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Minutes of twelfth EBLIDA annual Council meeting Estoril, Portugal, 14 May 2004 |
These minutes were approved by the Council in Cork, Ireland, May 2005.
EBLIDA President and Chairman, Jan
-Ewout van der Putten, Vereniging van Openbare Bibliotheken (Netherlands), opened the meeting and welcomed everyone to the twelfth EBLIDA Council and Estoril. He especially thanked Executive Committee member António J Pina Falcâo and the Association of Portuguese Librarians, Archivists and Documentalists (BAD) for organising and hosting the EBLIDA Council in Estoril.The Secretariat received apologies of absence
from the following members:
| Frode Bakken | Norwegian Library Association, Norway |
| Sue Brown | CILIP, UK |
| Robert Mizzi | Malta Library and Information Association, Malta |
| Barbara Schleihagen | BDB, German Library Association, Germany |
| Jakob Winding | Danish Union of Librarians, Denmark |
The agenda was approved.
The President pointed out that it was decided by
the Executive Committee to revise the EBLIDA Strategy every two- three years.
The first draft of the Strategy, aimed at having a brief statement and clear
wording, was revised in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in February this year. Sue Brown,
CILIP (UK), President of the new working group on professional education and
María Pía Gonzalez Pereira, EBLIDA Director, liaised to review the amended draft
Strategy. The second draft, with amendments to include professionals in the
Mission Statement, was approved in February and finally adopted by the Executive
Committee on 13 May in Estoril.
“Securing access for all to the benefits of the information society in all formats”
Liam Ronayne, Library Association of Ireland, said that the EBLIDA Strategy as
well as the work of the organisation in general showed that there still are some
unresolved issues at the heart of EBLIDA, in particular regarding the role of
cultural policies and the sort of work that library associations and, on their
behalf, EBLIDA have in shaping cultural policy at European level. He referred to
key point 2 of the Mission Statement “making culture and cultural
diversity accessible, and securing their preservation” to point out that
when looking at EBLIDA policy issues, previous discussions at both Council and
Executive Committee level, there had been some tension between people who felt
that Intellectual Property Rights was really the main issue of EBLIDA and those
who felt that there is a job underdone in shaping cultural policy in favour of
libraries.
With regard to the second paragraph “EBLIDA should promote and defend the
interests of the library, archive and information sectors and professionals
working for the European citizens by …” Pernille Drost agreed with the
importance of national responsibilities to lobbying. She underlined that
supporting lobbying at national level would not be sufficient however for EBLIDA
to carry out its work without national organisations lobbying at their own level
and thus, suggested that a third key point (bullet) be introduced to explicitly
require national organisations to cooperate and work at national level.
It was agreed to either introduce a third key point or amend key point two to
take her request into account.
Marc Storms referred to the second paragraph “EBLIDA should promote and defend
the interests of the library, archive and information sectors and professionals
working for European citizens” and suggested to change “European
citizens” so as to avoid misinterpretations.
It was agreed to replace “for European citizens” with “for
the people living in Europe” as in President’s Foreword.
Gerard Briand, ABF (France) agreed with Marc Storms on possible
misinterpretations when reading European citizens but pretty much
liked the expression itself, thus he suggested to keep it as it was but add up
“… and all users”. The President preferred to keep the expression
as suggested by Marc Storms to include not only users but also potential users.
Pernille Drost mentioned that the term “user” should be avoided
since the organisation aimed at defending the right to information for all,
regardless they are or not real users of the library.
2) Objectives
Marc Storms referred to key point 2 (bullet) of Item 2. Objectives
(primary objectives) and noted that the Council of Europe (CoE)
was not mentioned. He asked whether the CoE was intentionally excluded or it had
been forgotten. J E van der Putten asked Finn Vester, Danish Library Association
(Denmark), Executive Committee member, who said that the CoE was not seen as an
European institution related to EBLIDA.
EBLIDA Director explained however that EBLIDA had worked together with the CoE
in previous years, for instance, the Council of Europe/EBLIDA guidelines on
library legislation and policy in Europe (October 2000) and suggested that it
would be wise to include the CoE in view of covering up future developments in
cultural and other related matters if arisen.
Marc Storms also referred to key point 4 of primary objectives “to serve and
promote other interests of the library and information science profession, its
institutions and its professional workers in Europe” to point out the omission
of the archives profession. The President said that this had also been brought
up by Executive member Berndt Fredriksson, Swedish Association of Archivists
(Sweden) at the Executive Committee meeting held on 13 May. He explained that
archives were an important issue as it could be seen in the second paragraph of
Item 2. Objectives “to increase the influence, impact and cohesion of the
library, archive and information sectors and professionals in
Europe” and clarified that the archives sector could also be added up but had
been omitted following the original text of the EBLIDA Constitution.
Berndt Fredriksson was happy but suggested to modify the Constitution to bring
archives into place within the work of the organisation. Marc Storms pointed out
that amendments to the Constitution should not affect the statutes of the
association. Both President and Director agreed, however the President clarified
that changes to the Constitution would increase the costs of the organisation,
thus it would be taken into account so as to make all necessary changes to the
text of the Constitution at once.
3) Operational elements
Liam Ronayne referred to the first paragraph of Item 3.A Lobbying and
monitoring issues “The allocation of EBLIDA lobbying issues to one category
or the other depends very much on the current approach by the European
Institutions’ agendas towards those matters. The EBLIDA Annual Work
Programme reflects this classification on a yearly basis” to say that it was
difficult to argue against this approach, but asked whether it was for the
Commission to always set the agenda for EBLIDA or EBLIDA has any role in trying
to set up its own agenda. The President explained that cultural policy had
always been at the heart of discussions within the Executive Committee and
Council, however EBLIDA could only ‘fight where the fight was’ due to lack of
resources, the reason for EBLIDA to prepare its work based on EU agendas.
Liam Ronayne mentioned that although there might not be any legislation on
cultural policies under preparation, there is significant EU funds in which
libraries are not taken part. He pointed out that EU funds under cultural and
other policies were very significant, but the library presence had been rather
low, thus there was not sufficient access to such funds. He suggested having a
discussion on how to increase EBLIDA budget so as to allow it to fight in these
terms e.g. budget proposed for cultural policies. The President agreed to
further discuss culture and cultural diversity and to revise what possibilities
EBLIDA have to take further action.
Toby Bainton, SCONUL (UK), supported Liam Ronayne wishing to be an active rather
than a reactive body. He regretted that EBLIDA seemed to always be responding to
initiatives taken by the European Commission since this was rather frustrating.
Despite absolutely sharing Liam Ronayne views, he feared that, as a matter of
practice, EBLIDA could only ever be reactive. He pointed out that the
information and media industry was lobbying with resources EBLIDA could never
have which explained the Commission actions. For instance, he talked about a few
directives on intellectual property rights and argued that they all came out
following major industry and business concerns.
The President concluded that EBLIDA in practice could only be reactive.
Tommaso Giordano, Italian Library Association, highlighted the importance of all
issues being discussed so far and stressed that all these issues should be taken
into account. However, he pointed out that the EBLIDA Strategy being discussed
was a working paper rather than a legal document. He thus suggested focusing on
the content rather than the wording as well as being less bureaucratic in both
discussions and phrasing. He insisted in paying more attention to the tools and
mechanisms to be used. For instance, he referred to Item 3. B Membership
and called for EBLIDA to further focus on issues such as how membership could be
increased, how new members lacking financial resources could be recruited.
The President commented on Item 3. B Membership to bring attention to
EBLIDA efforts in increasing its full and associate membership among the sector,
in particular in the new EU member states.
He expressed his satisfaction with the presence of some delegates from Hungary
and Croatia.
With regard to Item 3 E. Cooperation with other organisations, Berndt
Fredriksson suggested including the Council of Europe as a cultural organisation
in key point 2 “cultural European and international organisations”.
Maria José Moura, Instituto Português do Livro e das Bibliotecas (Portugal)
expressed her satisfaction and said that while the Council of Europe does not
have legislative powers at EU level, it has however satisfactory knowledge in
cultural and educational policies aimed at ensuring access to culture for all.
The President stressed that culture had always been at debate and mentioned that
it was planned to create a new working group on culture, however this had to be
further discussed when drafting the EBLIDA work programme for 2005.
The draft EBLIDA Strategy 2004-2007 was approved as amended.
EBLIDA Director presented the activity report for the period April 2003 to April 2004. The report covers EBLIDA lobbying issues, monitoring and other policy issues, EBLIDA cooperation with other organisations, EBLIDA promotion, funding and finances.
EBLIDA Lobbying Issues
The following topics are covered as separate issues on the agenda:
EBLIDA Work Programme 2003 – 2004 (see Item 6
EBLIDA Strategy (Item
EBLIDA Working Groups
(see Item 7)
Agenda, Saturday 15 May 2004
- Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights
Copyright Directive: Implementation status
Public Lending Right: EBLIDA Statement 2004
Professional Qualifications (see also Item 7)
WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society)
Euro Info Points
Cultural (creative) Industries
Monitoring issues
Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights
The European Commission adopted in January 2003 a proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights [COM (2003)46], which affected previous European legislation on Copyright and related rights directly. EBLIDA issued a Position Paper in August 2003 (Appendix 3). The directive, adopted in April this year, would require all member states to apply effective, dissuasive and proportionate remedies and penalties against those engaged in counterfeiting and piracy and so create a level playing field for right holders in the EU.
EU
Copyright DirectiveThe Copyright [2001/29/EC] came into force on 22 June 2001. Many EU member states however have not implemented the directive into national legislation, due by December 2002.
Public Lending Rights
The European Commission issued a report on the public lending right in the EU [COM (2002)502 of 12 September 2002] in which the level of harmonisation and the functioning of the public lending right (PLR) in the member states was reported to be incomplete. EBLIDA submitted a statement in March 2004, drafted in cooperation with the EBLIDA Copyright Expert Group (see Appendix 5), in which it called on the European Commission to recognise that it is necessary to respect exemptions in those countries where they are already applied for cultural and educational reasons.
Professional Qualifications
The proposed directive on the recognition of
professional qualifications aims at harmonising previous European legislation
covering only the regulated professions among which the Library and Information
Sector is not included. The EBLIDA Executive Committee decided to work in close
cooperation with EUCLID, the European Association for Library and Information
Education and Research to follow up any developments in European Professional
Education issues.
The EBLIDA Executive Committee also approved in October 2003 the creation of a
new Working Group on Professional Education to tackle this Directive as a
priority action in 2004 and 2005.
The Council reached political agreement on the proposal on 18 May 2004.
Discussions focused on the issue of cross-border provisions of services on a
temporary and occasional basis, and in particular on the declaration
requirements to be made in advance if the service provider moves from one member
state to another.
Further information can be found at
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/qualifications/index_en.htm.
See Item 7 of agenda.
WTO international trade matters and WIPO
EBLIDA monitors the development of two major agreements negotiated under the World
Trade Organization (WTO): GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services & TRIPS, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Moreover, EBLIDA holds observer status within the SCCR, WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and related rights which meets every six months in Geneva to discuss intellectual property rights at international level.WSIS, World Summit on the Information Society (see also Item 10, Saturday 15 May)
Libraries have been called upon to participate
in an international United Nations conference on the Information Society for
the first time. National Library associations of most EU Member States have
approached their national governments and included their representatives on
the delegations. The second WSIS phase will take place in Tunisia in November
2005.
The IFLA WSIS team organised a meeting in Geneva in December 2003 attended by
EBLIDA. EBLIDA will continue to support its members’ lobbying efforts and the
IFLA actions regarding the WSIS.
EBLIDA Cooperation with other
organisations
EBLIDA will continue cooperation with IFLA, EUCLID,
ICA, EDiTEUR and the Frankfurt Group. Berndt Fredriksson
met ICA representatives to discuss closer cooperation between both
organisations.
EBLIDA
CEG (Appendix 8)
WTO (Appendix 9)
PEG
EBLIDA Director provided the names of the members
of the new EBLIDA Working Group on Professional Education and mentioned that
Pedro Hípola, EBLIDA Vice President, FESABID (Spain) was also to be included.
She also thanked the EBLIDA Working Group for their work and support to EBLIDA
activities.
See Item 7 of agenda.
EBLIDA Promotion
EBLIDA publications - Hot
News
Hot News is the only EBLIDA publication since 2002. EBLIDA
Director pointed out that the possibility of running a second survey on the move
of Hot News from hardcopy to electronic version had been discussed in 2003. She
invited Council members to further discuss and exchange views on the issue.
Pernille Drost asked what the arguments to keep the hardcopy version were.
EBLIDA Director explained that the hardcopy version had been requested by most
members following the results of the survey taken during 2002. She stated that
it was planned to carry out a follow up survey to study the opportunity of
having the electronic version only.
EBLIDA President was concerned about the purpose of the publication as a tool
for lobbying activities. If essential as a networking/lobbying instrument, then
it would be wise to keep the hardcopy version. He concluded these concerns would
be the basics for further discussion at Executive Committee level.
Pernille Drost also asked whether the possibility of switching to an electronic
version was to be examined at Council or at Executive Committee level. EBLIDA
President responded that the final decision would be taken at Executive
Committee level but any ideas, opinions and/or comments were most welcome.
EBLIDA website
The content of EBLIDA website was restructured during 2003 following the work
programme and strategy.
EBLIDA events
A list of events at which EBLIDA was represented during 2003 and 2004 can be
found in the Annual Activity Report 2003-2004, p. 18-20.
EBLIDA Funding and Finances
Membership and sponsors
Full Membership
38 Full members remain on board in 2004. Only the French Federation of Library Cooperation (FFCB) has requested cancellation of their membership for 2004 alleging lack of financial resources.
Associate Membership
EBLIDA counts 122 Associate members. As stated in the Strategy, EBLIDA will focus on recruiting members from the new EU member states during 2004. María Pía González Pereira welcomed the new members.
Sponsors
The four basic sponsors of EBLIDA remain on the membership base. The Director will seek a sponsor for the publication of the EBLIDA Annual Activity Report 2003 - 2004 in 2004. Its publication and dissemination would be a useful promotion tool.
EBLIDA annual Financial Statement 2003 & Budget Estimate 2004
Financial Statement 2003
A Financial Statement for 2003 was produced by Bouwer & Officier in cooperation with EBLIDA Director. Due to extraordinary events taken place during 2003 e.g. Director and Assistant recruitment, there has been a net result of € 4.813,00 loss which was deducted from the capital.
María Pía González Pereira thanked members for prompt payment.
Draft Budget 2004
A final version of the draft budget 2004 was
issued by EBLIDA Director in March to be presented to the EBLIDA Council in
Estoril in May.
See Item 8 of agenda, Saturday
15 May.
The EBLIDA Annual Activity Report April 2003 - April 2004 was endorsed.
María Pía González Pereira
introduced the draft programme 2003-2004 and invited members to comment. The
draft programme is based on issues and topics with which EBLIDA is working and
is related to the strategy review and annexed to the annual activity report.
The overall objective of the work programme is to strengthen EBLIDA’s voice as
representative of the interests of libraries and archives throughout Europe,
with emphasis on accession countries.
EBLIDA will encourage lobby at national level and receive feedback from the
national lobby activities of its members with regard to copyright and related
rights [Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, EU Copyright Directive,
Digital Rights Management Systems and Technical Protection Measures, Database
Directive, PLR Directive and Commission communication on Copyright & related
rights], Professional Education, WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services and
WIPO.
With regard to monitoring issues, EBLIDA will remain active in promoting library
and archive views to the EU Institutions on lifelong learning as well as in
promoting the role of libraries and archives as centres of culture and learning
in the knowledge society, including European policies on cultural heritage.
EBLIDA will continue cooperation with IFLA, EUCLID,
ICA and the Frankfurt Group.
María Pía González Pereira mentioned
CALIMERA, a new project aimed at identifying a research agenda for local
libraries, archives and museums in the digital environment. The project will run
for 18 months, starting in December 2003. EBLIDA is a core partner in the
project with an overall quality assurance role on dissemination and
international and political networking (see
Item 11 of
agenda, Saturday 15 May).
The aim of the EBLIDA Working Groups is to provide support and expert opinion to
the Secretariat in fields of knowledge relevant to the European library
community. EBLIDA counts on the support of the Copyright Expert Group, the WTO
Group and a new working group on professional education which will monitor the
development of the proposed Directive for the recognition of professional
qualifications and other professional education related issues.
For promotional purposes, EBLIDA counts on the strategy review, the monthly
newsletter Hot News,
EBLIDA Annual Report
and the website and mailing lists.
With regard to events, EBLIDA aims at organising a workshop in an accession
country in parallel with an EBLIDA Executive Committee meeting as well as a
workshop on GATS.
EBLIDA will work towards increasing its membership and sponsors paying
particular attention to new EU member states.
The Draft Work Programme 2003-2004 was approved.
EBLIDA President gave the floor to Toby Bainton who commented on the Copyright and WTO Groups as WTO Group Coordinator Kjell Nilsson, Royal Library - BIBSAM (Sweden) and Frode Bakken, Norwegian Library Association, WTO and Executive Committee member were not present. Toby Bainton gave two concise reports.
Copyright Expert Group (CEG)
The EBLIDA copyright has seventeen members from twelve European countries. See Appendix 8 of the Annual Activity Report, p. 39-40 for a list of the EBLIDA Copyright Expert Group.
The CEG Group meets twice a
year and follows up many of the legislative proposals under preparation at EU
level.
Since the EBLIDA Council in Uppsala in 2003, the CEG Group has met twice, once
in Vienna in October 2003 and then in Barcelona in March 2004. Toby Bainton
briefly reported on several initiatives the Group has been working on:
The EU copyright directive
The EU copyright directive was adopted in 2001 and is now being implemented in member states. The CEG Group is keeping track on how it is being adopted at national level. Despite harmonisation, the directive is being implemented in quite different ways. Toby Bainton pointed out that it would be necessary having to do some more lobbying about the way implementation is taken place.
Public Lending Right directive
The Public Lending Right (PLR) directive is currently having a quite significant impact in some member states which did not have PLR up until now. This is being followed up by the CEG Group.
Database directive
The Database directive has been supposedly reviewed by the European Commission. EBLIDA has never been happy with the database directive, since it excessively controls information. EBLIDA has been lobbying for a long time. The CEG Group understands that the review of the directive has been complete; however no public results have yet been seen.
Paul
W J L Gerretsen asked whether it was true that major publishers like to perceive
themselves as organisations providing databases. Toby Bainton explained that a
major publisher of scientific journals could insist that what it is produced for
libraries to use and/or access is actually a database. He understood this is
true by law.
He explained that the database directive is very broad in its definition of what
a ‘database’ might be. If looked at carefully, almost anything is a database. He
pointed out that the interesting point about this question is that publishers of
scientific journals do not seem to be making a big quarrel about this just yet,
however it is important because if they regard their material as databases they
can have it copyrighted infinitely provided they keep updating the database
because of the provisions of the database directive (a fifteen-year protecting
term); if a database is reasonably updated, the fifteen-year period starts once
more and every time there is a significant update, there are another fifteen
years of protected material.
Paul W J L Gerretsen asked if this would be successful. Toby Bainton believed
this could indeed succeed; the only safeguard would be for the author (real
creator) not to give all the rights to the publisher.
Digital Rights Management Systems
The European Commission seems to be unhappy about the different ways that copyright right holders are being remunerated in different countries when their information is being used. The Commission is also quite keen to support automated systems for managing the rights in a digital manner. The Group is not quite sure on what the Commission is planning. Some countries have very simple levies e.g. little tax on CDs, tapes to cover the costs of infringement of use of copyright material; such money goes to right holders. Some countries do not like the levy system. The Group suspects that the European Commission is not happy with these two different regimes existing across the Union and would like to harmonise, however EBLIDA needs to keep an eye on how the Commission intends to achieve harmonisation.
Some believe that a magic
system is to be devised; computer systems standardised material which will
provide the proper amount of money to the right people whenever anyone uses a
piece of copyright material. EBLIDA does not believe this is achievable and
hopes for the European Commission not to consider it too strongly.
Toby Bainton said that there had been quite a lot on the menu regarding
intellectual property rights to focus on e.g. collecting societies, Zwolle
initiative; some being very powerful laws, others just watching what might
happen. He highlighted that it had been very interesting.
On the whole, the Group was very pleased with what EBLIDA had achieved for real
bad effects of the law on the enforcement of intellectual property rights had
been set aside. The IPRE directive could have been very seriously harmful for
libraries because it was conceivable that e.g. university libraries with a
network distribution system had a student infringing copyright material; the
library would be held responsible and criminally guilty, which the Group
strongly believes it is the wrong way to approaching things.
Toby Bainton concluded saying that the CEG Group was very pleased with the
achieved results.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) Working Group
The WTO group is a small group
who does not meet very often (see Appendix 9 of the
Annual Activity
Report, p. 41 for a list of the EBLIDA WTO Group members). Toby Bainton
explained what the main concerns of the group are and what the policy issue is
regarding the WTO.
The WTO operates two main international agreements: GATT (agriculture) and GATS,
General Agreement on Trade in Services. The latter, which deals with services
rather than physical goods should be the main concern for EBLIDA for the
principle of such agreement is that a service is provided as means of business.
Services should thus be allowed to compete internationally on equal terms.
Unfortunately, this means that library and educational services e.g.
universities, public libraries may find themselves affected by GATS provided
that they could compete internationally; governments might agree to do so. For
instance, one private university in the UK, run by a company and without
government subsidies would want the same subsidies when operating outside the UK
as those with public funds.
GATS allows for either equivalent state funding for everyone in such situation or the withdrawal of state funding for institutions which already have government subsidies. This brings serious consequences for libraries and other public institutions.
The WTO Group does not think
there is any imminent danger but believes it is necessary to keep a very careful
watch over in case things start to get hazardous.
Toby Bainton referred to the report on the IFLA/EBLIDA talks with the WTO and
the European Commission about GATS and libraries in December 2002, by Kjell
Nilsson (see Appendix 6 of the
Annual Activity
Report, p. 35), in particular to “We had a very open-minded conversation
[…], but the answers we received were not very clarifying. The counsellors
seemed fairly uncertain about their interpretations of the treaty and they also
disagreed between themselves on some of them”. He pointed out that in a
situation when even the international negotiators are quite uncertain about what
the treaty means, EBLIDA could not be quite sure on what may lie ahead. This
being the policy issue, the WTO Group hoped to organise a seminar on GATS in
Cambridge in autumn, however due to lack of speakers, the seminar had been
postponed.
Toby Bainton concluded that it is very important that EBLIDA does not overlook
this issue.
EBLIDA President thanked Toby Bainton for his clear presentation and then
referred to the new working group on professional education whose first meeting
has not yet been confirmed but will take place during this year.
EBLIDA Working Group on Professional Education
The creation of the EBLIDA Working Group on Professional Education was decided by the EBLIDA Executive Committee in The Hague in October 2003. The working group has currently 7 members, although it remains open to other EBLIDA members who wish to join.
See Item 10 of agenda, Saturday 15 May.
EBLIDA President thanked Pedro Hípola, Antonio Pina and EBLIDA Director for organising the seminar on professional qualifications held in the morning and attended by over 230 library and archive professionals.
EBLIDA Director reminded Council members of new locations for Friday dinner and
Saturday meeting.
The meeting was closed at 16h30.
Created: 15 December 2004
Last updated: 14 March 2006