IFLA Reports

Midwinter Symposia Announced

ALCTS President's Program for the 2005 Annual Conference

Calendar of Upcoming Events

IFLA Reports From the 2004 World Library and Information Conference, Buenos Aires, August 22-27, 2004

ALCTS sponsors representatives to six sections of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions annual meeting (named World Library and Information Conference beginning in 2003): Acquisition and Collection Development, Bibliography, Cataloging, Classification and Indexing, Preservation and Conservation, and Serial Publications. We are pleased this year to include a report on the Audiovisual and Multimedia Section, reported by ALCTS member George Abbott, in addition to the reports of official ALCTS representatives.

Acquisition and Collection Development / Audiovisual and Multimedia / Bibliography /
Cataloging / Classification and Indexing / Preservation and Conservation / Serial Publications

Acquisition and Collection Development Section

Lynn Sipe, University of Southern California

The Acquisition & Collection Development Section of IFLA was quite active at the recent 70th World Library and Information Congress, held in Buenos Aires, August 22-27, 2004. Buenos Aires was a marvelous site for the meeting, and the local organizing committee and volunteers were extraordinarily helpful. The only downsides to an otherwise excellent conference were some logistical snafus, with too many long lines and the fact that the conference was necessarily split between two meeting venues several blocks apart. However, taxis were plentiful (and reasonably priced) and there was also shuttle bus service between the two main hotels.

This was my first year of service as Secretary/Information Officer of the Section, which entailed required attendance at several meetings for IFLA Officers in addition to those of the Section's Standing Committee on Acquisition & Collection Development.

Unlike past IFLA's, each Section was limited to one open program meeting and no workshops. The Section was fortunate in having simultaneous translation available for its well-attended and well-received open program on "Collections for Literacy and Development: Focus on Latin America". All speakers (from Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia) spoke in Spanish. Their topics ranged from cooperative collection development in the Latin American and Caribbean Virtual Health Library, to a case study of the educational divide in Latin America, to patrimonial collections as instruments for education and development.

The Standing Committee of the Acquisition & Collection Development Section held two lengthy meetings during the course of the conference. Several committee members did not attend because of the distance and expense involved. A number of on-going issues were addressed, including how to improve the Section's Newsletter, the Section's Web pages on IFLANet, better use of the Section's electronic discussion list, the future of the currently dormant Acquisitions bibliography that the Committee has maintained, and the status of the revised Handbook on International Exchange of Library Materials. Considerable time was spent on reviewing where we are in meeting the goals of the Section's current strategic plan, with an eye toward commencing a new revision of the plan at the Oslo Conference. Future possibilities for program topics at both the Oslo (2005) and Seoul (2006) conferences were pursued. The Section's tentative program topic for Oslo is "Electronic Resources: Different Approaches for End-Users". In Seoul there may well be a joint program with the Continuing Resources (formerly Serials) Section, focusing on the acquisition and selection of electronic resources.

Since the time allowed at the annual IFLA conference for Standing Committee meetings is not always adequate to accomplish the amount of work to be done, the Committee has made tentative plans to hold a 'between conferences' meeting, possibly in Genoa, Italy (most of the Committee members are from Europe) sometime in February 2005. Meeting details remain to be decided though the agenda will focus on issues requiring resolution before the Oslo meetings. Certain other IFLA Sections have adopted the practice of meeting between conferences to further their work.

Audiovisual and Multimedia Section

George Abbott, Syracuse University

The World Library and Information Congress 2004 and 70th IFLA General Conference and Council was the first ever held in South America and was well attended with over 600 delegates from the host country of Argentina. Neighboring Brazil, Chile and Uruguay were also heavily represented. Buenos Aires, the Tango capital of the world, offered a wealth of experiences for delegates including the Opening Session at the historic Teatro Colón and the Wednesday evening cultural evening held at Teatro Ópera. Excellent restaurants, shopping and historic sites were all within walking distance of the conference hotels.

Council meeting
The first council meeting was called to order on Monday morning in the Theatre Colón following the Opening Session. The new IFLA Secretary General Rama Ramachandran reported that the postal ballot on the Governing Board's proposal to revise the provisions for association membership had passed. This allows for more than one national association to become an IFLA member, with dues based on the operating expenses of the association. The previous model was based on membership of a single national association or multiple associations sharing a single membership, with the dues based on the UNESCO gross national product figures for the country. This new model also introduces a new category of "Other Associations" for sub-national associations such as state or provincial associations. Because of the financial implications, which will increase dues for some current members, the new model will be phased in over the next three years. IFLA Secretary General Ramachandran presented the Association Annual Report, focusing on his impressions since taking office in the spring and his thoughts and plans for the coming years. He presented a set of goals he has established for himself for the coming year, his first full year as Secretary General. The Treasurer presented the proposal for membership fees in all categories for 2005, which represent a 1% increase over 2004 dues. This proposal was presented in accordance with the Council motion passed in 2002 on guidelines for dues increases. Because of time constraints, the remainder of the agenda was deferred to the Friday Council Meeting.

Standing committee meeting
The Standing Committee Meeting of the Audiovisual and Multimedia Section was held on Sunday, August 22. Chair Bruce Royan presented a review of highlights from the previous day's Professional Board and Division meetings. The Professional Board now approves all project funding; in the past, divisions could approve funds for some projects for sections. Units were encouraged to form internal partnerships with IFLA to sponsor programs and other activities, and were asked to submit news to encourage submissions of papers to the IFLA journal. There will be an ongoing review of all sections, to determine needs and if sections are performing. The Information Technology Section will be reviewed in the coming year. Sections wishing to propose a satellite meeting for Seoul (2006) must decide and submit proposals by March 2005, and IFLA may limit the number of satellite meetings. The section sponsoring a meeting will be assessed 100 euros by IFLA for promoting the satellite meeting. A report on IFLA's role in interoperability standards is being circulated for comment, and Standing Committee member James Turner volunteered to review it for the section. A report on the election of coordinating Board members is also being circulated for review: the usual practice has been to elect current Section chairs. The report recommends the practice of electing outgoing chairs, secretaries or treasurers to the Board. The rationale is it lessens the impact on the Section rather than if a current Chair is elected, and past officers have knowledge of association activities having served as Section officers. The AVM Section supports this recommendation. Chair Royan reminded the standing committee that there would be elections next year for section officers - chairman, secretary/treasurer, and information coordinator - and asked committee members to be thinking ahead to propose candidates. A new IFLA Officer's handbook is available online and describes the roles of section officers.

Section projects
The Guidelines for Audiovisual and Multimedia Materials in Libraries and Other Institutions developed by the section are completed and have been published as IFLA Professional Report # 80. The guidelines in English have been translated into Spanish, French, German and Russian and are available for download from the IFLA Web site. Printed copies are available for purchase from IFLA headquarters for 22 euros. An order form is available at http://www.ifla.org/V/pr/index.htm.

A draft proposal to develop a cooperative project between the AVM Section of IFLA and the Moving Image Collections (MIC) Project was presented by the subcommittee formed at the section meeting in Berlin. Some discussions have taken place with the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) to explore expanding the Moving Image Collections directory and online database beyond North America to cover developing countries. The subcommittee proposal examined why the AVM section should work on such a project, what would be included in the project, how the section could contribute, and next steps. Further explorations will take place in the coming year.

A third project on the survey of the legal deposit requirements for AV materials has been problematic. Many different organizations are involved, and each country may treat the issue differently. Some countries have no legal deposit requirements and for those that do, the archiving centers throughout the world follow three or more paths -- national library, international associations, government centers and others. The section will continue to collect literature on legal deposit, and work on developing a survey to create a list of locations where deposit copies are placed. There is a new deposit law in Italy, but the regulations are still to be prepared and will be put forth in the next few months. The Bibliography Section completed a review of national bibliographies in 2001 entitled "An examination of national bibliographies and their adherence to ICNBS recommendations" by Barbara L. Bell and Anne M. Hasund Langballe. This report addresses legal deposit laws for print, and comments briefly on the state of deposit law for media materials. It may be of use as this project develops. It was noted that emerging digital documents are causing changes and becoming a subject of interest in legal deposit, in addition to AV materials.

Conference program sessions
Many of the program sessions during the conference highlighted activities and programs in libraries in South America, including the one sponsored by the AVM Section. Papers presented in "Sights and Sounds: Preserving the New Media," the combined program of the Audiovisual and Multimedia and the Preservation and Conservation Sections, covered a wide range of issues. The presentations discussed the need to establish archives to preserve the cultural heritage of a country or discipline and reported on several such archives. Also discussed were the challenges of preserving and reformatting the myriad of formats, and protecting against damage and loss due to climate, storage conditions and usage. The concern for legal deposit was addressed as a way to try to insure items are obtained in the first place, so that they can be archived and preserved.

The first program "Memory and Conservation: the Experience of Globo Network Television" was presented by Silva Regina de Almedida FiuzaI (Manager of Memory Preservation Department of Globo Organizations, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Globo Organizations is the largest media conglomerate in Brazil, and the Globo Television Network is the largest in Brazil. 73% of its programs are produced in Brazil. It reaches 98.9% of the country and is exported to 130 countries. Globo operating divisions include an Internet portal, pay television, a music business, newspapers, radio stations, and a publishing company. Globo Television Network has a library of over 35,000 recorded episodes of soap operas and mini-series, and maintains many memory centers to assist in research, documentation, archiving and data storage. The Media Archive houses approximately 360,000 recordings in Betacam, DVCAM, U-matic, and 35mm film formats dating back to 1967. The Video Show, a daily program for twenty-one years is made entirely from the images taken from the archives, which document and preserve the cultural and artistic history of the country. A Memória Globo team is working on producing programs to recognize and value its past. This team has undertaken an oral history of 300 interviews comprising 1,000 hours. They have been transcribed and organized in a database. Some digitization efforts underway include the digitizing of all past Olympics footage. To effectively build and manage these collections, organizations need technology and money. The concern was expressed about the need to change the mentality of our profession towards the informational, historical and cultural value of media resources.

Antonieta Palma (National Library of Chile, Santiago, Chile) discussed the audiovisual archives of Chile. The audiovisual archives for Chilean works are scattered and many have been lost. Although there are references to the wax cylinders of Andes, it is not known where they are or whether they still exist. The University of Chile archive of folk music has been one of the most important archives in the country since 1940. The University of Chile and the Catholic University of Valparaiso have two film preservation archives of Chilean productions. The Ministry of Education has a collection of 16mm films and slides. In 1995 the Archivo de Chiloé was inaugurated with the intent of recovering the intangible heritage related to oral traditions. It has been only since 2001 that the legal deposit of audiovisual materials has been vigorously pursued. The National Library now receives two copies of all audio CDs, VHS and DVD films produced. In 1999 a group called Mingaco was formed to aid preservation efforts for sound archives. It operates along the same principles as the Habitat For Humanity model. There is a great deal of cooperation going on among archives but still a lot to be done. This speaker echoed the concerns of the previous speaker when he stated "…worrisome is the lack of consciousness about the fugitive nature of this type of media and the urgency of preserving it."

Papers on "Images and Sounds in Uruguay" and the "Preservation of audio collections at the Villa-Lobos Museum" reinforced the concerns and promises for the future expressed in the previous papers and gave a snapshot of current activities. In her paper on activities in Uruguay, Samira Sambaíno offered a vision of the institutions that aim to compile and preserve the audiovisuals that comprise the heritage of the country.

Some eighty poster session were presented on Tuesday and Wednesday ranging from "Reporting on Immigration, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online" to "Finnish Public Library Statistics". The Brooklyn Public Library is providing a free, fully searchable online database of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1841 to 1902. This database provides valuable resources for teachers, students, historians and genealogists. Digital imaging services for the project were provided by OCLC, and the database uses a product developed specifically for historic newspapers: ActivePaper Achive software from Olive Software Inc. allows the user to click on specific sections of the newspaper page and view a readable segment of approximately three column inches. Full articles (images) can be printed or emailed. A full page can also be opened as a .pdf file in Adobe Acrobat. The database is searchable by keyword or date. The Institute of Museum and Library Services funded the project.

Ching-chih Chen, Professor at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science presented a poster session on her research work with Global Memory Net (GMNet), a digital portal for global resource sharing and closing the digital divide. Chinese Memory Net (CMNet), a project funded by the U. S. National Science Foundation/International Digital Library Project (NSF/IDLP) in 2000 to develop a model for further global digital image library development, has expanded to cover the "memory"of the globe and is now the initial component of the renamed Global Memory Net. The main portion of CMNet is its extensive collection of images collected as part of Project Emperor-I, an interactive videodisc (1989) of images related to the First Emperor of China's 7000+ terracotta warriors and horses. GMNet is intended to bring selective academic, educational and research partners in the U.S. and other countries together working towards an effective and sustainable global digital library in global area studies. The project aims to find new ways to enable academic users to access and exploit significant research collections via global networks. The newest component of GMNet is Project Restore, a collaboration between Professor Chen and Professor Piero Baglioni of the Center for Colloid and Interface Science (CSGI) at the University of Florence, to develop a multimedia digital library on the world's treasured cultural and heritage works of art degraded over time or by fire, water, etc., but restored by the CSGI's nanoparticle technology. Professor Baglioni is the world's leading expert on this method.

There were also poster sessions on electronic reserves, library services for the blind, conservation, children's library services, and several on digital projects.

The next World Library and Information Congress: 71st IFLA General Conference and Council will be held in Oslo, Norway, August 14-18, 2005.

Bibliography Section

D. Whitney Coe, Princeton University (retired)

Three thousand, eight hundred and thirty-five (3835) participants from 121 countries, including 355 from the United States, arrived in the land of the tango, the gaucho and Evita for the 70th IFLA General Conference and Council, August 22-27, 2004. The Opening Session was scheduled to take place in the historic Teatro Colon at the announced hour of 9:00 am. However, the delegates soon discovered that this was only when the doors opened, and the program did not actually begin until sometime later -- a recurring theme. This did not distract from the enjoyment of the unique neighborhoods that characterize this exciting city.

The first business meeting of the Bibliography Section on Sunday was highlighted by the initial discussions of the Working Group on Guidelines for National Bibliographies, charged withdeveloping guidelines for electronic national bibliographies as well as for those seeking to establish national bibliographies from scratch. These discussions continued at a working luncheon on Monday.

On Thursday, the Bibliography Section presented its program, 'The State of the National Bibliography in Latin America.' In keeping with the regional emphasis of this conference, three of the four papers were given in Spanish with simultaneous interpretations available. The opening presentation, 'La bibliografia nacional en la America Latina: Realidad, funcion, futuro' (National Bibliographies in Latin America: Status, Function, Future), by Dan Hazen (Harvard University) sought to harmonize the National Bibliography and national bibliographic control, both philosophically and practically, by focusing on the structure, the human resources, the politics and the cultural symbolism of the National Bibliography. This was followed by an examination of the experiences of three Latin American countries. In her paper, La bibliografia nacional de Argentina: una deuda pendiente, Susana Romanos de Tiratel (Universidad de Buenos Aires) traced early successes, which have since been diluted by the separation of responsibilities. Then Celia Ribeiro Zaher (National Library Foundation of Brazil) in her paper, Electronic Consortium of Libraries; a bibliographic cooperation scheme, described the successful program now in operation in Brazil. Finally, Araceli Garcia-Carranza (Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti, Cuba) in her paper, La bibliografia nacional como sistema de reportorios bibliograficos para el estudion de la cultura cubana, detailed the varying problems faced in Cuba.

The program was to conclude with a summary of the Survey of National CIP Programs: Results and Analysis, by Beacher Wiggins, Library of Congress. However, the delays encountered in starting this program forced the cancellation of this presentation. However, the full report is available through the Web site of the Bibliography Section at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s12/pubs/s12-Survey-National-CIP-Programs.pdf.

The second business meeting of the Section continued the earlier discussions on guidelines
for national bibliographies. A meeting of this working group, of which I am a member, will
be held in Prague, November 18-20. The main topics to be addressed are:

Users and use of national bibliographies;
Selection principles (with particular focus on electronic resources);
Functionality of electronic national bibliographies; and
Guidance and help for new bibliographic agencies starting a national bibliography.

This will provide the basis for the Section's program in Oslo, Norway, 14-18 August 2005.

Talbott Hewey, Michigan State University

The basic mission of the Section is to encourage more and better national bibliographies (NBs) from countries around the world. While some national libraries and other agencies publish full and accessible national bibliographies in various formats, many others publish either nothing or incomplete versions. The Section devises and circulates guidelines and best practices to ameliorate this situation. At this year's World Library and Information Congress, the Section organized a panel of presentations focusing on the situation in Latin American and the Caribbean.

Dan Hazen (Harvard University) provided an overview of the status, function and future of national bibliographies in the area. Susana Romanos de Tiratel (Universidad de Buenos Aires) described the situation in Argentina, which does not produce NBs, partly because of fragmentation of responsible agencies. Celia Ribeiro Zaher spoke on the Brazilian NB, which is highly developed and can serve as a model for others. Araceli Garcia-Carranza (Biblioteca Nacional Jose Marti) described the Cuban NB in the context of the entire culture of that nation.

At an earlier open session presented by the Division of Bibliographic Control, which the Section helped organize, Section Chair Bohdana Stoklasova of the Czech National Library and Standing Committee member Unni Knutsen of the Norwegian National Library described past and future activities of the Section, and Felipe Martinez Arellano of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico gave his assessment of the state of national bibliography in Latin America.

Discussion in the two meetings of the Standing Committee of the Section focused on developing similar programs for future conferences, and more formal guidelines for the major problems faced by the producers of NBs, namely, selection criteria for inclusion of material, particularly electronic material, in NBs; other problems of presenting electronic material; and special guidelines for agencies unfamiliar with NBs or with special problems. Future programs in Oslo, Seoul, and Durban will highlight conditions and problems in Europe, East Asia, and Africa, respectively.

Cataloging Section

William Garrison, Syracuse University, and Glenn Patton, OCLC, Inc

Gunilla Jonsson of the Royal Library of Sweden chaired the activities of the Cataloguing Section with Judy Kuhagen of the Library of Congress serving as secretary. Patrick LeBoeuf of the Bibliothèque national de France serves as the Information Officer.

A major topic at the Buenos Aires conference, both for the meetings of the Cataloguing Section and for the section program, was the second of the IFLA Meetings of Experts on An International Cataloguing Code. This second invitational meeting was held at the Universidad de San Andrés on August 17-18, 2004 in Buenos Aires. There were 45 participants in this meeting representing 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries with an additional representation from six countries on the Planning Committee. A Web site for the meeting includes electronic discussion group based sharing discussion papers and online discussions. This 2nd meeting explored the same set of five topics as the first meeting held in Frankfurt, Germany last year (personal names, corporate names, seriality, treatment of multi-volume/multi-part works, and uniform titles/GMDs/forms of expression) in the context of various cataloguing rules. Participants were able to view the draft Principles document that was produced after the meeting in Frankfurt and had access to discussion papers prior to the meeting. The participants in the Buenos Aires meeting recommended some minor changes to the principles that resulted from the Frankfurt meeting. The participants from the 1st meeting will also be sent the recommendations of and minor changes from the 2nd meeting for comment and discussion. One additional conference has been planned to precede the IFLA Conference in Seoul, Korea (2006). Two additional conferences (one possibly at the Biblioteca Alexandrina in Egypt in 2005, and one preceding the IFLA Conference in Durban, South Africa in 2007) are being investigated.

There is a mandate from the IFLA Governing Board to have each group within IFLA reviewed. The process will begin after the conclusion of the Buenos Aires conference. The Cataloguing Section will be reviewed during the first round. The review will consist of gathering statistical information (number of members, number of attendees at section meetings, etc.) and of each group reviewing itself in light of its strategic plan. As a result, the Cataloguing Section spent a good deal of time during its second meeting discussing its strategic plan and how it was fulfilling each of the goals and action items in its plan. The Cataloguing Section's Strategic Plan may be viewed at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/annual/sp13-04.htm.

The Section also discussed a proposal sent by the Chair and Secretary of the Section to revise and set up procedures for membership on the Section's review groups. The Section approved the proposal for the nomination, selection and terms of service. The new proposal was sent to the Coordinating Board of Division IV for discussion and will be implemented during the coming year.

The Cataloguing Section's Open Program had the theme "Developments in Cataloguing Guidelines." Three papers were presented: Barbara Tillett reported on the 2nd IFLA Meeting of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code. Lynne Howarth from the University of Toronto summarized the results of the worldwide review of the report from the section's Working Group on the Use of Metadata Schemas. Carol van Nuys of the National Library of Norway reported on a project that she and her colleagues are conducting on the National Library's Paradigma Project that applies FRBR to a Web-archiving project.

During the past year, Patrick LeBoeuf served as the editor of SCATNews. Two issues were published and are available at http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/scatn/SCATNews21.pdf and http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/scatn/SCATNews20.pdf.

A further report on the IFLA Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) Alliance on Bibliographic Services (known as ICABS) was given at the end of its first year after taking over the work of the former IFLA core program on Universal Bibliographic Control and International MARC (UBCIM). ICABS announced that the former UBCIM publications series will be continued under the title "IFLA Series on Bibliographic Control." ICABS also provided funding for the ISBD-FRBR mapping project that was conducted by Tom Delsey and is discussed below under the FRBR Working and ISBD Review Group reports. More complete information about ICABS and its activities, strategic plan and reports may be found on IFLAnet at http://www.ifla.org/VI/7/icabs.htm.

Activities of the Cataloguing Section continue to be focused in five working groups.

The FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) Review Group continues to be chaired by Patrick LeBoeuf. The group provides a place within IFLA for the support and development of the FRBR conceptual model. During the last year, the group established several working groups. The Expression-Entity Working Group was formally charged and has just begun its work with a report anticipated at the end of 2004 or early 2005, and the Working Group on Continuing Resources was also formally charged. In addition, the FRBR Review Group formed the following: the Working Group on FRBR/CRM Dialogue that is working with the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) to harmonize the work of FRBR conceptual model and the CIDOC CRM that provides definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in cultural heritage documentation; and the Working Group on Teaching and Training, whose work has not yet begun. In addition, the FRBR Review Group recommended in Buenos Aires that the Cataloguing Section and the Classification and Indexing Section formally charge and appoint the Working Group on Subject Relationships and Classification. The FRBR Review Group hopes that its work will be invigorated during the coming year as a result of the completion of the mapping of the overall ISBD structure to FRBR that was completed by Tom Delsey during 2004.
The Working Group on Guidelines for OPAC Displays has basically completed its work. It sent a document out for worldwide review during 2004 and has submitted its report to the Cataloguing Section. Some minor revisions remain to be completed, and the Working Group hopes to have the guidelines published by IFLA during 2005.
The Section's Working Group on a Multilingual Dictionary for Cataloguing Terms and Concepts (chaired by Monika Münnich) continued its work. Guidelines for inputting definitions and terms were finalized. As of the Buenos Aires conference, the database contained all English language definitions found in the glossary of AACR2, all German translations of the AACR2 glossary definitions, and all ISBD definitions. During the coming year, entries for the terminology in FRBR will be entered.
The Working Group on Anonymous Classics completed its work during the year on the second edition revised of Part 1 of Anonymous Classics, a list of uniform headings for European literatures.. Work continues on a solution to gathering similar information from other parts of the world.
The ISBD Review Group (chaired by John Byrum, Library of Congress) met twice during the Buenos Aires conference. The group reviewed almost all of the issues raised during the worldwide review of ISBD(ER). The review group will see a revised version of ISBD(ER). The ISBD-FRBR mapping that was completed by Tom Delsey was approved and endorsed. The group decided not to consider the issues that were raised by this mapping until it has completed work on a consolidated ISBD. Several study groups have work in progress as well. The Series Study Group has almost completed its work. The Future Directions Study Group is focusing its work on the consolidated ISBD. Production of a consolidated ISBD will be a top priority for this group during the coming year. The ISBD(A) Review Group will continue working with Gunilla Jonsson serving as chair. There was also some discussion of expanding the ISBD with XML schema rather than prescribed punctuation, but the ISBD Review Group would like to postpone working on this until a consolidated ISBD is available.

The Cataloguing Section also continues to be involved with the Working Group on Functional Requirements of Authority Numbering and Records (FRANAR), an effort of the IFLA Division of Bibliographic Control, chaired by Glenn Patton (OCLC). The group is preparing a draft report that will be distributed sometime this year for worldwide review and is also working on a second document that will address the issue of numbering.

Barbara Tillett attended the second section meeting and announced that a division-level group similar to FRANAR will be appointed for subject authority records.

The 71st IFLA General Conference and Council will be held in Oslo, Norway, August 14-18, 2005 with the theme: 'Libraries: a voyage for discovery'. There will also be a satellite meeting, August 11-12, 2005 in Järvenpää, Finland that will have FRBR as its theme.

Future IFLA meetings are now planned as follows:

2005 - Oslo, Norway (August 14-18)
2006 - Seoul, Korea (August 22-28)
2007 - Durban, South Africa (dates to be announced)
2008 - Québec, Canada (dates to be announced)

Classification and Indexing Section

Lois Mai Chan, University of Kentucky, and David Miller, Curry College

The Classification and Indexing Section (chaired by Marcia Lei Zeng, USA) has the following goals:

To focus on methods of providing subject access in catalogues, bibliographies and indexes to resources of all kinds;
To serve as a forum for producers of subject access tools;
To work to facilitate international exchange of information about methods of providing subject access;
To promote standardization and uniform application of subject access tools; and
To encourage, comment on and give advice about research in the subject approach to information and to disseminate the results through open meetings and publications.

The Section presented a program titled "Implementation and adaptation of global tools for subject access to local needs." As was true for much of this conference, the program had a regional focus. Ana Cristán (Library of Congress) opened with a discussion of the development of "The SACO Program in Latin America." Filiberto Felipe Martínez Arellano (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) concluded with the talk, "Development of a Spanish subject headings list,"providing a historical context for current developments in Mexico. In between, there were presentations by Antonia Ida Fontana (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze) on "Subject indexing between international developments and local contexts: the Italian case,"and Pia Leth and Ingrid Berg (National Library of Sweden) on "Subject indexing in Sweden: the creating of a system based on international standards in a country that always wanted to go its own way."

The theme of the Section's 2005 program in Oslo will be "Subject Tools for Global Access-International Partnership." Three papers were proposed: (1) Czech Republic's collaboration with other small nations such as Croatia, Macedonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, etc., in developing and using subject headings, (2) the use of classification as a method of access for national bibliographies in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and (3) initiatives involving controlled vocabularies Laval, Rameau, and LCSH to meet the needs of users from different countries speaking the same language. For the 2006 conference in Seoul, the theme of FRBR as relating to subject access was proposed and discussed.

The Section has three active Working Groups, which continued their work during the conference. The Working Group on Multilingual Thesauri (Gerhard J.A. Riesthuis, Netherlands, chair) has produced the seventh draft of Guidelines for Multilingual Thesauri, and plans to have the final version posted on IFLANET by the end of 2004. The Working Group on a Virtual Clearinghouse of Subject Access Tools (David Miller, USA, chair) held its first formal meeting and discussed a variety of issues concerning methodology and the scope of its work. Another new Working Group, on Guidelines for Minimal Requirements for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Services (chaired by Martin Kunz, Germany, and Patrice Landry, Switzerland), has developed its Terms of Reference. These emphasize that the purpose is to "establish guidelines that would ensure that appropriate subject access is given by national bibliographic services to meet user needs." A new Working Group, with the mission to expand the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records to include subject analysis, began to be formed during the conference.

A draft document titled "Guidance on the Structure, Content, and Application of Metadata Records for Digital Resources and Collections," produced by the joint Working Group on the Use of Metadata Schemas (with members from the Cataloguing and the Classification and Indexing Sections) was sent out for world review in October 2003. The Working Group met in Buenos Aires to discuss the comments received. To complete the charge to the Working Group, a final version of the report will be ready by the end of 2004 or early 2005. It was proposed that a new working group be formed to follow up on issues left over from the current working group.

Preservation and Conservation Section

Nancy E. Gwinn, Smithsonian Institution

Buenos Aires turned out to be a perfect location for the annual IFLA Conference, which drew an attendance of well over 3,380 librarians and colleagues from around the world. Changes in the conference structure were fully in evidence this year, with the decision to eliminate workshops and to allow each section only a single two-hour time slot for sessions, unless they partnered with someone else. This streamlined the proceedings and stimulated sections to be more creative in their programming, which, from my point of view, resulted in higher quality efforts. Sections also took to heart the strong encouragement to involve Latin American speakers and to translate all papers into Spanish/Portuguese.

The Preservation and Conservation and Audiovisual and Multimedia Sections cosponsored a program called "Sights and Sounds: Preserving the New Media." Following remarks by Americo Castillo, National Director of Patrimony and Museums at the Secretary of Culture of Argentina, the audience of 250 heard one of three papers from Brazil. First came an entertaining presentation from Silvia Fiuza, Manager of the Globo Memory Center, an archival project of Globo Television in Brazil. One of the most engaging discussions came from Adriana Cox Hollos, Preservation Coordinator at the National Archives of Brazil, and Clovis Molinari, Jr., Coordinator of the Audiovisual and Cartographic Collections at the National Archives of Brazil. This duo showed a well-done film that reinforced their description of the sophisticated work of the Archives in preserving its collections. The third paper was prepared by Maria Cristina Mendes, Curator, and Turibio Santos, Director, of the Villa-Lobos Museum in Rio de Janeiro. As the authors were unable to attend, Beatriz Haspo, Library of Congress, read the paper, accompanied by selections of music from this noted composer. Attendees also heard the Head of the Conservation Department, Antonieta Palma, presenting "The Audiovisual Archives of Chile," described the work of MINGACO (Corporación del Patrimonio Audiovisual y Cinematográfico), a network of sound archives, in surveying the sound archives of the country to determine their status and needs. Samira Sambaino, Escuala Universitaria de Bibliotecologia y Ciencias Afines in Montevideo Uruguay, give an overview of the work of the National Image Archive and the Word Museum, which are committed respectively to compiling and conserving still and moving images and voice recordings.

The Section also cosponsored, with the IFLA Preservation and Conservation Core Program and the National Libraries Section, a program entitled "Safeguarding our documentary heritage: do national libraries have a disaster plan?" Speakers from the national libraries of Brazil, Chile, and Australia described their efforts to implement disaster management programs. Marie-Thérèse Varlamoff, Director of the IFLA PAC Core Program, presented the results of a worldwide survey of national libraries on the status of tbheir establishment of disaster management plans and programs.

The work of the Standing Committee on Preservation and Conservation concentrated on planning for programs at the 2005 and 2006 conferences in Oslo and Seoul respectively. The Oslo program will focus on Library Buildings and Environmental Controls. A preconference visit to Mo I Rana in northern Norway to see the National Library of Norway's remote storage facility is also on the agenda.

Thanks to the work of former committee chair John McIlwaine, IFLANET will mount in 2005 an extensive, worldwide register of standards and best practices in preservation and conservation. The committee plans to eventually turn this into a database that can be searched and more easily kept up to date.

Sophia Jordan, Johns Hopkins University

The first order of business for the Standing Committee on Preservation and Conservation was preparing for the Oslo 2005, Open Session. The Open Session will focus on preservation issues associated with mass storage. Details are still being developed, but some of the points discussed included: archiving of digital media; robotic retrieval; different and innovative engineering techniques available for managing building environment, such as phase change materials, solar panels, etc. The Committee has identified several tentative speakers each from different climatic regions who have recently completed such facilities. In addition to the Open Session, the Committee is planning for a site visit to the Mo I Rana remote storage facility near the Polar cap.

The Committee explored several strategies for how best to present the 2006 Seoul, Open Session on preservation education and training for non-professionals. The Committee discussed a number of aspects relating to preservation awareness and training such as teaching methodologies, e.g., self-tutorials, workshops; teaching materials, e.g., books, online, handouts, case studies; as well as looking at benchmarking and the issue of availability of multiple-language teaching materials.

Highlights from the presentations on the Disaster Preparedness Session included Cedia Zaher (National Library of Brazil), who commented on the problem of inadequate technical information in Spanish for disaster planning and recovery. Jan Fullerton (Australian National Library) described how her organization has integrated a software disaster plan and a contingency plan, and matched these to their collection priorities. Marie Therese Varlamoff (IFLA Preservation and Conservation Core Program) reported the results of the survey on Safeguarding Documentary Heritage that went out to 177 national libraries. The Standing Committee is looking at making the survey results available online.

The Buenos Aires Conference theme, "Libraries: Tools for Education and Development," provided a vast array of topics. The Standing Committee on Preservation and Conservation contributed to the program with its Open Session on "Sights and Sounds: Preserving the New Media". The extensive four-hour program of speakers and presentations was extremely well attended, with approximately 280 attendees at each session. A few highlights from some of the presentations included:

Silvia Fiuza from Global Network TV in Brazil talked about the company's mission to create, produce and distribute information, education and entertainment globally. While preservation was not their primary mission, their extensive library and operation required that they think about storage and access over time-which is essentially preservation. One interesting elements in her presentation was the use of robots to locate and retrieve tapes and reels by using barcodes.
Maria Antonietta Palma, Head of Conservation at the National Library of Santiago, took us into the wonderful world of sound and image archives. She talked about both the regional archive and some of the smaller and more unique archives in Chile, such as the Archivo de la Palabra housing cassette recordings of the voices of former Chilean writers and politicians. Another archive started in 1940s houses all the region's national folk music. Then there is the Museum of Pre-Columbian culture, created in 1944 as an audio-visual archive for ethnographic material from the regions. The National Library uses digital format to preserve their audio and visual collections, and 40% of the oral materials have been digitized. One very interesting element in their effort was the formation in 1991 of a group called Mingago. Working at the grass roots level, the group enlists individuals from a community to raise conservation awareness. These individuals help conserve audio and visual materials, as well as building a community spirit and a network of people that help preserve traditions and help disseminate preservation information.

Serial Publications and Other Continuing Resources Section

Karen Darling, University of Missouri-Columbia

The 2004 IFLA conference was held in Buenos Aires in August, IFLA's first visit to South America. The conference drew about 3000 attendees from 122 countries, including many first time attendees from South American countries. This attendance was considerably higher than had been anticipated by the conference organizers.

My primary purpose in attending the conference was to participate in meetings of the Serial Publications and Other Continuing Resources Section committee meetings. During those meetings we conducted committee business including finding volunteers to be the section's information officer, staff the IFLA booth at the exhibition during our scheduled time, etc. We also did some brainstorming and planning for programs at upcoming IFLA conferences. After discussion we decided to focus the next few programs on the new business models we are all facing in serials. We will sponsor the first program on the subject in Oslo, Norway at the 2005 conference and consider asking the Acquisitions Section to partner with us in Seoul, Korea in 2006. We also heard an update on the publication of the French version of the Basic Serials Management Handbook. Work on it is nearly completed. We also learned that Judith Szilvassy, author of the original edition, is working on a 2nd edition. Once it is completed we will consider translations. We expect all the editions to be made available on IFLANET.

The Section sponsored a successful program, "Continuing Resources in Latin America and the Caribbean." All five papers were presented in Spanish since well over half of the audience indicated a preference for Spanish. Unfortunately we were not able to have simultaneous translation for this session and those who did not speak Spanish will have to look for the English version of the papers when they are posted on IFLANET.

There was no shortage of interesting programs to attend. Among those that interested me was the University Libraries Section program, "E-Theses and Scholarly Communication."The speakers discussed various e-thesis projects and advocated open access to the theses. Discussion at the end raised questions concerning open access to theses and later publication of a thesis as a book by junior faculty working towards tenure; protection of research data, etc.

As always, conference attendees were treated to a cultural evening by our hosts that of course included the tango. Buenos Aires was a wonderful conference city. All of us were made to feel very welcome in the city by its residents. The wonderful spring weather gave all of us the opportunity to enjoy walking in the city to enjoy its sights, sounds, museums and other big city attractions.