdag; the role of a parliamen-tary library.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 19–27[Маргарета Брюндин. Действия, направленные на установление демократии в шведском Риксдак.Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 19–27]

Описывает действия нового отделения, открытого парламентом Швеции (Риксдак), с целью вносить активный вклад в улучшение общественных знаний (особенно знаний молодого поколения) о парламенте Швеции и проявлять интерес к его работе. Библиотека парламента (Риксдака) вносит вклад в удовлетворение потребностей жителей в достоверной и легко доступной информации относительно работы и решений парламента путем открытости в области политики, деятельности в регионах и обучения библиотекарей всей страны.

Ann Curry. Unreliable Research: are librarians liable?IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 28–34[Ан Карри. Ненадежное исследование: в чем обязанности библиотекаря? Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 28–34]

Обращается к современным случаям и примерам из прошлого относительно подлога и обмана в области исследований, включая причины правонарушений исследователей – репутация и продвижение по службе, обращается к теме возможности быть пойманными и неэффективной роли издателей и рецензентов по защите авторских прав. Выяснилось, что библиотекари и исследователи LIS не руководят и не публикуют ненадежное исследование, но про-блемы могут возникнуть, когда библиотекари распространяют нена-дежное исследование через собрание публикаций. Задавались вопросы об

изъятии всех ненадежных иссле-довательских работ из коллекции, однако некоторые исследовательские работы могут содержать частицы достоверной информации, которые могут в будущем привести к достоверном у исследованию.

Emilia Ferreiro. Librarians and Basic Education Teachers in the Context of ‘Digital Literacy’.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 35–44[Эмилия Феррейро. Библиотекари и учителя начальной школы в контексте «Дигитальной грамотн-ости»Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 35–44]

В данной статье критически рассматривается понятие «дигита-льной грамотности». Грамотность не является статическим понятием. Требования грамотности изменяются в зависимости от времени и места. В настоящее время с внедрением информационных компьютерных технологий произошли радикальные изменения относительно способов производства и распространения текстов. Однако, они не изменили в корне суть литературного процесса. Подверглась изучению связь между начальной школой и введением новых технологий, ведущая к заключению, что это слишком большой риск использовать лишь только компьютеры, чтобы достичь успехов в области литературы. Но даже в самых высокоразвитых государствах их используют недостаточно. Предлагается отвести библиотекарям особую роль в деле более эффективного использования информационных компьютерных технологий в сфере образования, так как они уже их освоили и применяют, в то время как учителя неохотно их используют.

Elizabeth Reade-Fong and Gary E. Gorman. NGOs, ICTs and Infor-mation Dissemination in Asia and Oceania.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 45–51[Элизабет Рид-Фонг и Гери Э. Горман. Неправительственные

Рефераты статей

119Copyright © 2005 International Federation of Library Associations & Institutions (www.ifl a.org). IFLA Journal 31(1): 119–121.ISSN: 0340-0352. DOI: 10.1177/0340035205052802

Ρефeраты статей

организации, информационные компьютерные технологии и распространение информации в странах Азии и Океании.Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 45–51]

Обращая особое внимание на ситуацию в Азии и Океании, в этой статье рассматривается, каким образом неправительственные орга-низации используют информацию, а также в некоторой степени и информационные компьютерные технологии (ИКТ) для создания новых возможностей. Гипотетически стратегические направления в области коммуникации принимают во внимание социальную сферу доступа к ним, признают вза-имодействие между личной коммуникацией и коммуникацией через Интернет и комбинируют Интернет с использованием широкого спектра других новых и старых средств массовой информации, чем обеспечивают лучшие возможности для постоянного осуществления инициатив путем использования ИКТ. Мысль выражается путем серии вопросов: В чем заключаются сложности использования ИКТ и как потенциально реализовать их возможности? Что является подходящей комбинацией между распространением информации через средства ИКТ и традиционной печатной информацией? Как реагируют представители различных культур на дистанционную инфо-рмацию по сравнению с переданной лично? Насколько продуктивно сотрудничают неправительственные организации друг с другом в области обмена информацией, связанной с подобным развитием. Что облегчает и что затрудняет более эффективное сотрудничество?

J.W. Roos. Copyright Protection as Access Barrier for People who Read Differently: the case for an international approach.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 52–67[Й.В.Рос. Защита авторских прав как барьер для доступа людей, читающих по-другому: вопрос для рассмотрения на международном уровне.

Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 52–67]

Для людей с ограничениями возмож-ностей чтения защита авторских прав является барьером. Хотя они традиционно используют шрифт Луи Брайля и аудиоматериалы для удовлетворения читательских потребностей, нельзя ограничиваться исключительно анализом этих средств, рассматривая вопросы доступа к информации. В быстро меняющемся технологическом окружении необходимы средства, которые не становились бы абсолютными и достаточными благодаря техническим изменениям, открывающим новые возможности доступа к информации. В ряде стран проблемы, вызванные защитой авторских прав, такие как барьеры доступа, получили внимание со стороны законодательных органов в форме попыток обойти эти права. Подобные попытки не всегда приводят к идеальному решению. Автор этой статьи выражает озабоченность существованием преград доступа к печатной продукции, наложенных защитой авторских прав, что явствует из достижений и неудачных результатов предыдущих попыток борьбы с этими барьерами, связа-нными с развитием технологий, влияющих на защиту авторских прав. Автор старается извлечь пользу из уроков прошлого.

George R. Ryskamp. European Emigration Records, 1820–1925.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 68–75[Джорж Р. Рискамп. Данные европейской эмиграции.Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 68–75]

Записи по европейской иммиграции ведутся, и это прекрасно, но часто в них не удается проследить полную картину эмигрантов, опыт и процессы, через которые они прошли. Записи по европейской эмиграции представляют экстенсивную инф-ормацию об индивидуальных эмиг-рантах, часто включают страну происхождения. Не существует ни одного исследования этих данных, ни в одной европейской стране нет даже полного списка типов записей и мест их расположения. При описании

работы Проект предков-иммигрантов в университете Бригем Йанг (Brigham Young University) эта статья дает определения различным типам записей, созданным эмигрантами в процессе эмиграции, приводятся примеры нескольких стран, где существуют все описанные типы записей.

Alastair G. Smith. Citations and Links as a Measure of Effective-ness of Online LIS Journals.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 76–84[Аластар Г. Смит. Цитата и ссылка как мера измерения эффективности журналов LIS в сети Интернет.Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 76–84]

Исследует использование количества цитат и ссылок, чтобы оценить журналы LIS на сети Интернет. Фактор упоминаний в журналах, традиционная метрическая сист-ема для сравнения журналов, основывается на подсчетах цитат журнала за определенный период времени, сравнивается со статьями, опубликованными в журналах, из которых приводятся цитаты. Фактор использований в сети Интернет (The Web Impact Factor – WIF) был предложен как эквивалентная метрическая система для страниц в Интернете. Более широко его можно определить как соотношение ссылок, сделанных на сайте, сравниваемое с количеством информационных единиц (например, страниц) на данном сайте. В исследовании сравниваются WIF образца или журнала LIS на Интернет-сайте с обычными подсчетами цитат. Считается, что ссылки на журналы на Интернет-сайте эквивалентны цитатам, но существенной разницы не наблюдается. В статье указывается, насколько эффективными являются средства массовой информации на Интернете для коммуникативного исследования LIS, а также предла-гаются инструкции для авторов LIS и редакторов журналов с целью помочь им эффективно использовать журналы на сети Интернет.

Jutta Weber. The Manuscript Collections of Europe: a mirror of migration, separation and reunifi -cation as seen in the Alexander


120

von Humboldt Collection in Berlin.IFLA Journal 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 85–89[Джута Вебер. Собрание рукописей Европы: зеркало миграции, раз-деления и воссоединения – тема коллекции Александра фон Гумбо-льта в Берлине. Журнал ИФЛА 31 (2005) No. 1, pp. 85–89]

Рукописи и другие исследования связаны с историческими условиями их создания. История коллекции Александра фон Гумбольта в Берлине – это история миграции рукописей, разделения частей коллекции и их воссоединения. Это приводит к большому количеству общих замечаний. Что если оригинальное месторасположение рукописи не является безопасным? Как мы

можем гарантировать безопасную сохранность рукописи в другом месте? Существует ряд причин для создания сотрудничества между институтами, желающими сотру-дничать по этим вопросам. Так как мы не можем повернуть вспять колесо истории, нам необходимо сотрудничать сейчас и будущем.


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122Copyright © 2005 International Federation of Library Associations &Institutions (www.ifla.org). IFLA Journal 31(1): 122.ISSN: 0340-0352

NOTES FOR CONTRIBUTORS

Aims and Scope

The IFLA Journal aims to promote and support the aims and core values of IFLA as the global voice of the library and informationprofession by providing authoritative coverage and analysis of (a) the activities of IFLA and its various constituent bodies and members,and those of other bodies with similar aims and interests and (b) completed, ongoing and proposed policies, plans and programmesrelated to the development of library and information services around the world.

Writing for the IFLA Journal

Contributions to the journal may include: original articles and features; news and information about current and forthcoming activi-ties and events in the field of library and information services; reviews or announcements of new publications, products or services;information about education and training opportunities, fellowships, honours and awards; personal news; obituaries; letters to theEditor.

Articles and features

Articles and features are subject to review by the Editorial Committee. Articles and features are normally published only in English.Authors whose first language is not English should not be inhibited from submitting contributions in English because of this; thecorrection of minor grammatical and linguistic errors in English is considered to be an integral part of the editorial process.

There is no rigid stipulation regarding the length of articles and features, but they should normally not be less than 2000 words inlength. Contributions of more than 15,000 words may be published in two or more parts in successive issues.

Article and features should be accompanied by an English-language abstract of not more than 100 words, a brief statement of theprofessional qualifications and experience of the author(s), including current official designation and full address and contact details,and a recent photograph (not a passport photo) of each of the authors suitable for publication.

Authors are expected to check their work carefully before submitting it, particularly with regard to factual accuracy, completenessand consistency. They should provide sufficient background information to enable readers unfamiliar with the activity or country beingdescribed to understand it easily. Acronyms and abbreviations should be used sparingly; they should be spelled out in full the first timethey are used.

Other contributions

The primary language of publication for contributions other than articles and features is English, but such contributions may bepublished in the other working languages of IFLA – French, German, Russian or Spanish – if appropriate.

Illustrative material

Contributors are encouraged to submit photographs and other illustrations to accompany their contributions. Statistical data should,if possible, be presented in the form of charts or diagrams, rather than tables.

Bibliographical references

References should follow the full form stipulated in ISO 690-1975, Documentation – bibliographical references – essential and supple-mentary elements, using either the numeric or the Harvard method of citation in the text. Lists of references should appear at the endof a contribution, not as footnotes.

Copyright

Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright clearance for the publication of any copyrighted material (including illustrativematerial) which may be included in their contribution.

Format

All contributions should, whenever possible, be submitted in standard electronic formats, either as e-mail attachments or on 3.5 inchdiskettes. The preferred format for textual matter is MS Word. Contributors who are unable to submit their work in electronic formatshould supply textual matter in clearly typewritten manuscript. Photographs may be in colour or black and white. They should besubmitted either in electronic format (300 dpi equivalent) format or in hard copy as positive prints or transparencies. Other illustra-tions should be suitable for publication without further treatment.

Publication

The decision of the Editorial Committee with regard to the publication of any article or feature is final. Other contributions arepublished at the discretion of the Editor, if necessary after consultation with the Editorial Committee.

Authors of articles, features and reviews will receive one complimentary copy of the issue in which their work appears.

Submission

All contributions (except advertisements), in whatever format, should be addressed to: Stephen Parker, Editor, IFLA Journal, c/oIFPRI-ISNAR Program, ILRI, PO Box 5689, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Tel. +251 1 463 215; Fax: +251 1 461 252/464 645. E-mail:[email protected]

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