Interlending and Document Supply Proceedings of the 6th Interlending and Document Supply International Conference held in Pretoria, 25‐29 October 1999 “Empowering Society through the Global Flow of Information”

Citation

Hendrix, F. (2001), "Interlending and Document Supply Proceedings of the 6th Interlending and Document Supply International Conference held in Pretoria, 25‐29 October 1999 “Empowering Society through the Global Flow of Information”", Interlending & Document Supply, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 44-47. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilds.2001.29.1.44.1

The current buzz words for the “knowledge” economy are all here in the title of this conference:

• •

  empowering;

• •

  society;

• •

  global; and

• •

  information.

All are frequently used terms very much in vogue.

As one would expect from such a conference, the organizers had brought together an amazingly broad and powerful set of speakers from the UK, the USA, Africa, Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Chile and the Nordic countries; and papers cover all aspects of resource sharing and ILL – from the empowerment of library staff, the academic user, the struggle of developing countries in document delivery, support for distant education, to issues to do with technology and standards, copyright and performance.

In his foreword to the proceedings, the Conference Chair, Executive Director, John Willemse of Unisa Library, South Africa, noted that the process of communicating academic and other research information is in a state of total change.

The session “Global flow of information” was launched by Phyllis Spies, Vice President, OCLC, who spoke of empowering library staff in the emerging global information society. Spies suggested that librarians needed to ask themselves seven questions:

1. 1.

   (1) How wired is your library?

2. 2.

   (2) How fast is your library?

3. 3.

   (3) Is your library harvesting its knowledge?

4. 4.

   (4) Does your library dare to be open?

5. 5.

   (5) How good is your library at making friends?

6. 6.

   (6) Does your library’s management get it?

7. 7.

   (7) How much does your library weigh?

Major points made by Spies included the need for organization structure to change; working together across departmental boundaries; the less the library weighs, the more productive it tends to be; existing print collections will shrink and only a small percentage of material will be in print form in the next decade. Her concluding comment for libraries being “change now to be involved in inventing the future”.

Malcolm Smith, Director of Public Services at the British Library, and Mick Osborne, Head of International Marketing at BLDSC, spoke on the future of document delivery services. Smith looked at two points of view in his paper – document delivery in the developed world and the impact of the recent change in developing countries – and considered the gap between information‐rich and poor.

He went on to suggest that the electronic age has changed the basis of ILL/document delivery services. What will distinguish the successful document supply service from the also‐rans will be the value they add to basic services – in essence, a “one‐stop shop”; a vital role in the future being partnerships. He also suggested that no one organization would be able to construct an all‐embracing scheme on their own in future. He felt that the vision of the British Library in the development of its digital library programme is pertinent and one way forward. He drew attention to the financial problems faced by developing countries.

Mary Jackson, Service Program Officer for Access Services, Association of Research Libraries in the USA, gave a paper on “Meeting the challenges of international lending and document supply: learning from global resources program (GRP)”. Jackson gave an account of six projects funded by GRP, and reviewed the challenges and barriers and strategies to overcome them. Projects were varied and included African newspapers; Japanese journal access; Latin American ILL/DD.

“Empowering through information and communication technology” was opened by Anne Morris and Neil Jacobs, who gave a paper on “Empowering the academic user – does electronic document delivery work?” Morris and Jacobs’ paper was based on the funding of project FIDDO. Their conclusion was that newer document access systems do have the potential to empower users, but the systems used in the trials fell short of fulfilling their potential.

The first paper to address standards was by Linda West of the Research Library Group USA. The paper looked at the next model of ILL/DD interlibrary document supply. West’s paper described the Ariel models clearly and effectively and ended by noting that “standards applied globally are key”.

The first African paper was from Eric Ndegwa of Maseno University College, Kenya and his paper was on document delivery services in East Africa: the struggling efforts of a developing country. Ndegwa outlined some startling statistics, which should make us all think. Only 30 percent of all research institutions and universities in Kenya are able to exploit information technology to their advantage. Nearly 80 percent of all sources of information have restricted rights of “access” and use for all non‐bona fide members of a given organisation.

Development of libraries in East African countries was given different emphasis, depending on which side of a national border a user found him/herself. Although in East Africa some 60 percent of people have access to the Internet, in Kenya, for example, there is no recognisable impact on interlending activity. It appears that progress is held back by bureaucratic form filling and financial constraints.

“The role of document delivery and interlending in ensuring the global flow of information for the benefit of developed, as well as less developed, countries” was the presentation by Vasilka Hristovska of the National and University Library “St Kliment Ohridski”, Macedonia. The ARTTel system is the primary system in use in this library – but users have difficulty paying.

Jean Cooper of the University of Virginia opened the session on “Empowering clients through electronic access”. Papers in this session covered distant learning, and bringing learners and information closer together. The problem of devaluation of national currency was addressed by Diston Chiweza of Malawi and there were also papers from Canada, Hungary and Italy.

There are numerous reports of workshops on improving ILL in developing countries and useful contributions on innovative and special applications which include papers from the UK, Canada, the USA and South Africa.

There was a special session on the evolution of national systems, with contributions from New Zealand, Chile, Sweden and South Africa.

The final day of papers was devoted to “Co‐operative ventures”, and included a range of papers from the Nordic countries, Zambia, the UK and the USA.

All of these help the reader of these proceedings to get a very broad picture of developments across the globe – the major omission appearing to be developments in Australia.

Papers on the whole were readable and many highlighted the technology, the financial, the policy related, the human aspects and the problems of this global subject of ILL/DD.

As Graham Cornish, Director IFLA Core Programme for UAP, Boston Spa, pointed out in his conference summary, the major constraint across the world seems to be financial resources and that finance is the biggest single factor in limiting the ability of the library community to play its part in the empowering of society.

However, the financial constraints have not affected the range and quality of presentations in these proceedings, the innovation, technological advances, commitment and sharing which is taking place across the globe, illustrating how much is being achieved.

Conclusion

Interlending, document delivery, research discovery, resource sharing are still regarded as peripheral services in many libraries – particularly in the UK public library sector. In spite of the changing and improving technology, the greater emphasis on knowledge, information, empowerment, etc., ILL is still a poor relation for many of the world’s population.

A number of the authors of the papers in the proceedings point to the changing technology, the need for change, empowerment etc. and, although the conference and its proceedings were designed for those involved in the process of ILL, its content would be a valuable read for practising librarians in any country or sector.

There are many papers in the proceedings which are well worth a detailed read and will give excellent information, ideas and data for planning an ILL/DD service to almost any library in any country. It is a comprehensive, readable and useful set of papers. However, the highlight of the vast difference between services, policies and attitudes in the UK/USA from those in Africa and other developing countries is illuminating and thought‐provoking.