IFLA 2002 in Glasgow was by all accounts another successful conference. Over 4000 registrants had a good time and the
week proved to be the highlight of this year's Scottish summer with warm and dry weather. We missed the members of our
standing committee who could not be with us and we anticipate a busy year of involvement from all members as we look
forward to our work leading up to Berlin.
The Open Session from all accounts and evaluations was well received and the topic of Electronic Resource Licensing
was timely and relevant to a large audience. Special thanks go to the committee of Ray Schwartz, Phillippe Raccah and
Mette Stockmarr who worked hard on identifying speakers and formulated this interesting program and brought it to
Glasgow.
The site visit to Heriot-Watt University organized by Marianne Nordlander was flawless and host, Michael Breaks treated
us to wonderful hospitality and a program of interesting speakers from his own library and other local colleagues in
Edinburgh who each made interesting presentations about resource sharing and digital initiatives. Roddy MacLeod,
developer of the EEVL database (Internet Guide to Engineering, Mathematics and Computing) shared insights about the
current and future directions of this important and globally used database; Cate Newton from the National Library of
Scotland spoke about Scottish and UK strategies for site licensing and John MacColl from the University of Edinburgh
talked about distance education and outreach efforts by science libraries to diverse learning environments.
Afterwards we all went in to central Edinburgh and had a chance to visit the National Library of Scotland and see the
exquisite exhibition of the "Treasures of the Forbidden City," before attending the evening's highlight at the Military Tattoo.
The downpour ended as the first procession entered the stadium on the grounds of the Castle for a memorable evening.
Now, the plans and agenda for this year. A small committee to be led by Tovah Reis will proceed with our project that
will examine a needs assessment of sci-tech libraries in less developed and developing countries.
Also, plans are well underway for the 2003 IFLA Conference in Berlin. Our section will co-sponsor an Open Session with
the Health and Biosciences Libraries Section on Bioinformatics and share a site visit to several institutions in Potsdam for
our Field Trip.
Our meetings were productive and we welcomed several visitors. We shared good insights about our liaison partners
with other sci/tech library groups around the world. We want to grow those relationships and expand them. We want to
cultivate new friends from South America as we begin to think of the 2004 conference in Argentina. I hope that everyone
will review the minutes, participate on our listserv and contribute to newsletters and the section website during the year.
Please continue to share ideas and conference plans.
With appreciation and best wishes,
Julia Gelfand
Chair and Treasurer
Ms. Julia Gelfand
Research & Instruction Division, Science Library
University of California Irvine
PO Box 19556, Irvine, CA 92623-9556, USA
Phone: (1) 949/824-4971 Fax: (1) 949/824-3114
E-mail:
jgelfand@uci.edu
Secretary and Information Coordinator
Ms. Irma Pasanen
Helsinki University of Technology
Library
PO Box 7000, 02015-HUT, Finland
Phone: (358)(9)451-4125 Fax: (358)(9)451-4132
E-mail:
irma.pasanen@hut.fi
Report from 68th IFLA General Conference
2002 in GLASGOW
Farewell from Outgoing Chair
The Standing Committee met twice, on Saturday Aug.
17th and on Friday, Aug. 23rd at the City Inn Meeting
Room 1. The meetings had good representation in
attendance: Jan Companjen (the Netherlands), Julia
Gelfand (Chair)(USA), Olga Lavrik (Russia), Ingar
Lomheim (Norway), Marianne Nordlander (Sweden),
Irma Pasanen (Secretary)(Finland), Philippe Raccah
(France), Tovah Reis (USA), Raymond Schwartz (USA),
Werner Stephan (Germany), Mette Stockmarr
(Denmark), and Andrei Zemskov (Russia) were present.
As special advisors Helga Schwarz (Germany) and
Patricia Yocum (USA) and as observers Anna-Marie
Arnold (South Africa) and Fiona Ainsworth (UK)
participated in meetings.
The section brochure has been updated and the English
version is available via IFLANET. Standing Committee
members agreed to organize the translations of a German,
French and Russian version of the brochure. The Open
Session on Electronic licensing was successful with well
over 100 participants all throughout the session. From the
evaluations it was clear that it was well received and
combined a progressive framework with practical advice
and structure. Only one of the speakers gave a formal
paper which again highlighted the difficulty of
documenting the excellent sessions. Hence it was decided
that the presentation slides will be made available as a
PDF-file via the section homepage as a newsletter
supplement at
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s7/sstl.htm. Our
study tour to Heriot-Watt University outside of
Edinburgh was very successful with 37 participants.
Between the Standing Committee meetings the members
were active and attended among others regional group
meetings (South-America, Asia and Oceania), a Publisher
Relations Advisory Committee (PRAC) meeting and the
IFLA president-elect's brainstorming session.
Furthermore, the section project was discussed and
following was agreed: the scope needs to be redefined
and narrowed and work already done in the area needs to
be assessed and compiled. The objective is to have this
work completed by Berlin 2003 conference.
The minutes of the meeting will be available in PDFformat
via the section homepage
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s7/sstl.htm
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Participants of the Sci-Tech Study Tour enjoying the hospitality of the Heriot-Watt University Library |
|
IFLA Section of Science and Technology Libraries Project - Revised
Scientific and Technological Libraries in Less-Developed and Developing Countries by Tovah Reis
The project will aim to gather on a Web site information and links to reports and studies that have been done about the
needs of scientific and technological libraries in less-developed and developing countries. To compile this list, we will
search the library literature as well as the subject literature. Information will be gathered about agencies, foundations,
associations and vendors that assist scientific and technological libraries, in emergencies or on a regular basis, with print or
electronic resources. Contact will be made with such organizations as UNESCO and the British Council to find out if they
have supported or published any reports on the needs of scientific and technological libraries. Within the global library
community we will check with IFLA's Advancement of Librarianship Programme (ALP), the TEEAL (The Essential
electronic Agricultural Library) project at Cornell University, and others. In addition, we will form contact with the
IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellows Program, as the fellows submit a report about libraries in their countries
before they come to Dublin, Ohio, and they maintain contact via listserv after their fellowship is over. In addition, a
message will be sent out on the IFLA listserv to solicit information. If it is found that we need to narrow the scope of the
project it could be limited by language (to only material published in the IFLA languages), by type of science (limit to
physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, astronomy, and geology), or by region. One of the main objectives of
the project is to set up the web site so that information can be added to it, after the project is completed.
The project type will be a literature survey and development of a web site to be on the Science and Technology Libraries
Section's homepage. The estimated duration of the project is 11 months and the objective is to have it completed by August
31, 2003. Tovah Reis from the Standing Committee will have overall supervision of the project. Linda Watkins from the
Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at Simmons College will contribute to the work and supervise the
work of the Simmons student(s). The results will be disseminated via IFLANET, Sci-Tech Newsletter, IFLA listserv as well
as IFLA Journal.
The members of the Science and Technology Libraries section are encouraged to share their information related to the
project with Tovah and Linda. Please contact them at
| |
Tovah Reis
Sciences Library, Box I, Brown University,
Providence, RI 02912, U.S.A.
Tel: 401-863-3334
Email: Tovah_Reis@Brown.edu |
|
Linda Watkins
Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences
Simmons College
300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617-521-2824
Email: lwatkins@simmons.edu |
|
Coming up: an exciting and timely Berlin Open Session and Study Tour
BIOINFORMATICS: An Evolution of Two Decades
The last twenty years has seen the metamorphosis of a new discipline when the early days suggested that
bioinformatics was defined as only data collection, analysis and dissemination. Today, the scope includes a range of
applications forming a new corporate technology and infrastructure at the intersection of molecular biology and
computer science. Since bioinformatics is both an enabling and enabled technology, the convergence is more
specifically with biotechnology, information technology and nanotechnology, each important emphases of applied
and life sciences that cross computational biology with the bioinformation infrastructure. The greatest achievement
of bioinformatics methods may be the Human Genome Project and the research process may be described as
biologically inspired computation known as genetic algorithms. This program will feature three speakers who will
explain different research paths of bioinformatics and demonstrate the directions it may continue to take on the
global horizon with implications and challenges it holds for libraries and institutions.
The Sci-Tech study tour will take us to the Geoscientific Research Institute in Potsdam. |
Introduction of the Standing Committee 2001-2003
members continues
Jan Companjen
Jan Companjen is the chief librarian of the Haagse
Hogeschool (The Hague Polytechnic, The Netherlands).
The library is serving 16.000 students in 15 departments
on 2 locations and the number of teaching staff at Haagse
Hogeschool is about 1400. Jan Companjen started his
career after graduation in language, literature and
librarianship in library automation, working for PICAlibrary
services. In 1981 he switched to library education,
initially as lector, later as director of school for library
science an information studies in The Hague. He has held
his current post since 1995.
Jan is involved in activities of the Dutch library
association NVB, especially in consortium initiatives of
the department of polytechnic libraries.
Raymond Schwarz
Raymond Schwartz is the ILL/Serials/Database Librarian
of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Since his
graduation from Columbia University's School of Library
Service in1991, he has worked in a variety of positions.
Ray was a cataloguer for the National Library of
Medicine from 1991 to 1993. In 1994, he was the
Electronic Resources Librarian for the Library of Science
and Medicine at Rutgers University. From 1995 to early
1998, he served as the Media Services Librarian for the
Dana Library of Rutgers University-Newark. In his
present position which he has held since 1998, he is
responsible for all aspects of the interlibrary loan, serials,
binding and database operations of the Institute's main
and branch libraries. The database operations include the
selection, licensing, and evaluation of online resources.
In addition, he is responsible for the HTML maintenance
of the web-based online catalogue. In the past, Ray has
chaired the SIG/Classification Research of ASIST (1995)
and was a member of the ALA/ALCTS Catalogue Form
and Function Committee (1994-99). In addition, ASIST
awarded him the 1996 SIG member of the Year Award.
Presently he serves on two subcommittees (System
Interface and ILL) of the New Jersey state-wide database
consortium (VALE). Ray is also a keen photographer and
his contribution to the newsletter is greatly appreciated.
Andrei Zemskov
Andrei Zemskov is the director of the Russian National
Public Library for Science and Technology in Moscow.
He made a long career in nuclear and plasma physics
research before becoming the director of the Russian
NPLS&T,
http://www.gpntb.ru in 1990. Andrei is the
vice-president of the Russian Library Association and
president of the IARSTL (International Association of
Research and SciTech Libraries); he chairs the Learned
Councils of Russian NPLS&T and is a member of the
Russian State Library and Russian Book Chamber and
the Russian Nuclear Society. Andrei also serves in the
advisory Board of ILIAC and is the chief editor of the
SciTech Libraries Journal, Moscow. Andrei has
published more than 70 publications in the fields of
physics and librarianship. His current interests include
free access to information, strategic planning,
performance evaluations, copyright, electronic archives
and Internet navigation. He was awarded with the Order
of Merit in 1976 and the Order of Friendship in1998, he
has won the Silver Medal of All-Union Exhibition and he
received the Diploma of Russian Ministry of Science and
Technological Policy in 1998.
Report from LIBER 2002 by Philippe Raccah
The European research libraries league LIBER (Ligue des
Bibliotheques Europeennes de Recherche) held its 31
st annual
conference in Graz July 2-5 2002 and the 175 participants came
from 26 different countries. A good number of interesting
papers on a variety of topics were presented under the overall
theme
European Libraries as Portals to Information. Research,
electronic publishing and the role of libraries was discussed
with a call for support to a world-wide distribution system of
intelligence such as SPARC and Biomed. Virtual reference
services were seen as new opportunities for libraries and a few
case studies were presented. Another case, a project by the
Open Society Institute, the eIFL is providing affordable access
to electronic scholarly resources in nearly 40 less-developed
countries. The presentations also included case studies of recent
initiatives and state-of-the-art reviews such as the “In Place”
project of the British Library
(
http://www.bl.uk/about/inplaceintro.html), the revised
organisation models of the Utrecht University Library in the
Netherlands, OCLC-PICA and the cataloguing in the BnF
(National Library of France) as well as the Blue Shield
initiative protecting cultural heritage.
Report from IATUL 2002 by Julia Gelfand
The annual meeting of the International Association of
Technological University Libraries (IATUL) took place in
Kansas City, Missouri June 2-6, 2002 and was hosted by the
Linda Hall Library (
www.lhl.mo.us) and the University of
Missouri, Kansas City (
www.umkc.edu/library). The theme of
the conference was "Partnerships, Consortia, & 21st Century
Library Services," and about 125 persons attended from nearly
30 countries. There were several invited keynote speakers and
several tracks of concurrent papers and poster sessions.
Scholarly communication issues of the 21st century in a global
context were explored by librarians as well as publishers,
technology providers and other stakeholders. IATUL is a fully
inclusive conference that runs for 4 days including a one-day
field trip to area libraries. The social aspects of IATUL are
nearly as important as the academic reasons to attend and the
IATUL conferences are known for their very special friendly
atmosphere. The conference proceedings are available at
http://www.iatul.org/conference/proceedings.html
Report from ALA Science and Technology Section 2002 by Julia Gelfand
The American Library Association (ALA) met in Atlanta,
Georgia June 14-19, 2002. Organizationally complex, ALA
runs more than 2,000 meetings, discussion groups and programs
on topics affecting all libraries. The three divisions that best
support our IFLA interests are the Library & Information
Technology Association (LITA), the Science & Technology
Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries
(ACRL - STS) and the Reference and Users Services
Association (RUSA). Themes that were prevalent reinforced the
universality of IFLA's interests: service to diverse user
communities; digital reference; learning communities,
publishing standards; access to and economics of library
collections. STS Open Program was on "Old, New, Borrowed
and Blue: Science & Technology Intelligence Property Issues in
the Digital Age." A poster session followed. There were many
relevant discussion groups and the tradeshow is always very
useful. STS issues a number of publications including Issues in
Science & Technology Libraries (ISTL) and I encourage you to
visit
http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/
Report from EBHL 2002 by Fiona Ainsworth
Horticultural Libraries (EBHL) Group took place in 23-24 May
2002 in London. This two day meeting comprised a mixture of
talks and tours. There were around 50 delegates from the
various European botanical and horticultural libraries and one
guest from the EBHL's North American counterpart, CBHL
(Congress of Botanical and Horticultural Libraries). The first
day was held at the RHS's garden at Wisley in Surrey. After a
brief business meeting, there were interesting presentations on
cataloguing of nursery catalogues, the photographing of
watermarks using light transmission techniques and using the
watermark to date the paper. After the presentations there was
a tour of the beautiful gardens at Wisley. The second day
included a visit to the library of Westminster Abbey, an old
library where the shelves are uneven and the books big, heavy
leather-bound books. The Abbey also has a tranquil garden, a
real oasis in the bustle of Westminster. Presentations included
the Flora Graeca Project (which aims to digitise images from
the Flora Graeca), xylotheks (wooden boxes made to look like
books and containing tree material), and seed catalogues
(creating holdings information for all EBHL members). Library
statistics and trends in visitor numbers were also discussed. The
meeting closed with a tour of the recently refurbished library at
the RHS and a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show.
(
http://www.ub.gu.se/Gb/ebhl/home.htm).
Fiona Ainsworth is a librarian & information officer at the
Millennium Seed Bank Project at the Royal Botanic Gardens,
Kew, UK.
Report from NCSC 2002 by Irma Pasanen
The Nordic Conference on Scholarly Communication was held
in Lund, Sweden and in Copenhagen, Denmark October 22.-24.
2002. This conference with some 200 delegates was the first of
an intended series of biennial events. Lund University Libraries
together with the Denmark's Electronic Research Library,
Danish Research Library Association and Novo Nordisk
Library and Information Centre hosted the conference. A
number of excellent speakers had been invited to discuss
current issues regarding scientific information dissemination
and electronic publishing. The presentations were a good mix of
opinions, case-studies and ongoing projects. After the intensive
three days it was clear to all involved that scholarly
communication is a lot more than journals, open access is an
ambiguous concept, author behaviour will guide the publishing
process and user education is needed. The presentations will be
available through the conference website at
http://www.lub.lu.se/ncsc2002/
Report from ASEE/ELD 2002
ASEE/ELD met in Montreal, Quebec June 18-21, 2002 and by
all accounts this was a very successful conference. Always an
interesting and relevant conference this year's appeared to be no
exception. This brief listing invites you to find additional
documentation about some of the sessions:
By the Bootstraps:
Building an Engineering Collection from the Group Up
(
http://www.yorku.ca/jdupuis/asee2002);
Biology for Engineers: Progress on a New Text
(
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/Bioreng/johnson.htm);
CrossRef Collaborative Reference Linking Service, Adaptation
by Publishers of New Information Technologies, and Role of
XML, Metadata Standards, Simultaneous Search and Local
Reference Linking
(
http://dli.grainger.uiuc.edu/idli/asee02/index.htm); a Collection
Issues Forum and a Digital Libraries Forum rounded out the
meeting.
Upcoming Conferences
IFLA 69th IFLA General Conference and Council Access Point Library:
Media – Information - Culture. August 1
st - 9
th 2003, Berlin,
Germany.
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla69/index.htm
IATUL (International Association of Technological University Libraries) The 24th IATUL Conference ”Libraries and Education in the
Networked Environment” in Ankara, Turkey, June 2-5, 2003. The Middle East Technical University is proud to host the conference.
http://www.lib.metu.edu.tr/iatul03
SLA (Special Libraries Association) 2003 SLA Annual Conference in New York City, N.Y., USA. June 7-12, 2003. Theme: ”Putting
Knowledge to Work”.
http://www.sla.org
ALA (American Library Association) ALA Annual Conference jointly with the Canadian Library Association CLA in Toronto, Ontario,
Canada June 19-25, 2003.
http://www.ala.org and
http://www.cla.ca/conference/cla_ala2003.htm
LIBER (European Research Libraries) 32nd Annual General Conference
”Extending the network: partnership and cooperation” in
Rome, Italy. June 17-20, 2003.
http://www.kb.dk/liber/
EUNIS 2002 9th International Conference of European University Information Systems
“Beyond the Network - New Innovative Services” July
2-4 2003, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
http://www.ic.uva.nl/eunis2003
ASEE/ELD (American Society of Engineering Education - Engineering Libraries Division) 2003 Conference is in Nashville, Tenn, USA,
June 22-25, 2003.
http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual2003
IFLANET NEWS
There are several new documents available via the section homepage
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s7/sstl.htm:
• minutes of the Glasgow meetings
• presentation slides of the Glasgow Open Session: Negotiating with Friends or Foes
• section brochure in English
These documents are all in PDF-format.
Forum of the IFLA Science and Technology Libraries Section
*** stl-sc@infoserv.inist.fr ***
The Sci-Tech list forum continues to grow and currently there are 78 members on the list from all over the world. All
interested in the work of the Sci-Tech Section are welcomed to join. Please see
http://infoserv.inist.fr/wwsympa.fcgi/info/stl-sc for instructions to join.
North American mirror of IFLANET now launched
IFLA is very pleased to announce that the IFLANET North American mirror site, hosted by Queens Borough Public
Library, Jamaica, New York, USA, is now up and running. Please visit at:
http://ifla.queenslibrary.org/
Or simply click on "North America" on IFLANET homepage at:
http://www.ifla.org/
IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions
P.O. Box 95312
2509 CH The Hague
Netherlands
Tel. +31 70 3140884
Fax +31 70 3834827
E-mail: IFLA@ifla.org
