EBLIDA Promotion

The strategy review to be implemented according to priorities set up by the Council and Executive Committee. The later will review and adapt the paper to new changes and development at their next meeting in autumn. A draft updated strategy review will be distributed at the next Council meeting for approval.

EBLIDA will continue to write, edit and produce at least ten issues of Hot News, including Update on EU developments, produce an annual report and further develop website content.

EBLIDA will keep writing articles, giving presentations as means of promotion tools as well as maintaining networking with other organisations. In addition, EBLIDA is to consider the organisation of a workshop on DRMS.

EBLIDA Funding and Finances

11.    Elections of the Executive Committee 2003-2005

According to the constitution, the Executive Committee, excluding the President, shall consist of at least four and no more than ten full members of the association, subject to the decision of the Council and the President. The maximum number of candidates was nominated for election. Britt Marie Häggström asked if the Council was willing to accept the maximum number of candidates for 2003-2005. The Council accepted the maximum number of candidates and approved the nominations without a ballot. 

J E van der Putten, Netherlands Public Library Association (Vereniging van Openbare Bibliotheken) was elected unopposed as President for the term 2003-2005 and thanked all members for their support. He received support from thirteen full members. There were no other nominations.

The Executive Committee for the term 2003-2005 is:

The new elected President took the floor. He said he was honoured to have been a member of the Executive Committee for four years and thanked members for their support. He also thanked former director, T Hackett for her wonderful job and congratulated current President for her very useful input in the functioning of EBLIDA.

He handed in some gifts to Britt Marie Häggström, President and Mogens Damm, Vice President on his behalf and also on behalf of former director.

Mogens Damm suggested that EBLIDA try to bring members of accession countries into the Executive Committee in the forthcoming years to have an even representation.

Britt Marie Häggström thanked EBLIDA for providing her with four years of excitement. She believed EBLIDA was the best organisation in the world who had focused on copyright for many years but widened the areas of interest during the last two years. It is a small and very efficient organisation presenting good results. She was happy that many countries were represented at executive level and wished EBLIDA and its Executive Committee great success in the future.

Britt Marie Häggström also thanked Mogens Damm for his extremely good work with EBLIDA during ten years and warmly welcomed the new elected President.

12.  Progress on Lifelong Learning

Britt Marie Häggström gave a short presentation on the role of libraries in lifelong learning.

In the European Commission Memorandum on lifelong learning, published in October 2001, libraries and archives were mentioned only once along with bus stations, without playing any role in the educational process.

Britt Marie Häggström referred back to a meeting she attended on behalf of IFLA in Hamburg in 1997, Germany (Hamburg Declaration, 1997) where there were no library or librarians represented. She mentioned the EBLIDA statement on lifelong learning which was sent out to relevant EU institutions for the Seville summit in June 2002 as well as national ministries and ministers of education and culture in November 2002 to encourage them to take libraries and archives on board as partners in the educational process and to emphasise that libraries are more than service stations. The EBLIDA statement had an impact on the Commission Communication.

She also mentioned the importance given to libraries as part of the educational process during the PULMAN Conference in Oeiras in March 2003 and encouraged EBLIDA to continue sending letters out until further action is taken by the EU institutions with regard to lifelong learning.

CONFINTEA V Mid-term Review Conference on Adult Education, organised by UNESCO Institute for Education (UIE) and UNESCO Bangkok will be held in Bangkok, Thailand from 6 to 11 September this year. The conference is an opportunity to assess the development of the visions, processes and strategies articulated within the broader framework of lifelong learning.

There were no comments.

13.  Qualifications for Librarians

Professor Audunson, elected member of the European Association for Library and Information Education and Research (EUCLID) board since 1999, gave a presentation on qualifications for librarians. He thanked EBLIDA for the opportunity to attend the meeting and talk about the recognition of qualifications.

His presentation was divided in three parts: a short introduction to the association, an independent European non-governmental and non-profit organisation which aims at promoting European cooperation within library and information education and research; an overview on the situation of Library and Information Science (LIS) qualifications and lastly possible ways of co-operation with EBLIDA on the related issues.

He mentioned EUCLID Conference 2002 on restructuring and adapting LIS education to European standards, held in Thessalonica, Greece in October 2002, which aimed at adapting LIS education to the Bologna Declaration; Bobcatsss, an annual symposium organised by students and the forthcoming joint meeting of EUCLID and ALISE on 30 July and 1 August which will focus on challenges due to rapid and continuous changes to be faced by LIS-education that require research-based discussions to be handled adequately.

He referred to different experiences of accreditation and quality assurance systems as well as collaborative course development and said that the library educational sector in Europe was not harmonised or followed no standardisation, it is too fragmented. He believed that an accreditation system should be implemented in EU member states and suggested EBLIDA to follow up the issue and seek cooperation at European level e.g. a common European masters degree to facilitate not only recognition of qualifications but also mobility and transparency.

Berndt Fredriksson, Swedish Association of Archivists, believed that LIS and Archive education should be merged into one single curricula.

This is an important issue for Portugal. Antonio José de Pina Falcâo, BAD, Portugal, asked whether it would be possible to find a solution at national level; what could be done to help bring different LIS degrees to a more similar curricula.

Pedro Hípola, FESABID, Spain, mentioned the CERTIDOC project, whose working group is currently focusing on curriculum development and asked whether EUCLID would accredit the individual or the curriculum. Professor Audunson said that this had not yet been decided at EUCLID.

Disa Svenskberg, Finnish-Swedish Library Association, asked if there are any special rules for LIS studies to be specialised.

Professor Audunson said that EUCLID had a vision to create a European Masters Degree and concluded by asking EBLIDA to develop a network-building and cooperation together with EUCLID in the field of European curriculum development. A EUCLID workshop to promote this goal will take place in 2004 or 2005.

The President asked where this European Masters Degree would be held and what criteria would be followed up to develop such course.

María Pía González Pereira referred to the proposed directive on the recognition of professional qualifications, currently awaiting Parliament opinion, and noted that co-operation with EUCLID would be of advantage to the library community and its professionals by means of including the library profession as part of the proposed directive. Currently, information and library professionals are not included in any of the existing fifteen directives regarding professional qualifications. She also asked Professor Audunson is this had been taken into account when developing a European Masters Degree.

There were no further comments.

14.  GATS for Libraries

Kjell Nilsson, BIBSAM and Frode Bakken, Executive Committee member (Norway) gave a presentation on the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services, GATS. A service supplied in the exercise of governmental authorities means any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis nor under competition with one or more service suppliers. Kjell Nilsson said that there was a lot of uncertainty when interpreting this clause. No answer has been clarified on whether online services would or not be open to negotiations, how to define classification when referring to online services. There are two different classification systems: the UN-based classification system and the WTO system based on UN-based system. Online services could be affected according to different systems.

All publicly funded services are excluded from the GATS negotiations, according to the Swedish interpretation which greatly differs from that of the UK for which only those services supplied by public monopolies are excluded. Kjell Nilsson was in favour with the latter.

Public services are open to negotiations under the Millennium Round with a few exemptions. Services cover twelve sectors in GATS; sector number 10 (recreation, culture and sport – sector 10c is libraries, archives and museums and other cultural services); sector number 2 (c-g) refers to communication services e.g. online information retrieval. When negotiations apply to libraries providing these services, action needs to be taken up.

GATS have an impetus in privatisation. Privatisation is affecting the higher education sector. Public libraries in general, online services, higher education would be open to negotiations if what is meant is liberalisation. Many countries however have exemptions and are open to competition due to national legislation.

The European Commission in its part, represents EU member states, receives the offers and makes the offers directed by member states rather than national governments. The European Union has not made any offers affecting libraries. There is no intention by the Commission to change this commitment

Frode Bakken gave an overview of the current status of work carried out by the WTO Group during the year. Members of the WTO group are: F Bakken, Co-ordinator (Norway), T Bainton (UK), K Nilsson (Sweden), R Rikowski (UK observer), L Ronayne (Ireland) and M P González Pereira (EBLIDA).

The EBLIDA WTO Group met with IFLA in Glasgow in August 2002 to raise concerns and organise top-level consultation with EU key contacts via EBLIDA. The meeting was the basis for a statement issued by EBLIDA in November 2002 (see Appendix 4 of the Annual Activity Report, p. 48-50). In addition, K Nilsson together with F Bakken, former director T Hackett and R Shimmon, IFLA met with WTO members in Geneva in December 2002. There was no confirmation that libraries are excluded from negotiations, it would depend on commitments made by member states. Austria and Iceland made commitments when WTO was first established. The European Union has so far made no commitments on Sector 10c.

Moreover, EBLIDA issued in January 2003, a response to the Commission consultation on WTO members’ requests to the EC and its member states for improved market access to services.

F Bakken said that there is no time limit in the negotiations process, it is a long-term perspective which aims at increasing world trade activities into the liberalisation process and at reducing national limitations to 0. He referred to the main points of the EBLIDA response to the EC consultation (January 2003) and suggested the following actions for EBLIDA to pursue as part of its work programme within the coming years:

• EBLIDA to send a letter to all its members together with the EBLIDA response to the EC consultation on WTO members’ requests to the EC and its member states for improved market access to services (January 2003) and the EBLIDA statement on WTO GATS negotiations (November 2002);

• EBLIDA to urge national library and archive associations to raise these questions with their national governments. Some action has already been taken up by e.g. Austria;

• EBLIDA to request its members to participate in the process by preparing summaries, reports, facts, studies, etc reflecting how libraries can be affected, where does relevant money for libraries come from, which of the library activities would be exposed during negotiations and what actions are relevant to follow up. Then, a research paper reflecting these could be prepared;

• EBLIDA to organise a conference to discuss and analyse the results;

• EBLIDA to further cooperate with other interested players and organisations e.g. IFLA CLM, American and Canadian library associations to analyse facts, consequences and latest developments.

F Bakken concluded by saying that it is not very likely that changes occur but as it is an ongoing process, the development of the negotiations should be followed up and further analysed.

The President thanked K Nilsson and F Bakken for their presentation

There were no questions.

15.    Close

President informed the Council of her absence on 10 May and introduced our Swedish member of the Executive Committee, Berndt Fredriksson who will lead the Ingmar Bergman tour on Saturday 10 May.

Mogens Damm, Vice President, thanked Britt Marie Haggström for chairing the meeting and the DIK for hosting the meeting and organised the social events. He will chair the meeting the following day. President thanked delegates for their participation.

The meeting was closed at 17h00.

Special presentation by Mrs Lena Hjelm Wallen, representative of Swedish Government to the European Convention - Debate on the Future of Europe

Britt Marie Haggström gave the floor to special guest, Mrs Lena Hjelm Wallen, representative of Swedish Government to the European Convention - debate on the Future of Europe who gave a short introduction to the work of the Convention and in particular, to Swedish latest developments in Europe.

She noted that the work of the Convention is focused in particular on filling out the gap between ordinary citizens and decision makers. The issues most discussed are the role of the Council and Commission, foreign and security policies, transparency and Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) although she was not aware whether changes from QMV to unanimity would or not affect to cultural and education policies. Another important issue was the role of national, regional and local municipalities at European level and European Governance.

New competencies have been suggested however, it was more important to further clarify existing European competencies rather than adding up new ones. The European Convention will continue its work until June 2003; the Intergovernmental Conference should be held in 2004.

Berndt Fredriksson asked about the future of lobby organisations and civil society within the new Treaty and whether any results of citizens’ satisfaction regarding the draft Constitution were available.

Grethe Rostbøll, Danish Library Association, Denmark asked whether Sweden would hold a referendum to join the Euro. A referendum will be held in Sweden in September this year.

There were no further questions.

ANNEX I

Greek Presidency 2003
“What future for European Books? Books and the Book Market in the enlarged European Union”
 

Athens Declaration, Athens, Greece, 10-11 April 2003

The participants of the Conference, namely more than 150 key actors in the European book industry (authors, translators, publishers, booksellers, librarians) and representatives of ministries and institutions involved in the book sector, addressed the main book policy issues presently pending in the enlarged European Union.

The following principles were agreed upon and are hereby communicated to the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Cultural Affairs Committee:

- The role of culture in the European Union as defined in Article 151 paragraph 4 of the Treaty, namely “the obligation of the Community to take cultural aspects into account in its actions under the provisions of the Treaty, in particular in order to respect and to promote the diversity of cultures” should be actively applied within the policies adopted by the European Union and strengthened within the discussions on the institutional and political future of the Union carried out by the European Convention.

In this context, the cultural and creative industries and, in particular, the book industry, must find adequate treatment and a place within other European policies, such as education, employment and creation of new employment opportunities, the information society and new technologies programmes, competition rules, etc.

-The European Union must have a more ambitious policy for books and reading and should not restrict itself to the modestly funded Culture 2000 programme. It is essential to recognize both the cultural and economic significance of the book sector, which represents on the publishing side an estimated 20 billion Euro turnover in 2001 (i.e. higher than that of the audiovisual and the music sector), more than 25.000 booksellers in the EU, as well as more than 54.000 writers and translators represented in the European Writers Congress organisations.

-The European institutions should welcome and enhance the production of reliable and comparable statistics in the fields of book publishing-including translation-, bookselling, jobs & employment, public spending on books, literacy, reading skills, reading practices and library lending statistics. Production of statistics is vital in order to show the importance of books in the European Society and to be able to support specific measures to be taken by the European institutions. Harmonization of the research activities can be ensured through the enhancement of the important work carried out by Eurostat.

-Specific action lines for “books and reading” have been drafted in the Culture 2000 programme budget in 2003 and should be retained. The programme should finance useful and valuable initiatives in favour of the promotion of reading and books, involving actors from the whole book community, including creators i.e. writers, literary translators and illustrators, publishers, booksellers and librarians. Actions concerning the cultural industries should be included in pilot projects. The above projects should also support the promotion of European books in the International Rights markets, through the participation in Book Fairs outside the EU.

-Translation plays a key role in the promotion and free circulation of ideas and literature within the enlarged European Union and should be continuously supported through both European and national appropriate programmes.

-Amongst the highest priorities for the European book sector is the promotion of reading. It is vital to finance relevant initiatives, mainly reading campaigns and programmes on reading skills. A specific European action plan of substantial investment in literacy would give the best long term return to the European Economy.

-Authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians and other stakeholders should be consulted in the drafting of the e- content and other information society programmes, as these programmes offer opportunities to produce and disseminate cultural content and they affect indeed the future of the book sector.

- It is essential, especially for the new EU member states, to find financing for education and training skills in writing, translating, editing, design, production and marketing of books and published texts in printed and digital form through the European educational and training programmes.

- An accurate and up to date definition of the “book”, which will take into consideration that the crucial element to be protected is the content and not the form, needs to be worked out as such a definition would be vital for political decisions, like VAT rates, fixed book prices, intellectual property protection.

-The dual nature of books as both cultural and economic goods, must be taken into account, when commercial and economic regulations are at stake. It is important to recognize and leave untouched national and European measures in favour of the promotion of books.

In this context, books, in whatever form, should be taxed at the lowest possible VAT rate. National provisions on systems of fixed book prices, where they exist on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, should be respected and not circumvented by other European regulations.

Created: 11 February 2004