ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 604 / C&RL News ■ S eptem ber 1998 C O N F E R E N C E C I R C U I T Information provision An international seminar on politics and strategy by M you n g Chung W ilson I nform ation Provision: Politics and Strat­egy” was the them e o f the 1998 annual international seminar held under the auspices o f th e B ib lio th e k a r is c h e A u slan d sstelle, Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut (T h e Foreign Relations O ffice o f the Germ an Library Insti­ tute) in Berlin in cooperation with the Soci­ ety for Political Education and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. T he sem inar was funded by the Cultural Foundation o f the “Lander” o f the Federal Republic o f Germ any, the German Foreign Ministry in Bonn, and the British Council in Cologne. Its p u rpose was tw ofold— to bring to­ gether librarians from different parts o f the world (particularly those from Central and Eastern Europe, w here libraries will play a critical role in building open and dem ocratic societies) and to offer continuing education through an intensive sem inar and study tour. The intellectual focus o f the seminar was on the political, social, and econ om ic strategies o f information provision and the role o f li­ braries and librarians in building interactive strategies in different parts o f the world. Over 50 librarians and information sp e­ cialists from a variety o f libraries in 22 differ­ ent countries participated in the w eek-long sem inar (Jun e 26-Ju ly 3, 1998), followed by a study tour o f selected German academic and public libraries in Wurzburg, Gottingen, G u tterslo h , M arburg and Frankfu rt. T h e ven u e for the c o n fe re n c e portion o f the gathering was at the Academy Frankenwarte (G esellschaft fur Politische Bilding, o f the F r ie d e r ic h - E b e r t S tifu tu n g ) lo c a t e d in Wurzbug— the heart o f the Franconian coun­ try depicted as the “Pearl o f the Romantic Road” o f Germany, according to the 1998 Fordor’s Travel Guide. The seminar began with welcom ing re­ marks by Margrit Grubmuller, director o f the Academy Frankenwarte, who stressed the in­ creasing importance o f both information and com m unication and em phasized long-term international cooperation as one o f the goals o f Friederich Ebert Stifutung (who was the first d em o cra tic a lly e le c te d P resid en t o f post-war West Germany). Elisabeth Simon, of the Foreign Relations Office o f the German Library Institute and organizer o f the seminar, also welcom ed the participants. She under­ scored the increasing importance o f personal contacts among librarians and users in the age o f e-mail and other advanced means o f com ­ munication. The seminar’s general theme o f the politi­ cal and strategic dimensions o f information provision, had several important subthemes. Following are samples o f contributions made in these areas. Biddy Fisher from Great Britain identified government strategies for dealing with the new and emerging structure o f contemporary edu­ cation in the United Kingdom, where lifelong learning and distance education are em pha­ sized. Fisher challenged librarians to have vision, creativity, and an attitude o f risktaking About the author M yo un g Chung Wilson is info rm a tio n services/collection d evelopm ent librarian a t Rutgers University, e-mail: mywilson@ rci.rutgers.edu C&RL News ■ September 1998 / 605 to develop the skills necessary to become full partners in the emerging new learning and teaching environment. Erdmute Lapp of Germany described the G lobal Info 2000 P roject sponsored by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This project is being developed in response to paradigm shifts in the political and socioeconomic spheres, due to the advance of information technology. It emphasizes in­ formation as a precondition for innovation in government, business, science, and technol­ ogy. Werner Schwuchow of Germany described the role of government in an information so­ ciety by reviewing the development of infor­ mation policy in the United States and Ger­ many and by analyzing the general principles of policy development for publicly and pri­ vately financed information services. Inform ation ethics Under the theme of information ethics, Tim Owen of the UK presented a paper on infor­ mation overload in which he cogently ana­ lyzed recent Reuters’ studies on information. Owen suggested that the results of these stud­ ies, published under the titles “To Know or Not To Know: The Politics of Information,” “Information as an Asset: The Invisible Gold Mine,” “Glued to the Screen,” and “Dying for Information” are good indicators of growing, worldwide information overload. He recommended that librarians prioritize sources, stick to these priorities, and, most important, reject information when necessary. Three case studies of institutions that are en­ gaged in the provision of information and that have experienced transformative changes were described by H. P. Thun of Germany, Nick Moore of Great Britain, and Eduard Duijker of the Netherlands. Angelika Hesse of Germany presented a comparative study of Germany and France that noted differences in informa­ tion provision in rural areas. Under the subtheme of “Information Power: The Political Dimensions,” Eisuke Naito of Ja­ pan reviewed the framework of national in­ formation policy in Japan in its historical, re­ gional, and global contexts. Maja Jokie from Zagreb discussed Croatia’s national information policy and the fast- growing national information infrastructure in that country. Inform ation literacy I presented a paper that reviewed the chang­ ing requirements for information and digital information literacy and that called for inno­ vative instructional modes and facilities ap­ propriate for a post-Internet environment. Walther Umstätter of Germany presented (from a European perspective) a paper on new forms of professional education that emphasize edu­ cating librarians to understand the production o f knowledge and the infrastructure of scien­ tific technical information. Henning Nielsen of Denmark chaired a stimulating roundtable discussion where par­ ticipants were asked, “Are librarians ‘infor­ mation literate’ and how does the library help to form information literacy?” Nielsen pointed out that librarians are increasingly moving away from simply providing facts and information toward a teaching and consultancy role. The stress now is on how to provide access to, select tools for, and structure information. Not the least of the challenges now facing librarians is how to provide an end-user environment where teaching and consultancy can take place. N ielsen rem inded the participan ts that librarianship is among the few professions whose practitioners must be information lit­ erate and must constantly challenge them­ selves by asking whether they possess the most up-to-date skills necessary for true in­ formation literacy. Copyrights and services Katharina Steinwachs of Germany introduced concepts developed by the Dutch sociologist Hofstede on management and culture in differ­ ent societies. Tuula Haavisto of Finland discussed the development in 1998 of the Central and East­ ern European Copyright User Platform. This plat­ form was modeled after the European Copyright User’s Platform, which has been in existence since 1992. The aim of both platforms is to help librar­ ians to understand increasingly complex copy­ right issues and to use copyrights as a mecha­ nism for delivering information democratically by promoting user rights that are fair to both authors and publishers. Elena Nebogatikova of Russia went further by presenting a case study where the library functions as a copublisher by microfilming li­ brary materials in cooperation with Russian publishers. 606 / C&RL News ■ Septem ber 1998 Marina Novikova o f Russia described the Pushkin Project o f the Soros Foundation, funded by its Open Society Institute. Begun in 1997, the Pushkin Library Books Project aims to acquire and distribute the best Russian books to selected libraries within the country. The project also seeks to build an infrastructure that will connect publishers, book distribu­ tors, libraries, and readers. Novikova con ­ cluded that the ultimate goal o f the project is to assist the best publishers and support intel­ ligent readership in Russia. Nuria Gallart o f Spain described the EC Decom ate II Project that is attempting to de­ velop a digital library for econom ics in coop­ eration with several European university li­ braries. In fo rm a tio n provision b e tw e e n tra d itio n and m odernism Gunter Beyersdorff o f Germany pointed out the difficulties that libraries have in adjusting to discontinuous changes when there is no long-term prognosis for these changes. He noted the need for libraries to respond to emerging competitors in the field o f informa­ tion provision, such as publishing companies, M icro s o ft, an d A m erica O n lin e . Lastly, Beyersdorff pointed out the danger o f losses that may occur from disjunctions between what is preserved in electronic publishing and what is published in books. The proceedings o f this seminar will be available in English and German from the Foreign Relations Office, the German Library Institute, House No. 2 Luisentr. 57, 10 117 Berlin, Germany at $35 per copy. A complete list o f the papers that w ere presented can also b e obtained. Correction In the July/August 1998 Internet Resources column "East Asian studies,” the heading on page 516 should read “Individual countries/ regions" rather than “Individual countries.” And the four electronic journals found on page 520—Free China Review, Interpoetics, Japan Echo, and Road to East Asia—were misplaced under the Taiwan heading. The editors re­ gret the error.