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Minutes Executive Committee MeetingCork, Ireland, 12 May 2005 |
These Minutes have been approved by the EBLIDA
President.
Participants: Frode Bakken, Klaus-Peter Böttger, Berndt Fredriksson, María Pía González Pereira, Britt–Marie Häggström, Pedro Hípola, Marian Koren, Helena Patrício (on behalf of Antonio José da Pina Falçao), Olga Saíz, Disa Svenskberg, Jan Ewout van der Putten, Finn Vester, Winnie Vitzansky.
Invited observer: Sue Brown.
1. Opening and announcements
Jan Ewout van der Putten opened the meeting and thanked the Irish colleagues for their support and cooperation.
Tommaso Giordano and Antonio José da Pina Falçao notified the Secretariat of their impossibility to attend the meeting. Antonio José da Pina Falçao (BAD) was represented at the meeting by Helena Patrício.
The Agenda was approved.
The Minutes were approved with the following amendments:
Finn Vester requested to amend Item 10 as follows:
EBLIDA annual Council meeting in autumn
Concerning this Danish proposal, after discussion the Executive Committee decided to keep the yearly Council meeting in May, and to present a draft budget for the coming fiscal year for approval by the Council.
Discussion groups
The Executive Committee agreed that the Spokespersons of each Discussion group shall report back on the results to the Executive Committee. The Spokespersons shall appoint a participant in the Discussion group who will report on the discussions held to the Council plenary afterwards.
Elections
After discussion, the Executive Committee agreed to proceed as follows: Klaus-Peter Böttger and Berndt Fredriksson will lead the procedures.
Only Full Members will get the ballot papers stamped with the EBLIDA logo at Registration before the session of Saturday 14 May.
A committee of members’ representatives will count the voting. This group will be formed by: María Pía González Pereira (Director EBLIDA), Liam Ronayne (Ireland), Ilonya Fonyó (Hungary), and Alexandra Horvat (Croatia). These representatives will sign the Minutes of the voting.
The ballot papers with the voting will be collected after the candidates to Executive Committee members and President present themselves to Council plenary.
Council 2006: Budapest proposal
The Executive Committee decided that María Pía González Pereira contacts the Hungarian members of EBLIDA in order to seek confirmation that the event can count on their cooperation.
Other proposals would be to organise the EBLIDA annual Council meeting 2006 in Latvia or Croatia.
Pedro Hípola suggested that, apart from the 10 elected members of the Executive Committee, it could be acknowledged the possibility to have regular observers in the Executive Committee meetings.
Further to Pedro Hípola’s suggestion, the Executive Committee agreed that EBLIDA members might be invited by the Executive Committee to attend Executive Committee meetings as observers.
The Executive Committee agreed on the suggestion by Pedro Hípola to include in the Agenda for the Council meeting 2006 a list of expected events and forecasts of the European Commission agenda on matters relevant to the EBLIDA members.
6. EBLIDA Finances: Financial Statement 2004, Draft Budget 2005 (Updated) & Preliminary Draft Budget 2006
Financial Statement 2004 & Draft Budget 2005
Klaus Peter Böttger thanked María Pía González Pereira for the financial results of 2004. The estimations made for the Draft Budget 2004 were accurate in general but the final results of the year have been more positive than expected (+5.494 Euros). However, there has been more expenditure and less income than estimated, due to the loss with the Workshop on GATS (Cambridge, March 2005).
In response to questions from the Executive, María Pía González Pereira explained the situation at the Secretariat concerning the vacancy of the Administrative Assistant. Carmen Morlón (EBLIDA EU Information Officer) is taking up part of the Administration work and being paid by it (8 hours per week). María Pía González Pereira is doing some administrative work too, but due to her condition of Director, she cannot be paid for administrative work. Therefore, her hours worked on the administration are being calculated as toil time (4 hours per week).
The net result abovementioned will be added to the EBLIDA capital.
The current version of the Draft Budget 2005 (updated in March 2005) was approved by the Executive Committee to be presented to Council for final approval.
Preliminary Draft Budget 2006
The future of the financial situation of EBLIDA was discussed. At present, if a yearly balance of zero is sought, there are 2 options: receive extra income through EC-funded projects or get income from Workshops.
Britt-Marie Häggström suggested proposing to the new Executive Committee to study the possibility of receiving funding support from the European Commission.
Finn Vester and Klaus-Peter supported this proposal.
Klaus-Peter Böttger said that the new Executive Committee should assess, in the next 2 years, the way in which EBLIDA will be sustained.
The Executive Committee approved the proposal.
The preliminary Draft Budget 2006 was approved by the Executive Committee to be presented to Council.
7. EBLIDA Annual Report 2004 - 2005
Concerning the EBLIDA Working Groups, discussion aroused about its members.
Klaus-Peter Böttger noted that there are no Eastern EU countries within the EBLIDA CEG (Copyright Expert Group).
Britt-Marie Häggström suggested raising awareness that the CEG is open to new members, especially from Eastern countries.
The Executive Committee agreed that Jan Ewout van der Putten announces that all EBLIDA working groups are willing to bring new members on board who are devoted to the corresponding matters.
The Executive Committee agreed that the EBLIDA Expert Working Groups must be regulated officially and that their members should be aware that they are expert groups in which the members join voluntarily to provide expertise and not to receive first hand information [See also Item 11. EBLIDA Working Groups].
The Executive Committee approved the EBLIDA Draft Annual Report 2004 – 2005, to be presented to Council.
The Executive Committee approved the Draft EBLIDA Work Programme 2004 – 2005 to be presented to Council for final approval.
9. EBLIDA Membership issues
The Membership Working Group had to delay its planned meeting in Krakow together with colleagues from new EU countries, due to lack of time.
The Executive Committee decided to make a recommendation to the new Executive Committee to celebrate this event in Krakow in 2006. The new executive Committee will discuss the composition of the Membership Working Group in its next meeting.
Pedro Hípola reported on the Nordic-Baltic Conference, celebrated in Latvia (2 – 3 May 2005), in which he was present together with Frode Bakken.
Pedro Hípola said that Frode Bakken and he informed the participants about the EBLIDA activities and its Executive Committee’s Working Group on Membership issues. Representatives from Latvia and Lithuania manifested their wish that EBLIDA would focus not only in Copyright but also in Culture matters.
Pedro Hípola is grateful to the organisation of the Nordic – Baltic Conference and the interest they showed for the EBLIDA activities.
Winnie Vitzansky commented that it is very important to make the new EU countries’ Associations aware of the need of EBLIDA in order to influence the decision-makers in Europe and change legislation. In this sense, the meeting in Krakow is very important.
Further to Pedro Hípola’s proposal, the Executive Committee approved that a document be prepared by EBLIDA for this meeting, in which concrete points reflect the results that EBLIDA has achieved through its actions as response to European Commission’s proposals.
10. Cooperation with other organisations
Britt-Marie Häggström and Klaus-Peter Böttger suggested the possibility that EBLIDA has a long-term strategy on organising library conferences under favourable EU Presidencies in the corresponding country.
The Executive Committee agreed to recommend to the new executive Committee to discuss this possibility.
Sue Brown said that the EBLIDA PEG is following progress of EUCLID and the results of the Copenhagen Conference (August 2005) on LIS (Library and Information Science).
Berndt Fredriksson commented on the positive results of the meeting in Girona (April 2005). ICA is organising the VII European Conference on Archives which will take place in Poznan (Poland) on 18 May 2006, under the title “Archivist: Profession of the future in Europe”.
An important issue for debate in ICA at the moment is the human rights’ documentation preservation and there is a project running called “Archivists sans frontiers”.
The way of cooperation between ICA and EBLIDA needs to be defined.
FEP (Federation of European Publishers)
María Pía González Pereira commented that the first formal meeting between FEP and EBLIDA representatives will take place on 15 June 2005 in Brussels, at the FEP headquarters. A draft Agenda is being prepared by María Pía González Pereira in coordination with the EBLIDA CEG members and FEP.
Jan Ewout van der Putten said that EBLIDA should work more closely with IFLA in the long term and even share part of their resources. He said IFLA is trying to focus and do more on advocacy so EBLIDA should avoid doubling efforts or doing things twice.
11. EBLIDA Working Groups
Disa Svenskberg said that there is a need to have a policy strategy on the functioning of the EBLIDA working groups.
Britt-Marie Häggström said that it is important to keep in mind that these groups’ membership is not unlimited. According to the EBLIDA Mission, these groups are created when needed to tackle complex relevant matters at a certain point in time but they can be dissolved accordingly.
The Executive Committee decided to request the new Executive Committee to regulate this matter.
WTO Working Group
The Executive Committee recognised the successful conference in Cambridge on 2 – 3 March 2005, organised by EBLIDA in cooperation with SCONUL.
The Executive Committee discussed the situation and work of the WTO group based on changes suggested by the Chair of the group, Kjell Nilsson, in an email of 29 March 2005 to the President of EBLIDA, Jan Ewout van der Putten. The changes suggested were accepted and this means the following:
The name of the group has been changed to: "EBLIDA expert group on trade and libraries". The expert group has the following members: Toby Bainton, Frode Bakken, María Pía González Pereira (Director EBLIDA), Kjell Nilsson (Chair), Liam Ronayne, Barbara Schleihagen, Barbara Stratton and Harald von Hielmcrone.
The
group will be in contact with relevant people who can help EBLIDA and the group
in its coming work on the topic.
It was decided that EBLIDA will ask for accreditation as an NGO at WTO and
if that is accepted, it was decided that Kjell Nilsson and Frode Bakken will be
representatives of EBLIDA at the WTO Hong Kong-session in December 2005. The
costs for participation will not be covered by EBLIDA and it is the
responsibility of Nilsson and Bakken to find relevant financial support.
The Executive Committee decided that the EBLIDA expert group on trade and libraries will point out proposals and timetables for actions, will send them to the Director and to the Executive Committee so it can inspire all the EBLIDA members on these matters.
Winnie Vitzansky suggested that EBLIDA could cooperate with LIBER and NAPLE on these matters.
The Executive Committee decided that the EBLIDA expert group on trade and libraries approaches NAPLE in order to seek cooperate with cooperation.
Working Group on Culture
Britt-Marie Häggström said there is great interest on Culture matters by many EBLIDA members and representatives from new EU countries.
Jan Ewout van der Putten said that the creation of an EBLIDA working group will be decided by the Council.
12. Information on lobbying & monitoring issues
Britt-Marie Häggström notified the Secretariat in advance of the existence of this initiative. She proposed that EBLIDA discuss this matter on the Discussion Group on Culture at Council.
Marian Koren explained that there are 2 organisations, EFAH (European Forum for the Arts and Heritage) and ECF (European Cultural Foundation), lobbying to raise the EU budget for Culture. They have organised the “70 Cents for Culture” campaign in order to raise awareness.
After discussion, the Executive Committee decided that EBLIDA subscribes this campaign.
Klaus-Peter Böttger suggested that EBLIDA get more in touch with the UNESCO National Commissions for libraries.
Winnie Vitzansky said that the IFLA committee MLAS (Management of Library Associations Section), should be made aware of this UNESCO resources and work more closely with EBLIDA on these matters.
Jan Ewout van der Putten said he will coordinate with the IFLA MLAS on this regards.
13. Any other business
Due to lack of time, the outstanding matters will be discussed in the next Executive Committee meeting.
The Executive Committee members who will be elected in Council on Saturday 14 May will meet briefly after the Council and then decide the date and place for the next EBLIDA Executive Committee meeting.
15. Closure
Jan Ewout van der Putten thanked the Executive Committee members for their work and cooperation. He said that the EBLIDA Strategy that was reviewed in 2004 is a good inheritance for the incoming Executive Committee.
Jan Ewout van der Putten said he is grateful for the cooperation through these years with Britt-Mari Häggström, Pedro Hípola, Klaus-Peter Böttger, Frode Bakken, Berndt Fredriksson, Antonio da Pina and Tommaso Giordano.
The meeting was closed.
Created:
4 November 2005Last updated: 22 June 2006