Kinetic Foundation for Armenian Retrospection

In less than two months we will gather in Berlin for the 2003 IFLA World Library and Information Conference. The programs appear to be set and we can optimistically look forward to what will be a meaningful and memorable meeting in one of the world's most interesting cities. I want to acknowledge the hard work of our Standing Committee colleague, Werner Stephan and our former member, Helga Schwarz who have taken responsibility for planning and organizing a very substantive meeting with the very timely topic, "Bioinformatics" for our Open Session and an exciting day trip to Potsdam. Our programs this year are being co-sponsored by the Health and Biosciences Section and are more fully described in this newsletter.

Our work in IFLA this year has been substantive and full. After a slow start, we appear to be on track with our research project being led by Tovah Reis. She and our colleagues at the Simmons College School of Library & Information Science are proceeding with building a website that demonstrates gathered information regarding studies and reports about the needs of scientific and technological libraries in less-developed and developing countries. When the project is completed later this year, the information will be accessible on IFLANET, and from our Section website. A progress report will be made in Berlin.

Other IFLA activities that we have engaged in include:
• Responding to the Green Light for IFLA - a consultation paper about IFLA's future reorganization
• Formalizing our liaison relationships with sponsoring and related professional organizations
• Revising our section's Mission Statement
• Preparing for the Section's evaluation in 2007

At this conference the first order of business will be the elections of our officers for 2003-05. We also will be welcoming new members of our Standing Committee and according to the roster sent to me, new and renewing members for the 2003-2007 term include:
Anne Mette Vibe, Norway
Oonayang N. Dilebanye, Botswana
Gregory Youngen, USA
Reinhard Supper, Germany
Josee Saint-Marseille, Canada
Suk Young Kim, Republic of Korea
Rivkah Frank - renewing from Israel
Julia Gelfand - renewing from USA

There is always a lot of work to be done - please consider which of the two upcoming meetings you want to help in the planning for - 2004 in Buenos Aires or 2005 in Oslo and be willing to volunteer for other projects as they are launched. It is always much easier if we have a small committee to share the distribution of work.

Hopefully, everyone is in the planning stages of making arrangements for travel to Berlin. We look forward to seeing you there.

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

JOIN THE SCI-TECH OPEN SESSION AND WORKSHOP AT
WORLD LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CONGRESS:
69th IFLA General Conference and Council, Berlin, 1-9 August 2003
At IFLA 2003 Berlin the Science and Technology Libraries Section will organize together with the Health and Biosciences Libraries Section a very interesting Open Session ”BIOINFORMATICS: An Evolution of Two Decades”

The last twenty years has seen the metamorphosis of a new discipline. Bioinformatics, while initially defined as the simple process of data collection, analysis and dissemination, it has emerged into an independent discipline. Today the field includes a wide range of applications linking molecular biology with computer science forming a new corporate technology and infrastructure to support this intersection. The recent convergence with biotechnology, information technology and nanotechnology has emphasized applied and life sciences that cross computational biology with the bio-information infrastructure including genetic algorithms, such as the Human Genome Map.

The program will feature three speakers who will explain different research paths of bioinformatics and demonstrate the directions on the global horizon which have implications and challenges for libraries and institutions.

Bioinformatics: Dataquality and the Problem of Annotations. Dr. Heiko Liesegang (Goettingen Genomics Laboratory, Institute of Microbiology & Genetics, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany)
Bioinformatics and the Concept of the Virtual Special Library in Germany. M.Sc. Martin Bomeke (Universitatsbibliothek Hannover und Technische Informationsbibliothek, Hannover, Germany)
A New 'Literature Navigator' and the Problems in Bioinformatics. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Hassels (IBM Germany, Germany)

Our WORKSHOP will be an off-site Study Tour to Potsdam by coach with English-speaking guide. The workshop will be hosted jointly by the IFLA Science & Technology Section and Health & Biological Sciences Section. This will be a full-day trip to visit the leading international center for geospatial research GFZ, GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (URL http://www.gfzpotsdam. de/), on Thursday, 7 August 2003 with additional sightseeing in Potsdam. The tour is available to 40 members of these two IFLA sections and their registered accompanying persons. Please note that information regarding the SCI-Tech Study Tour to Potsdam will not be posted in the IFLA Registration or Daily Schedule of Activities.

Pregistration is ESSENTIAL. Please e-mail Jean Poland (jp126@cornell.edu), space available will go to registrants by receipt of registration. A confirmation of registration will be sent and final meeting place noted. This tour is made possible by sponsorship from the German headquarters of Dynix and for which we are most grateful.

Sci-Tech Study Tour on Thursday, 7 August 2003

Agenda:
8:45 am - Meet Bus at Assigned location at the Berlin Congress Center
9:00 am - Departure from Berlin to Potsdam
10:00 am - Arrival at the GFZ and Welcome by Mr. Bertelmann
10:15 am - Orientation to the GFZ Central Library, tour of historic rooms
11:45 am - Light Lunch
12:30 pm - Presentations by the following scientists:

Franz Ossing: System Earth: Our Dynamic Planet

Ronald Conze - Information Management for International Continental Scientific Drilling Projects

14:00 pm - Walking Tour of the GFZ Scientific Parc including a visit to the Einstein Tower
14:30 pm - Begin Potsdam Tour with stops at the following sites:

Castle of Cecilienhof

Drive Around Tour of Potsdam through the Dutch Quarter, Androwka, Parc of Sanscouci

17:15 pm - Return to Berlin
18:00 pm - Arrival at Berlin Convention Center

REGISTRATION - please send to Jean Poland at the Cornell University Libraries at jp126@cornell.edu - registration confirmed by E-mail and preference given to date/time of response.

Plan ahead and mark your calendars with the following IFLA 2003 Sci-Tech events:

Sci-Tech Standing Committee I meeting Saturday 2 August at 08.30-11.20

Open session on Tuesday 5 August at 13.45-15.45

Workshop Study Tour on Thursday 7 August all day (please remember to preregister with Jean Poland!)

Sci-Tech Standing Committee II meeting Friday 8 August at 10.15-12.15

IFLA NEWS

IFLA to evaluate Section work
The Professional Committee has decided that it will carry out a thorough review of IFLA Sections in 2007. It has agreed to do this in the light of the recent increase in the number of Sections, arising from the decision to translate a number of former Discussion Groups into Sections, and the later decision to translate most of the former Round Tables into Sections. The context of the review is the successful introduction of the new Statutes and Rules of Procedure, together with the adoption of a set of Core Values and the Professional Priorities agreed by the Committee. These changes, combined with improvements to the annual conference, are helping to revitalise the Federation. The Professional Committee has invited the Standing Committees to review their objectives and the means available to achieve them. It believes that, by setting the date for the review at 2007, it is providing a good opportunity for both well-established Sections and the newer ones to conduct their own reviews within a realistic time frame. The Professional Committee has not yet set out any criteria for the review but is expected to do so in the near future.

A new IFLA leaflet
The IFLA's Professional Sections Leaflet will be prepared by the IFLA Headquarters. To make it easier for members and potential members to have a quick overview of the activities of the IFLA Sections as a whole a mission statement together with the IFLANET address of each section will be found in the leaflet. IFLA Headquarters will use this leaflet at the IFLA stand, at IFLA conferences and other conferences, together with the Membership Leaflet as a main recruitment tool. For this leaflet the following was submitted:
Mission Statement for Science & Technology Section
The section supports librarianship and professional competencies of librarians in the fields of science and technology. The section takes interest in and responds to current challenges about collecting materials in, and offering access to information relevant to physical sciences, engineering and technology. Forms of activity include monitoring the dynamic environment in the field, promoting discussions as well as exploring and sharing best practices among members who serve in research, public, corporate and government libraries. Working with colleagues in developing nations is a high priority. The section has established relations with other IFLA sections and international professional organizations relevant to the field.

The Sections can continue preparing own Section leaflets and use that for their membership recruitment as well. The current Membership Information Brochure 2002 for Science and Technology Section can be found at IFLANET at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s7/news/mbrochure.pdf

NEWS FROM MEMBER LIBRARIES:
South Caucasus Region library co-operation fosters
A two-year library development programme to improve access to information in the South Caucasus was launched by the American Library Association in September 2002. The project objective is to establish relations and strengthten co-operation among the university libraries, promote inter-library membership and inter-library book exchange and support the electronic library development and document delivery mechanisms. The project has received support from the Carnegie Foundation, and the project will be conducted in collaboration with the state universities of Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan and the library associations of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. To inaugurate this project, a 4-day workshop was held from 27 to 30 September 2002, at the American University of Armenia (AUA), with participation of delegates from libraries and universities from the United States, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

Within the framework of fostering the civil society the Armenian Library Association, together with its sister associations of Georgia and Azerbaijan is implementing the Caucasian Librarian Retraining Centers project, which has been funded by the Eurasia Foundation. In the capital cities of the region, Tbilisi, Baku, and Yerevan, a number of courses for the retraining of library workers have been organized in 2000-2002. Furthermore, a Library Guide and Who is Who of the South Caucasus Libraries (Russian and English) is being prepared for publication.

Reported by Rafayel Harutyunyan, Armenia.


	Representatives from the American Library Association Photo: Rafayel Harutyunyan		The Azerbaijan delegation Photo: Rafayel Harutyunyan

UPCOMING EVENTS EDCL 2003,. the 7th European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries. August 17-22, 2003, Trondheim, Norway http://www.ecdl2003.org/

2003 Conference on Users in the Electronic Information Environments. September 8-9, Helsinki, Finland
http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/finelib/digilib/

EDUCAUSE 2003 Annual Conference "Balancing Opportunities, Expectations, and Resources," November 4–7, Anaheim, California, USA. http://www.educause.edu/conference/annual/2003/

Online Information 2003 London, United Kingdom. 2-4 December 2003. http://www.online-information.co.uk

GL 5, International Conference on Grey Literature. ”Grey Matters in the World of Networked Information” Celebrating GL Conferences 1993-2003. Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 4-5 December 2003. http://www.textrelease.com/pages/2/

7th International Bielefeld Conference 2004. ”Thinking beyond Digital Libraries - Designing the Information Strategy for the next decade”. 3 - 5 February 2004 in Bielefeld, Germany.

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