|
|
DRAFT Minutes Executive Committee MeetingBudapest, Hungary, 4 May 2006 |
These Minutes have been approved by the EBLIDA President.
Chair: Jan Ewout van der Putten.
Participants: Karin Åstrom, Toby Bainton, Andrew Cranfield, Marian Koren, Gerald Leitner, Helena Patrício, Bas Savenije, Lalla Sotgiu, Disa Svenskberg, Finn Vester.
1. Opening and announcements
Jan Ewout van der Putten opened the Executive Committee meeting and bid everyone welcome. He also welcomed the new director, Andrew Cranfield, to EBLIDA.
Apologies were received from Sue Brown and Barbara Lison (who would be attending however the Council meeting on 5 and 6 May 2006).
The Agenda was approved.
The Minutes were approved with the following comments:
Finn Vester noted that the Working Group had not finalised the text on EBLIDA membership benefits. This would be addressed in cooperation with the new director.
The document “Good Governance: a code for the Voluntary and Community Sector” had been distributed by Barbara Lison just prior to this EC meeting.
Announcements
Emanuella Giavarra has terminated her contract as legal adviser to EBLIDA. It was decided that Andrew Cranfield contact Emanuella Giavarra to discuss how to follow this up and maybe also a “crash course” on copyright and legal issues for the new director.
The EC also wanted to formally thank Emanuella Giavarra and acknowledge her contribution to EBLIDA and European libraries in general.
New members to Committees
Hella Klauser succeeds Barbara Schleihagen as a member of the Trade and Libraries Group, while Christian Recht replaces Isolde Mueller in the Copyright Expert Group.
Finances
Finn Vester, in his capacity of treasurer, presented the accounts for 2005, the revised budget for 2006 and a draft budget for 2007. This means that there are three separate items, pertaining to the finances, which need to be put before and approved by Council.
Finn Vester noted that EBLIDA’s assets are such that the organization has running costs for a 6 month period, which is in accordance with the rule of thumb.
While the economy of EBLIDA is stable, it should be noted that there is a decline in the number of association members and in the long run this might be a threat to the organization.
EBLIDA structure and regulations
This working group would meet on the 5th of May and there was no proposal submitted for this EC meeting.
(This working group met on May 5th and continued with the work of proposing more specific regulations on a number of issues, including clarification of the responsibilities of the director. The group more or less concluded its work in Budapest and will propose changes to the Constitution for discussion and possible agreement at the next EC meeting on October 6th-7th 2006).
6. EBLIDA membership issues and Working Group
Membership status report
Finn Vester reported that the membership was relatively stable, but as mentioned above the organization is losing some association members.
It was proposed that members more than two years in arrears should be deleted from the EBLIDA membership and their debts written off (so that outstanding amounts do not appear as assets for many years). A proposal to delete members must be put forward for approval by Council (Article 10 of the Constitution).
EC members and Marian Koren had followed up on a number of members who had not paid and Marian Koren reported that a number of membership fees were being paid.
It was proposed that a list of outstanding debts would be presented by the director at each EC meeting.
Membership working group
Finn Vester stated the opinion that it is very important to explain what EBLIDA can do for the national organizations and the membership. EBLIDA needs to review its communication to members and have a clearer idea of its strategic communication. It was felt that the news that EBLIDA disseminates from e.g. the European Union, needs to be mediated and put into a more clear library and archival context.
EC members should also look into trying to recruit new members. Marian Koren has, what is hoped to be, a useful contact list which can be distributed to all EC members.
Disa Svenskberg suggested that a new layout for Hot News might be a good idea and that there should be a clearer divide between the EU pages and matters pertaining to EBLIDA.
Carla Sotgiu remarked that the EBLIDA website was not easy to use, it could use a new design and a better structure (more thematically developed) if it is to be a better communicative tool for EBLIDA.
Gerald Leitner commented that the calendar could also be improved; there should be more focus on European events rather than world events. If possible it would also be relevant to post information about national conferences on the EBLIDA calendar.
It was agreed that no proposal would be presented on the above issues at the next EC meeting, but that the director would work with the membership group on improving the website, Hot News and the overall strategic communication of the organization.
It was agreed that this group would update the EBLIDA leaflet, trying to outline the benefits of being a member of EBLIDA.
7. Council Agenda
The
Council agenda was reviewed with the director. As the agenda is fairly short and the number of delegates at Council is no more than about 40 it was decided to hold the three work sessions in plenary. This format meant that it was not necessary to have chairs for the individual sessions, so Jan Ewout van der Putten would chair the whole session.The EC discussed the annual report and annual work programme. Disa Svenskberg noted that the list of working group members reflected the composition of these groups as of 2006 rather than 2005. It was agreed that the final version of the annual work programme would state that this list is updated as of 1st May 2006.
The workshop on experiences with EU legislation and national implementation of EU directives (copyright, PLR
, etc.), originally planned for September was discussed. Andrew Cranfield did not think it feasible to arrange this workshop at such short notice, but would look into the possibility of holding this workshop in November (Margo de Groot seems not to have time to help plan this workshop).Trade and Libraries
Toby Bainton reported on the directive on services in the internal market. In principle, the directive allows private companies to enter new markets and compete with publicly funded institutions. However, there are safeguards in the directive and at present it is unlikely that the directive poses a threat to libraries and archives. The situation at the world level is more complicated, but this should be viewed as an IFLA lobbying issue, though EBLIDA must continue to monitor at the world level.
Toby Bainton noted that lobbying with social services in regard to the directive might be of value.
The EC was informed that Barbara Stratton and Harald von Hielmcrone were in Geneva for a WIPO meeting.
The question of data retention was raised by Bas Savenije, who made the point that this was an important issue and one of high profile for libraries in general and EBLIDA. It might be worth investigating in what countries this is an issue and whether there is the basis for a future workshop covering this topic.
[The EU directive on mandatory retention of communications traffic data went into force as an EU law on 3 May 2006, transposition however seems more uncertain as 16 out of EU-25 have declared that retention of data will be delayed for another 18 months].
Marian Koren has written to Marcena Marcinek from the Krakow University of Technology about the proposed EC meeting in Krakow, but has not had an answer yet.
Andrew Cranfield will follow up on this.
Issues for the agenda for the EC October meeting include report from the working group on regulations; budget follow up (including membership status); and a draft activity programme for 2007 (work-in-progress).
If the meeting in Krakow is not possible, both Toby Bainton and Bas Savenije have contacts in Poland and it might be possible to hold the meeting in Warsaw instead.
The EBLIDA EC meeting to be held in Coimbra, Portugal is scheduled for the beginning of March to allow us as much time as possible before the Council meeting in Reykjavík, Iceland.
10. Cooperation with other organizations
No issues were discussed under this point.
11. Any other business
EBLIDA has received 3 proposals (A-C) from IFLA for amendments to the Statutes; the first of these (proposal A) leads to some discussion. The proposal states that other association members (a recent new category established in 2004) shall be assigned at least one vote in accordance with a formula determined from time to time by the Governing Board.
Finn Vester recommended that EBLIDA vote in favour of the proposed amendments, including proposal A. Gerald Leitner thought that voting for proposal A might be in contradiction to EBLIDA’s own policy on non-voting rights for association members.
Both Finn Vester and Andrew Cranfield thought that this was a different category and Andrew Cranfield stated that institutional members of IFLA had voting rights.
Andrew Cranfield asked if we had examples of this kind of organization, but this was not the case. Andrew Cranfield would investigate with IFLA HQ and email this information to the EC.
The EC decided that EBLIDA could vote for the other two proposals concerning the establishment of a quorum (B) and time limit of the convening notice for Council meetings (C).
It was briefly discussed whether the seminar on experiences with EU legislation (as mentioned above) could be held in Vilnius as part of the CEG meeting.
Jan Ewout van der Putten thought the subjects were too different. As stated above the director would investigate if the workshop can be held later in 2006.
12. Closure
Jan Ewout van der Putten closed the meeting.
Created:
21 June 2006