IFLA delegates didn't have to go far to see Rembrandt's famous Night Watch: "Living painting" performers brought it to them at the Opening Session, where the audience was also enveloped with strands of yarn thrown from the stage, creating what a conference organizer called "a network linking us all together."

IFLA President Christine Deschamps and friend. The teddy bear is the symbol of Berlin, commemorating the announcement that the 2003 conference would be held there.

Enjoying the opening reception are (from left) June Matlala of the Center for Educational Technology and Distance Education in Pretoria, South Africa; Ellen Ndeshi Namhila, deputy director for library and information services of the Parliament of Namibia; and Rob Brian, New South Wales, Australia, Parliamentary Librarian.

Free Expression Takes Center Stage
at IFLA in Amsterdam,
August 16–21, 1998

The standing committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Free Expression, established last year at IFLA's Copenhagen conference (AL, Oct. 1997, p. 26–29), had its initial meetings in Amsterdam. FAIFE's goals, as put forth by Chair Alex Byrne of Australia, are to promote freedom of access to information and free expression as fundamental human rights vital to the mission of libraries; to become the leading international organization responding to attacks and limitations on libraries; and to support and assist organizations worldwide that are addressing these issues. Jim Ristarp, who along with Carsten Frederiksen is staffing FAIFE's Copenhagen office, added that the committee's ambition is "to make this issue the key issue in IFLA in a few years." The committee's mandate comes from Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the UNESCO Public Library Manifesto.

The challenge before the committee is illustrated by the diverse backgrounds of its 22 members, who hail from nations with widely disparate traditions of intellectual freedom. "Freedom of speech and access to information is a brand new topic for me and most librarians in China as well," confessed Qihao Miao, deputy director of the Shanghai Library, "but we are interested in learning." Adding to the challenge, the committee's office has only been funded by the Danish government for two years, pressuring the group to promptly produce some initial results.

Another new standing committee, on copyright and legal matters, also met for the first time in Amsterdam. Although the group's major concern is expected to be the thorny issues surrounding copyright, Chair Marianne Scott, the National Librarian of Canada, said that its purview also includes licensing, the impact of the large numbers of mergers of information providers, concerns over the Multinational Agreement on Investment, and the destruction of cultural property in wars or other disasters. The committee also wants to establish a worldwide committee of experts that IFLA can consult at short notice to ensure that the library community's voice is heard when these issues arise.

The conference, which was attended by a record-breaking 3,328 people from 120 countries, saw those concerns—free expression and copyright—reflected in three guest lectures. The FAIFE guest lecture was delivered by Algerian journalist Ahmed Ancer, who has been living in Amsterdam following attacks from Islamic fundamentalists in his homeland, where nearly 60 journalists have been killed over the past few years. Noting that all the country's institutions, including libraries, are under the domination of the Islamic authorities, Ancer told his audience that "In effect, we are in the same field. I'm talking about the circulation of information, access to information, and freedom of information."

Another guest lecture, on library-publisher relations in the next millennium, wound up focusing on copyright matters. Dietrich Gotze, managing director of Springer Verlag, said that for the good of library users, publishers and librarians must work together to resolve such intellectual-property issues as fair use. "In the past we were sitting in different boats in the same river," said Gotze. "Now we are in the same boat." Jane Carr, head of the British Library's publishing program, observed that most of the disagreements between publishers and librarians have not been about copyright per se, "but about who pays." Marianne Scott said that although publishers feel that copyright law exists solely to protect the rights of copyright holders, she believes that "copyright law is an instrument of public policy, and it cannot be viewed in so narrow terms."

In response to Gotze's expressed desire for greater cooperation between IFLA and the International Publishers Association, the IFLA executive board decided later in the week to create the Task Force for Library-Publisher Relations that will report back at next year's conference in Bangkok.

In the third guest lecture, former IFLA president Herman Liebaers reminisced about the dramatic events that shook IFLA 30 years ago. The 1968 conference in Frankfurt coincided with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, with resulting tensions between the Russian and Czech librarians in attendance. However, the two delegations were brought together to shake hands the final night of the conference, with one of the Czech librarians expressing the wish that "next time there should be no tank between us."

Presidential priorities

Opening session speaker Rick van der Ploeg, Netherlands state secretary of education, culture, and science, also touched on the conference's omnipresent themes of free access and copyright. Noting that society has produced an unjustifiably unequal distribution of wealth, he said, "the same inequity is visible in the world's libraries." Maintaining that "books and libraries can exist only where freedom exists," he added that "freedom can only exist where books and libraries exist." Van der Ploeg also called for a balance in copyright law between the concerns of copyright owners and users of information.

Addressing the effect of globalization, Phillippe Queau, director of UNESCO's Division of Information and Informatics, painted a bleak picture of the trickle-down benefits of technology. Queau noted that in almost all societies the priorities and concerns of the wealthy dictate the direction of the culture. "The information revolution may not put a stop to this," Queau feared. "Indeed, it may even accelerate it."

The opening session concluded with a surprise stunt in which dozens of balls of yarn were tossed from the stage to the audience members, who then tossed and retossed them to others in the auditorium. The result was a colorful, tangled web that Netherlands Organizing Committee member Piet Schoots said "created a network linking us all together."

Although IFLA's governing council did not meet this year, the association's governing boards were active. Two resolutions were presented to the professional board: one on the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict, and another supporting the 1997 UNESCO Resolution on Permanent Paper. The board will consider them for presentation to the membership in Bangkok.

Many delegates were surprised when it was announced at the closing session that the professional board had voted to suspend the contributed papers that have long been a staple of IFLA conferences. "The quality of the contributed papers has dropped off dramatically in the past few years," professional board member Ed Valauskas later explained, and the board wanted to devote the time to other sorts of meetings, such as workshops and discussion groups. The board will revisit the issue at its December meeting; one possibility, said Valauskas, is presenting contributed papers every other year.

The executive board received a report from a working group made up of former executive- and professional-board members set up last spring to review IFLA rules. The report, which touches on areas ranging from the association's organizational structure to its finances, will be acted on when IFLA's council meets next year at the Bangkok conference.

Among the eight new discussion groups meeting for the first time in Amsterdam was one devoted to social responsibilities. Convener Al Kagan of the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign said the group's primary concern would be to address the growing gap between the information-rich and information-poor, both within countries and between countries. The initial meeting (attended by three ALA past-presidents: Patricia Schuman, Betty Turock, and Barbara Ford) saw a wide-ranging discussion on such topics as cooperation between the Third World and developed nations and the difficulty of addressing issues of social responsibility through the IFLA structure.

At the closing session it was announced that the site for IFLA's 2003 conference—the first to be chosen through a new selection process developed last year—would be Berlin. Of more immediate concern—particularly to American librarians—was the 2001 conference, to be held in Boston with the theme of "Libraries and Librarians: Making a Difference in the Knowledge Age." Gary Strong and Duane Webster told a caucus of American delegates that the organizing committee was ready to undertake its fundraising efforts, with a goal of $1.5 million. The six associations sponsoring the conference—ALA, the Association of Research Libraries, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Special Libraries Association, the Medical Library Association, and the Association for Library and Information Science Education—are looking for librarians to contribute time and serve on committees. Strong said the organizers were seeking especially to attract involvement from Latin American librarians.

For the first time in a number of years, ALA was among IFLA's 101 exhibitors. Director of Chapter Relations Gerald Hodges called the booth "a roaring success," noting that the availability of ALA representatives and publications (as well as access to the Association's Web site) "brought ALA to the thousands of people who came to the booth." He added that the booth's popularity shows the importance of "having a unified presence at international conferences."

Although delegates presented information at the 213 professional meetings that were held during the week, the exchange of ideas also took place at receptions and other social events. In addition to the opening party, which featured international food, music (including an "authentic Dutch bluegrass band"), and other entertainment, the Dutch organizers treated delegates to a cultural evening that was so big it had to be split between two waterfront buildings: the New Metropolis science museum and the Scheepvaartmuseum (Maritime Museum); partygoers were ferried between the two venues via an old icebreaker steamboat.

Delegates also enjoyed visits to libraries in the Hague, Rotterdam, and elsewhere in the Netherlands, as well as sightseeing tours of Amsterdam and surrounding areas. Despite the week of hard work, such diversions prompted Treasurer Derek Law's remark at the closing session that after the Amsterdam conference, IFLA should change its name to the International Fun-Lovers' Association.

--Gordon Flagg