International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA)

Section on Education and Training

Minutes of the Standing Committee meetings during the IFLA Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on Saturday, August 30, 1997 and Friday, Sept. 5, 1997

Participating:
8/30/97
Current Members: Tatjana Aparac, Evelyn Daniel, Ole Harbo, Tor Henriksen, Aira Lepik, Martha McPhail, Antonieta Moellon, Steffen Rueckl (chair), Maureen Sullivan, Yasar Tonta, Darlene Weingand
Incoming Members: Russell Bowden, Mireille Chazel, Judith Elkin, Stephney Ferguson, Ken Haycock, Stanley Kalkus, Andrew Kaniki, Susan Lazinger
Round Table Chairs: Patricia Oyler (CPERT), User Education not present.
Observers: Mouna Benslimane, Eli Lothe, Tove Saetre, Bob Stueart, Peter Vodosek, Barry Wiebenga
9/5/96
Members: Russell Bowden, Mireille Chazal, Evelyn Daniel, Judith Elkin (New Chair), Stephney Ferguson, Ole Harbo, Ken Haycock, Stan Kalkus, Andrew Kaniki, Susan Lazinger, Aira Lepik, Martha McPhail, Darlene Weingand
Outgoing Members: Ornella Foglieni, Tor Henriksen, Steffen Rueckl (Past Chair), Maureen Sullivan
Round Table Chairs: Patricia Oyler (CPERT), User Education not present
Observers: Ismail Abdullahi, Mouna Benslimane, Axel Ermert, Judith Field, Francoise Hecquard, Ian Johnson, Johan Koren, James Matouci, Grada Schadee, Maud Stephan-Hachem, Claire Walker, Barry Wiebenda

1. Adoption of Agenda. Steffen Rueckl, Chair, called the meeting to order, welcoming members and observers. New SET members were introduced and all members were reminded of the responsibilities of IFLA SET members (to be fluent in at least one official language, to attend at least three of the four annual conferences, to contribute actively, to observe deadlines, and to respond to IFLA Headquarters requests). The agenda was adopted with the addition of three items: Standards, Equivalencies, and Proposals for New Projects.

2. Approval of Minutes. The minutes of the August 1996 Beijing, China SET Standing Committee meetings were moved as a correct record.

3. Election of Officers for 1997-1999. Judith Elkins was elected the new Chair of the Section and will act as Financial Officer as well. Aira Lepik was elected Secretary.

4. Officers’ Report. Steffan Rueckl reported news from the Professional Board and the Coordinating Board (CB) for Division VII. Directives and news items are as follows:

  1. The Professional Board is considering phasing out the round tables. Round tables are a special kind of unit, according to the PB, "less than a section" that exist for a limited time only and fulfill a current need. The PB is concerned that there is little turnover in officers and no formal reporting requirements, although they receive administrative money. According to the PB, round tables create administrative work for IFLA Headquarters. Round tables have no voting rights as only the sections vote in the Coordinating Board meetings although they may propose projects for funding.

    The PB proposes that after a few years the round tables will be phased out leaving only sections and Discussion Groups (DG). The Discussion Groups will assume many of the functions of the round tables but have a limited time period for existence, after which they must become a section or cease to exist. Proposed guidelines for DGs were approved by the PB in July of this year. A DG will be established for a two-year renewable term but usually not renewed more than two times. The DG must be officially sponsored and affiliated with a Section. It will receive no support from IFLA and cannot plan programs, workshops, seminars but could generate ideas for its sponsoring section to adopt. Each DG will choose a convenor who may serve for a maximum of two years and, who, if not already a member of the sponsoring Section, will become an ex officio member and must attend meetings of its Standing Committee and submit written reports.

    The CB heard arguments against this proposal from Pam Richards, Chair of the Round Table on Library History, Oili Kokkonen from the Round Table on User Education, and Pat Oyler from the Continuing Professional Education Round Table. In their view, round tables should be continued because they attract young people to IFLA who find it easy to affiliate with a RT; they have demonstrated great creativity in programming, in part due to their informality. The problems of round tables have to do with the lack of turnover in officers and the lack of formal connections to IFLA activities. Beverly Lynch suggested that a reformed structure for the round tables might be preferable to doing away with them altogether and proposed that officers have a limited term, perhaps not more than four years, and that the Coordinating Board monitor their activities more closely. Present members of the CB were unanimous in opposing the discussion to abolish round tables and agreed with the Lynch proposal for reform. Each member of the CB was enjoined to discuss the issue with his/her unit. If there is general agreement with the position of the CB, the Chair of the CB will prepare a letter to Winston Roberts, Coordinator of Professional Activities, expressing this sentiment.

  2. Issues surrounding IFLA’s large translation activity wer discussed. IFLA seeks to develop a cadre of IFLA translators who will volunteer to provide consultation assistance on translation problems. IFLA is also re-examining translation software in hopes enough technical advances may have been made to find a program that can be used for paper translation. Rueckl’s glossary could be incorporated into the software. The need to have papers well in advance of the conference was reiterated. Sections are responsible for translations of papers given in their programs, although Russian papers are translated by the Russian National Library for all sections. IFLA has paid plane fare and hotel accommodations for simultaneous translators in the past but wishes to make this a volunteer activity. The CB believes translation software may help but, given the centrality of translation to the activities of an organization like IFLA with its five official languages, translation activities should be centrally supported by IFLA. The language of meetings should continue to be English.

  3. An attractive new brochure describing the Amsterdam conference next year is available. Exhibitions will only be open three days – Monday through Wednesday – rather than the whole conference. Thailand conference organizers for IFLA 1999 propose a registration fee between $450-$500, which seemed too high to members of the CB.

  4. Sections and round tables must submit their new medium term programs (MTP) by the end of this conference. Steffan Rueckl agreed to edit these. All MTPs must be sent to him by Sept. 15 so that he can submit them in paper copy and on diskette to Headquarters by September 30.

  5. IFLA maintains a booth at the conference. Responsibility for being present at the booth rotates among the division’s members. SET is, as usual , scheduled for Friday from 11-12, which conflicts with the Coordinating Board meeting. Martha McPhail and Darlene Weingand agreed to be SET’s representatives at the booth for the time slot.

  6. An amount between 500 and 1000 Dutch guilders per unit will be available to Coordinating Boards to allocate for project money. As there are seven units in division VII between 3500 and 7000 Dutch guilders will be available. Projects for not more than 3000 lasting not more than one year may be submitted to the CB. There is no upper limit for projects submitted to the PB. Because Division VII did not spend all its administrative funds last year, 309.60DM was rolled over and the Division received only the difference between the allocation and the current balance for an income of 520.17DM. Mail expenses account for 100 DM leaving a balance in administrative funds of 729.77DM which can be spent until December 1997.

  7. Representatives of units present described their plans for project proposals.

  8. New officer handbooks have been prepared and will be available to newly elected officers.

  9. New officers for the Coordinating Board are Lis Byberg, Chair, and Mirja Iivonen, Secretary, from Library Theory and Research. New officers of the other units are: John Cole, Chair, and Adele Fasick, Secretary, for the Round Table on Reading; Pat Oyler, Chair, and Anne Guilders, Secretary, for CPERT; Pam Richards, Chair, and Paul Sturgis, Secretary for the Round Table on Library History; Martin Kesselman, Chair, and Jesus Lau, Secretary, for the Round Table on User Education; Maurice Line, Chair, and Ludmille Kozlova, Secretary, for the Round Table on Library Journals. The list of officers with contact information is available at http://ils.unc.edu/daniel/IFLA/CBmem97.html.

5. Financial Matters. Rueckl reported that SET had an income of 2400 Dutch guilders for 96-97 (433.47DM). The balance last reported in Beijing was 2,523.75DM. Expenses for the period of September to December 1996 were 422.80DM for postage, photocopying and telephone, leaving a balance of 2100.95 as of Jan. 1, 1997. The addition of 433.47 income and expenses of 480.00DM for the period January to August 1997 for printing the newsletter, postage, and telephone leaves a current balance of 1,267.15DM. This money will be transferred to Judy Elkin as SET’s new FinancialOfficer.

The Statistics project was funded in January for 1747.28DM of which 1000DM has been expended for postage, photocopying and telephone leaving a balance of 747.28DM.

The Glossary project showed a balance of 5340.00DM as of March 9, 1996. Expenses included 3,076.07 for scanning and data processing; the balance was 2,260.93 on November 1, 1996 with additional income of 2,637.50 received from the PB 1997 for a new balance of 4,898.43DM. Expenses between November 96 and September 1997 included 2,644.97 for work on editing the subfile and postage. Balance as of September 5, 1997 was 2,253.43DM.

6. Conference Program

The Open Forum was held on Wednesday, Sept. 3 from 3:30 to 6:00 pm on the theme of "Library and Information Science Education and the Electronic Environment". Following Chairman Rueckl’s brief description of the Section and its activities, the following papers were presented:

John BerryDistance Learning: The Role of Libraries in Delivering Education for Literacy and Lifelong
Ian JohnsonThe Development of Education, Training and Research for the Electronic Library: Opportunities and Challenges
Sirje VirkusEducation and Training of Librarians and Information Professionals in the Networked Environment
Ornella Foglieni How Library Service is Changing with Multimediality and the Global Network: A New Librarian for a New Role
The meeting was well attended with about 200 people in the audience.

Workshop. The first part of a day-long workshop and meeting with Danish educators, took place on Thursday, Sept. 4 from 9:00 am to 10:30 at the Royal School of Library and Information Science. The theme was "Equivalencies and Harmonization of Library and Information Degrees." The speakers were as follows:
Ismail AbdullahiIntegration of Cultural Diversity Issues and Internationalism in the Education of Library and Information Science Programs: A Platform for Change
Aira LepikLibrary and Information Degrees: Tradition and Development in Estonia

Brown, Karen and
Miriam Pollack

 Change and Learning in the Lives of Librarians

Following a coffee break in a newly renovated exhibition room and library, Rector of the School Ole Harbo with faculty members and students provided a brief overview of the School’s various degree programs.Student leader Pernille Drost provided information about programs, cultural events, the newsletter, and the School's football team (the "Dynamic Dewies"). Entertainment from members of The School Choir conducted by Tine Vind was much enjoyed. Lunch was also provided by the School.

Ten workshops presented by various members of the faculty and the Consultancy Department of the Royal School were offered in the afternoon. The workshops included the following topics:

Telework ’96; An International Collaborative Learning Package fo Information Entrepreneurs. Presentation given by Professor Irene Wormell, Dorthe Jensen and students.
The Rainforest: Multi-Media Project in Cooperation with the Copenhagen Zoo. Presentation given by Steffen Knak Nielsen.
Fiction on the Web – Culture and Technology in the Age of Information; A Model for Information and Communication Technology in Libraries. Presentation given by Hanne Albrechtsen and Bente Schade Poulsen.
A Model for Information and Communication Technology in Libraries; Based on an IT-Strategic Project for Norwegian Public and County Libraries. Presentation given by Ejnar Slot.
How Do We Educate Information Specialists in Science? Presentation given by Vibeke Horsten and Soeren Brier.
Teaching Quality Management in a Digital Environment: A Joint Venture Integrating Modern Management Principles, IT and a Classical LIS-Approach. Presentation given by Carl Gustav Johannsen, Annette Skov and Jette Brandt. Fiction, Public Libraries and the Literary Market. Presentation given by Niels D. Lund, Lisbeth Worsoee-Schmidt and Claus Secher.
Children as a Cultural and Democratic Challenge. Presentation given by Beth Juncker, Tove Roed and Henrik Jochumsen.
Construction of Image Databases. Presentation given by Haakon Lund, Jens-Erik Mai and susanne Oernager.
Browsing and Navigation in the Virtual Library. Presentation given by Jette Hyldegaard and Elisabeth Sinding.

The workshops were very well received by the audience of over 100 educators and other interested people.

7. Reports of Affiliate Groups

  1. CPERT (Continuing and Professional Education Round Table) – Pat Oyler, Chair of the Round Table reported that the 3rd international conference on CPE which took place as an IFLA pre-conference was highly successful with 92 registrants and 37 papers given. The proceedings of the conference will be published. She expressed appreciation from CPERT to the Royal School for its hospitality and assistance with arrangements for the conference.

    Diane Rusch-Feja from Germany was elected chair but IFLA rules prohibiting chairing more than one unit forced her to decline and Pat Oyler will continue one more year as chair. Anne Guilders from Loughborough, UK, was elected secretary, and Clare Walker of South Africa was elected Newsletter editor.

    CPERT approved a motion asking SET to continue its support of the group’s status as a round table. CPERT will elect officers every two years for a single term, renewable. The next elections will occur at the next IFLA conference.

    CPERT is planning its 4th international preconference for either Boston (USA) in 2001 or Aberdeen (Scotland) in 2002. Proposals requesting joint sponsorship will be sent to schools at these sites.

    CPERT has a listserv and a web site. They seek to involve as members of the round table those folks who can attend an IFLA conference only about every four years, among others. Oyler asserted that CPERT brings high visibility to IFLA and reiterated her view of the benefits for both CPERT and IFLA of it continuing as a round table rather than seeking section status.

    Some discussion of roundtables and their position in IFLA ensured. Harbo pointed out that, historically, round tables have developed by themselves. He suggested that SET needs to take a more thorough look at the round tables it has assumed responsibility for. Bowden endorsed the CB position and said that if some round tables are not active the PB should take action. The importance of limited terms for officers was agreed to. SET supports CPERT in its present form but will consider the relationships of round tables to standing committees as an agenda item at the next meeting.

  2. User Education. No officer of the section was present and no report was received. Marty Kesselman has recently assumed the chairpersonship of this section. Adele Fasick will be the new secretary.

8. Medium Term Programme. A draft of the Medium Term Programme was distributed. Minor revisions to the scope and goals, approved in Beijing last year, were made and a new version approved. Changes consisted of a rewording of the first sentence of the scope statement from "The Section focuses on research and practice relating to education and training for library and information professionals." to "The Section focuses on the education and training of LIS professionals based on research and professional practice." A second change occurred in the third sentence where the phrase "continually updated professionals" was replaced by "continually learning professionals."

The fourth goal was changed from "Maintain a current multilingual lexicon for LIS" to "Foster the multicultural principles of IFLA, through contribution to the current multilingual lexicon for LIS." A new seventh goal was added: "Foster new professional development opportunities in order to encourage new knowledge, skills and competences."

The draft action plan for 1998-1999 was approved following a change in the second part of item g., "Plan another workshop on similar theme for Sri Lanka and Thailand," substituting "Southeast Asia" for the particular countries named.

The revised plan is available at http://ils.unc.edu/daniel/IFLA/MTP.html.

9. Projects and Publications

  1. World Guide. SET has a responsibility to keep the World Guide to Library Archive and Information Science Education, (last edition, 1995) up to date. A new editor is needed. This item was deferred until the next meeting.

  2. Multilingual Glossary. Steffan Rückl reported that he has 52,000 terms in the glossary in German, Spanish, French, and Dutch. The database he is creating follows the ISO 5127 data structure standards. He is discussing publication with Saur. This work has been funded by the Professional Board.

  3. Workshops on Management and Use of Human Resources in Library and Information Work in Latin America. Ian Johnson received a grant of $30,000 from UNESCO to organize a series of workshops for library/information schools. The Chile workshop took place on November 17-20 with 50 participants from the region and many observers. The next workshop on a similar topic should take place in Southeast Asia. Russell Bowden described an institute in Sri Lanka and other ongoing work there. Johnson and Bowden will work together on a new proposal.

  4. Statistics on LIS Educational Programs: - Phase 1.. Daniel received funding for this proposal and has done some preliminary work on the first phase seeking to determine what data is collected by LIS educational associations and other groups. A report will be made to SET in Amsterdam.

  5. Standards.. Daniel distributed copies of the Standards for Library Schools published by IFLA in 1976, but not updated since. A barebones version of these Standards without accompanying commentary may be found at http://ils.unc.edu/daniel/IFLA/standards76.html.

  6. Proposals for New Projects. No new proposals were received.

10. SET Leaflet. Judy Elkin called for volunteers to assist in the preparation of the new leaflet. Elkin will prepare the text; Martha McPhail and Ken Haycock agreed to review the new draft. Peter Vodosek volunteered to translate the leaflet into German, McPhail into Spanish, Rueckl into Russian, Mireille Chazal into French.

11. Newletter. The Newsletter will continue to be produced twice a year in a printed version. An electronic version will be mounted on IFLANet. Evelyn Daniel agreed to continue as Newsletter Editor with Stephanie Ferguson as Co-Editor.

12. Reciprocity of International Credentials. Darlene Weingand called the attention of SET members to an issue relating to credentialing. The American Library Association has had an informal group for many years who have provided opinion as to whether a LIS degree from a program outside the United States and Canada is equivalent to the ALA-accredited degree. ALA has now decided to discontinue this service. Weingand asserted that IFLA needs to be concerned with degree equivalency. Oyler noted that Josephine Fang used to do this work for SET but no one has done anything since. Several members voiced strong support for this matter being an IFLA responsbility. Further discussion and possible action will take place in Amsterdam.

13. Amsterdam Conference 1998. The theme of the open forum will be the same as this year’s theme: Library/Information Science Education and the Electronic Environment. Barry Wiebenga agreed to facilitate a workshop at the Amsterdam school and will give a paper on Information and Culture. Judy Elkin asked for an Organizing Committee to help plan the program. Andrew Kaniki offered to assist Aira Lepik and Elkin. Mireille Chazal offered to provide a paper on the education plans of the French National Library. A call for papers will be posted on IFLANet.

14. Bangkok Conference 1999. Pat Oyler offered to contact a colleague at one of the LIS schools for assistance in planning the workshop with local educators. Bob Stueart will also be a resource.

15. Discussion Group on Social Responsibility. Elkin has received a proposal from some people wishing to form a Discussion Group on Social Responsibility and seeking an affiliation with SET. Ole Harbo raised a question about the relationship of this group to the newly established Committee on Freedom of Access. No formal action was taken.

16. Invitation to Prague. Stanley Kalkus invited members and observers to come to Prague in November 1997 for the 650th anniversary of Charles University.

17. 1997 Conference Evaluation. Rather than asking each unit to complete an evaluation of the conference, all attendees were solicited for their opinions. SET members complimented Ole Harbo for the excellent workshop at his school, singling out for especial commendation the student presentation and choral group plus the faculty-led workshops.

18. Next SET Meetings: Amsterdam, Saturday, August 15 and Friday, August 21, 1997.

Prepared by Evelyn Daniel (daniel@ils.unc.edu), 10/26/97.