IN THIS DOCUMENT:

Open Session in Copenhagen

Open Session in Amsterdam

Open Session in Bangkok

Round Table on Library History

Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, Copenhagen, 30th August 1997

1. Present: Pamela Richards (Chair), Martine Poulain (Secretary), Don Davis, John Cole, Paul Sturges, Maxine Rochester, Mikhail Afanasiev, Adele Fasick, Magnus Torstensson, Jorgen Svane-Mikkelsen, Boris Volodin, Cheng Huanwen, Ilka Makinen.

   Apologies, Peter Hoare, Peter Vodosek.

2. Report by Chair on the Vologda Conference, Libraries and Reading in Times of Crisis, 18-23 June, 1996. The papers will be published in Russian (prepared by Valeria Stelmakh), and in Libraries and Culture in English (prepared by Pam Richards).

3. Report on website by the Chair. Paul Schneiders has prepared a web page (http://www.ifla.org/VII/rt8/rtlh.htm) Contributors for the website sent to the officers of the Round Table will be welcomed. Links with other library history groups (eg ALA, LA, schools of librarianship) will be established.

4. Two issues of the Newsletter were published by the Chair in 1996/7.

5. The Open Session for the Copenhagen conference had been prepared, with the theme 'Aspects of Baltic and American Library History', and papers by Boris Volodin (Russian National Library, St. Petersberg), David Carr (Rutgers University), Jorgen Svane-Mikkelsen (Royal School of Librarianship, Copenhagen), John Cole (Library of Congress).

6. The Secretary reported on progress of arrangements for the Paris Conference, 11-12 June, 1998, on 'Libraries, Reading and Publishing in the Cold War', organized by the Round Table, in conjunction with ENSSIB (Ecole nationale superiore des sciences de l'information et des bibliotheques) and the IFLA Section on Reading. Approximately 35 paper proposals had been received and the list of those selected was to be prepared by the beginning of October 1997. The Conference, to be held in the Centre Sevres in Paris, will have no fee and all interested people are welcome. Contact Martine Poulain (poulain@ext.jussieu.fr).

7. Programme for the Open Session at Amsterdam in 1998 has been completed:
   • Ludo Simon, Public libraries in bilingual Belgium;
   • Paul Schneiders, Religious divisions in Netherlands libraries;
   • James Carmichael, Campaign against homosexual literature in the USA;
   • Wayne Wiegand, Fractured window on the world.

8. Programme for the Open Session at Bangkok in 1999, was discussed and suggestions included history of information and libraries in South East Asia, and palm leaf books.

9. Each participant at the meeting made a comment on national projects and developments in library history in their own country.

10. The Chair reported on a proposed World History of Librarianship, capable of being used as a textbook, and to be edited by herself and Wayne Wiegand. A request for financial assistance is to be made to IFLA.

11. The Chair reported that financial accounting had been made to IFLA headquarters and that a balance of US$175 was in hand.

12. The Round Table's Medium Term Plan was discussed, and the plan was to be published in the forthcoming issue 9 of the Newsletter.

13. Election of Officers for 1997-1999. Pamela Richards was re-elected by acclamation, and as Martine Poulain (Secretary 1995-7) did not stand for re-election, Paul Sturges was elected as Secretary/Treasurer.