International library associations.

INTRODUCTION

International organizations have experienced a recent remarkable

increase in numbers. Several possible reasons for the growth of international

library associations since World War II are the following:

* Our shrinking world has caused increasing awareness of other parts

of the world with accompanying demands for access to information

Lfrom those areas.

* Growth of information and publishing throughout the world.

* Awareness through increased automation of resources in other parts

of the world.

* Growth of international business interests in the second half of the

twentieth century after the war.

* More sophisticated users who demand specialized services and increased

knowledge of the access to information resources by their librarians.

The World Guide to Library, Archive, and Information Science Associations

defines international associations as "organizations whose membership includes

two or more countries .... They may be general in nature ... or specialized..."

(Fang & Songe, 1990, p. iv). In its 1990 edition, the World Guide identified

seventy-six international associations based on the returned questionnaires

sent to each association and the compilers' knowledge of additional

associations. The World Guide notes that there were thirty-three international

associations in 1973, forty-one in 1976, fifty-eight in 1980, and seventy-six

in 1990 (p. vii). Dates of establishment are broken down in Table 1.

TABLE 1.

DATES OF ASSOCIATIONS ESTABLISHED BY DECADE



Decade                Number of Associations Established



1895                              1(*)

1927                              1(**)

1930                              1(***)

1940                              3

1950                             11

1960                             17

1970                             23

1980                             17

No Date listed                    7

(*) International Federation for Information & Documentation, FID

(**) International Federation of Library Associations & Institutions, IFLA

(***) Federation Internationale des Archives du Film, FIAF

Another reason for this growth in numbers is the development of regional and

specialized library associations. For several decades, FID (International

Federation for Information & Documentation), founded in 1895, IFLA

(International Federation of Library Associations & Institutions),

founded in 1927 and, to a certain extent, the conferences and

congresses of leading library associations, such as the American Library

Association and the Library Association (of the United Kingdom), filled

the need for librarians from around the world to meet. The World Encyclopedia

of Library and Information Services offers a detailed early

history of international library organizations, pointing out that: "One of

IFLA's major roles has been as a centralizing organization precipitating the

emergence of specialist groups that become part of its federal structure"

(Rayward, 1993, p. 386).

In fact, an analysis of the seventy-six international organizations listed

in the World Guide reveals that only six of the associations listed there

could strictly be called general and fully global. The others fall into either

regional groupings or specialized topical or professional groupings,

as shown in Table 2.

TABLE 2.



REGIONAL OR SPECIALIZED TOPICAL AssOCIATIONS

Regional associations (Examples:

Middle East, Africa, Latin America)               13



Specialized topical or professional

groupings:

  Agriculture                                      3

  Archives                                        12

  Art and Music                                    6

  Bibliographic control                            3

  Library education                                4

  Medical and Health-related                       3

  Religion and Theology                            3

  Other specialized subjects                       9

  Types of libraries                              10

This article will highlight five international library associations which

typify the trends. Only two of them are included in the World Guide list of

international associations. The other three illustrate important trends in

international library associations. The five associations are as follows:

1. The International Association of Technological University Libraries

(IATUL), which typifies an association of members from a specific

type of library.

2. The International Association of Agricultural Librarians and Documentalists

(MALD), now known as the International Association of

Agricultural Information Specialists, which typifies an association of

members from a specific subject area or discipline.

3. The Special Libraries Association (SLA), which fits the World Guide's

definition of international association, but which was listed incorrectly

in the national section, representing the role of the very large library

association struggling with an international identity.

4. The International Librarianship Round Table of the Arizona Library

Association (AzLA ILRT), which illustrates a trend to localize the relationship

between librarians in several countries. Associations covering

sub-areas of countries, such as state associations, were not in

the scope of the World Guide.

5. The Transborder Library Forum/Foro Transfronterizo de Bibliotecas

(Foro), which represents a unique grassroots regional development

of the 1990s.

Descriptions of each of these five associations will include historical

information about their founding; mission, purpose, and goals of the current

organization; profile of the membership components of the association;

services to its membership, such as conferences, publications, and

other forms of communication; and future plans. No formalized history

of the ILRT and little on the Foro has been written; the author has relied

on ephemeral material such as minutes, annual reports, and memoranda

to construct these sections. At the conclusion of these detailed descriptions,

some issues and trends will be identified.

FID AND IFLA,

The two international associations with the most influence in the

development of other international library associations are FID and IFLA_

This article would not be complete without a summary of the history and

influence of these "grandfather" associations.

FID

FID, the Federation Internationale de Documentation/ International

Federation for Documentation, was founded in 1895 as the Institut International

de Bibliographie (IIB), concerning itself with the classification

of materials and particularly the development of a standard classification

scheme. Later, with the name change to FID, came a change in purpose,

enlarged to include the "organization, storage, retrieval, dissemination

and evaluation of information" (FID Preamble of Statutes, as quoted in

Keenan, 1993, p. 377). In 1990, FID had a published membership of 371

library institutions from sixty-six countries and an additional 300 affiliated

members. FID's Web site states its very general goals for the present

and future:

1. advance the frontiers of science and technology;

2. improve competitiveness of business, industry, and national economies;

3. strengthen possibilities for development and enhance the quality of

life wherever possible;

4. improve the ability of decision-makers to make appropriate decisions;

5. stimulate educational strategies and life-long learning;

6. make expression possible in all sectors of the Information Society

including the arts and humanities and will strive and continue to be

at the leading edge of the development of the management of information

(FID WWW Document).(1)

IFLA

The International Federation of Library Associations/Federation

Internationale des Associations de Bibliothecaires, renamed the International

Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in 1976, was

founded in 1926 at the annual meeting of the American Library Association

(ALA), where representatives from many countries had convened to

celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of ALA (Fang & Songe, 1973). IFLA's

early purpose was to organize regular world conferences between United

States and European library associations. This mission was greatly expanded

in the 1970s "to promote international understanding, cooperation,

discussion, research, and development in all fields of library

activity, including bibliography, information services, and the education of

personnel, and to provide a body through which librarianship can be represented

in matters of international interest" (IFLA 1976 Statutes, as quoted

in Henry, 1993, p. 379). From its 1997 Web page, IFLA reasserts its global

scope:

IFLA is a worldwide, independent organization created to provide

librarians around the world with a forum for exchanging ideas, promoting

international cooperation, research and development in all

fields of library activity. IFLA!s objectives are:

* to represent librarianship in matters of international interest,

* to promote the continuing education of library personnel,

* and to develop, maintain and promote guidelines for library services.

(IFLA WWW Document)

IFLA continues to be an association of associations, with 1,200 members

in 1990 in two categories--members representing associations and

institutions and personal (nonvoting) members (Fang & Songe, 1990, p.

43). Today, IFLA reaches out to most of the world's regions, encouraging

true worldwide participation at conferences and other IFLA-sponsored

meetings.

IATUL

According to its homepage on the World Wide Web, the International

Association of Technological University Libraries is:

a voluntary international nongovernmental organisation of a group of

libraries, represented by their library directors or university managers,

who have responsibility for information services and resource management. It

is small enough for individual members to be able to develop a close

relationship, yet widespread enough to cover the interests of libraries

operating in virtually all modern social, economic, and political

situations.... (IATUL WWW Document)

The International Association of Technological University Libraries was

founded in 1955 with institutional representatives from thirteen countries.

Today's membership has grown to 198 member libraries from forty-one countries

(Fjallbrant, 1993, p. 373). IATUL prefers that its members be directors of

technological or scientific university libraries. In its founding year, IATUL

became a section of IFLA. There are four categories of membership:

"ordinary membership," available to libraries of academic institutions and

research libraries where science and technology degrees at the doctoral

level are offered;

"official observer membership," available to libraries which do not have the

doctoral program, but have research-level collections;

"sustaining membership," for individuals and institutions who are

sympathetic to the purposes of IATUL; and

"non-voting associate membership," which is extended to libraries which

confer science and technology degrees at the Masters level when no

doctoral degrees are awarded. The last three categories require IATUL

Board approval. IATUL WWW Document)

IATUL's purpose is to "provide a forum for library directors to meet for

exchange of views on matters of current significance in the libraries of

universities of science and technology, and to provide an opportunity for them

to develop a collaborative approach to problems" (Fang & Songe, 1990, p. 39).

IATUL's goals focus on increasing opportunities for international cooperation

in five areas: (1) sharing current information about technical university

libraries; (2) recruiting and training library personnel; (3) discussing the

development of new library buildings; (4) standardizing and enlarging

international lending schemes; and (5) creating exchange opportunities of the

publications of the respective institutions (Schmidmaier, 1990, p. 201).

IATUL takes pride in its ability to communicate with members through

conferences, its publication program, and visibility on the World Wide Web

(Tornudd, 1996). Conferences are currently held annually throughout the world.

The last two were held in Enshede, The Netherlands, and Irvine, California, in

1996, in Trondheim, Norway, in 1997. The 1998 conference will convene in

Pretoria, South Africa, a first for the organization on the African continent.

Themes for these and previous, conferences have included user education,

service to industry, resource management, networking, and implications for

digital libraries. Conferences are lively opportunities to demonstrate and

discuss new ideas for the advancement of library service in the members'

constituencies. They are well attended with the 1996 conference (in Irvine,

California) attracting approximately 250 attendees.

IATUL originally distributed reprints, then began publishing a small

bulletin with news of the organization, especially its upcoming conferences.

This "grey literature," defined by Dieter Schmidmaier, a former

IATUL board member, as "publications outside of the bookshop, not

bibliographically recorded and to a large extent unknown," nevertheless

comprised the publication effort of IATUL for the first ten years of its

existence (Schmidmaier, 1996, p. 330). Today, IATUL's publication program

is strong. The IATUL News (formerly its Quarterly) and the IATUL

Proceedings (of its conferences) are distributed to member libraries, although

there is no one library which holds all publications of the organization.

In addition, IATUL has a presence on the World Wide Web. Its home

page, at URL educate.lib.chalmers.se/IATUL, contains information about

the organization, upcoming meetings, institutional member linkages,

projects, publications, membership information, and links to other relevant

Web sites. In October 1996, forty countries had Web sites on the

IATUL home page (IATUL WWW Document).

The future for IATUL encompasses some activities related to its length

of time as an organization and its growth in size and global representation.

These activities include developing an archive as a permanent record

of IATUL's history, increasing the opportunities for personnel exchanges

between the member institutions, essay prizes for papers presented at

conferences, and exploring the idea of regional groups (Shaw, 1996).

The statutes provide for the establishment of groups to organize member

activities on a regional basis, and a North American Regional Group was

established in 1985. Similar groups are under consideration for Australasia

and South Africa (IATUL WWW Document). Cooperation with other

international organizations continues. IATUL is an International Member

of IFLA, an Official Observer of Unesco, and a member of the International

Federation for Information and Documentation.

IAALD

Like IATUL, the International Association of Agricultural Librarians

and Documentalists was founded in 1955 with sixty founding members in

thirteen countries. It clearly met a need, as one year later the membership

had grown to thirty-five countries and then to fifty-three countries by

1960.

Founded by agriculture professors in Germany and Austria, this organization

was a direct result of the chaos of World War II in Europe and

called for renewed cooperation in the identification and exchange of

scientific information. IAALD was established "to promote, internationally

and nationally, agricultural library science and documentation,

as well as professional interests of agricultural librarians and documentalists

. . ." (Haendler & Powell, 1995, p. 68). Founders agreed to

foster connections to IFLA, Unesco, and the Food and Agricultural Organization

(FAO) of the United Nations. Indeed, for the first five years

of IAALD's existence, its secretariat was located at the FAO Library in

Rome. Despite this association's strong European roots, the United States

was an early active participant, and the first three presidents, serving

five

years each, were from the United States.

IAALD hosts an official World Congress once every five years. Members

find that this is not enough, and additional regional meetings, symposia,

and workshops reduce the average time between IAALD-sponsored

events to 1.9 years (Haendler & Powell, 1996, p. 72). A regional meeting

was held in Tucson, Arizona, in April 1996, as a joint conference with the

U. S. Agricultural Information Network (USAIN). This is an example of

a successful mid-conference meeting that has grown beyond "regional"--twenty

Latin American members participated thanks to a grant from the

W. K. Kellogg Foundation, and delegates from Asia, South Asia, and Europe

were present (USAIN/IAALD WWW Document). In all, the delegates

to this conference encompassed 200 attendees from thirty-six countries.

IAALD has a robust publications program. The IAALD Quarterly Bulletin,

IAALD News, and IAALD Lettre d'Information (in French) are its official

serial publications, but it has supported many other publications,

including the several editions of Agricultural Information Resource Centers:

A World Directory, recently republished, which contains listings for 4,903

libraries and documentation centers from 171 countries.

IAALD's Web site is available at <wwwlib.montana.edu/~alijk/

IAALD.html> (IAALD WWW Document). It contains IAALD's mission

statement, membership information, upcoming events, and publications

information. IAALD's constitution and chronological history are available

in three languages (English, French, and Spanish). The latest edition

of the IAALD News is available, full text, at the Web site.

SLA

The Special Libraries Association defines itself in its latest Strategic

Plan as "an international association of information professionals and

special librarians in business, media, finance, science, research, government,

academic institutions, museums, trade associations, nonprofit organizations,

and institutions that use or produce specialized information (Special

Libraries Association, 1996a, p. 16). SLA was founded in 1909

by a group of twenty U.S. librarians, but early on incorporated Eastern

Canadian business and industry librarians into its membership.

Today, SLA numbers just under 15,000 members from over sixty countries

around the world. SLA's governance structure establishes an Association

Office (its headquarters), with over thirty paid staff members, a

Board of Directors (elected from the membership), and units called chapters,

divisions, committees, and caucuses. Entities in all units have international

interests. Chapters are geographic units and today represent

librarians throughout the world: three Canadian chapters (Eastern

Canada, Toronto, and Western Canada, founded 1932, 1940, and 1980,

respectively); a European Chapter founded in 1972; the Arabian Gulf

Chapter founded in 1993; the Florida and the Caribbean Chapter, 1969;

and the Hawaiian-Pacific Chapter, including Japanese and Australian

members, 1972. Other chapters, such as Texas, San Diego, and Arizona,

count Mexican and other Latin American librarians among their members.

SLA divisions relate to areas of interest actively represented among

the membership.

Presently, recognizing the importance of international information,

several divisions have incorporated international sections and programming

into their activities, including the Business and Finance; Transportation;

Telecommunications; Social Science; Education; Food, Agriculture,

and Nutrition; and Information Technology Divisions. At the 1996

annual conference, fifteen programs specifically dealt with international

topics.

The popular annual State-of-the Art Institutes have focused heavily

on strategies for obtaining global information, with Latin America, the

Pacific Rim, and Eastern Europe being recent regions featured at these

programs.

Currently, planning is underway for the Second World Wide Conference

on Special Libraries to be held in the year 2000 in Brighton, England.

The purpose of this meeting, as SLA Executive Director David

Bender (1996) expressed recently, "is to bring together special librarians

and other industry leaders from around the world to cooperatively seek

solutions to common problems and enhance the profession on a worldwide

scale" (p. 17).

The Public Relations Committee created International Special Librarians

Day to recognize the role of special librarians in the "global

sharing of knowledge" (Bender, 1996, p. 18). Divisions, chapters, and

individual members collaborate to commemorate this day in a variety of

ways, from speakers to tours to outreach with companies or communities.

In addition to these activities, SLA sponsors one committee and one

caucus specifically related to international issues. The International Relations

Committee was established in 1989 to advise the Board of Directors

and the membership on the following: (1) SLA's role in international

library/information associations [FID and IFLA, among others];

(2) international cooperation, exchange visits, and forums; (3) international

understanding and knowledge of information issues; (4) participation

in appropriate international conferences such as IFLA; (5) sharing

information resources with foreign libraries having like interests; and

(6) drafting position statements reflecting SLA's viewpoint on vital

international information issues. SLA maintains official representation to FID

and IFLA, and these delegates are ex-officio members on the International

Relations Committee. Special Libraries focused on SLA's international

role in a 1990 issue with position papers prepared by key SLA international

librarians (Scheeder, 1990; Spaulding, 1990).

In addition, SLA holds an International Information Exchange Caucus.

Authorized in January 1993, the caucus describes its function as:

A vehicle for SLA members who are involved or interested in efforts

to promote networking on the international level through the exchange

of ideas, information and/or people. Working in cooperation

with the International Relations Committee, this Caucus provides

the broadest possible opportunity for members to participate

in and discuss international library information activities. (Special

Libraries Association, 1996b, p. 56)

The publication program of SLA has also focused on the international

needs of its members. That is, Special Libraries published abstracts in English,

French, and Spanish. Membership brochures have also been written

in those three languages. SLA units have established a total of forty-eight

listservs for e-mail communication to connect geographically diverse

members. The recent creation of World Wide Web sites for the

association and for many units has helped mitigate the communication

issues worldwide as well (SLA WWW Document).

Problems with which SLA must grapple as it continues its emphasis

on internationalization include the following, which are not unique to

SLA:

1. Speed of normal postal delivery and the costs of special international

rates.

2. Language issues to communicate with members for whom English is

not their language.

3. Relevance of North American-biased programming.

4. Availability and compatibility of computer software and hardware

among its membership.

5. Varying levels of reliable telecommunication infrastructure.

6. Different methods of dealing with information transfer and library

service from country to country ("Internationalization of the Special

Libraries Association," 1992).

AzLA ILRT

In 1988, the Arizona Library Association (AzLA), then the Arizona

State Library Association (ASLA), approved the formation of a new round

table concerned with international librarianship. Requested by a large

group of Arizona librarians with international experience, its objective,

spelled out in its bylaws, was to advance the cause of international

librarianship and was called the International Librarianship Round Table.

The goals of ILRT, established at the first bylaws meeting, were to be:

(1) to develop the interests of librarians and libraries in issues,

activities,

and opportunities in the field of international librarianship; (2) to promote

the exchange of materials, information, librarians, and other resources

throughout the world; and (3) to serve as a channel of communication

and counsel for members of AzLA in the field of international

librarianship.

ILRT's first membership listing in the Arizona State Library Association

Directory listed twenty-eight individual members from an association membership

of about 1,200 (Arizona State Library Association, 1988). In its

first year of activities, ILRT grew to seventy members; membership has

fluctuated between seventy and ninety members throughout its existence.

The publication program of ILRT is ephemeral: one renegade newsletter

published outside the auspices of the parent organization, then fairly

regular columns in the ASLA Newsletter. ILRT occasionally receives wider

exposure through the publications and presentations of its members (such

as this one). The AzLA Web site enhances its existence (AzLA WWW

Document). The programs and activities of ILRT establish it as one of

the most active groups in AzLA. Every annual conference and mid-year

conference of the association offers several programs of international

significance, such as reports of exchanges and other international professional

experiences of librarians. The mid-year conference (MIDCON)

in 1990 featured a panel of three Arizona librarians speaking of their

experiences on three continents. Speakers from other countries, such as

Ana Maria Magalone, director of public libraries in Mexico, draw interest

from the larger AzLA membership.

Why has ILRT been such a success? One reason is that this group, at

the state association level, fills an immediate and accessible need for

librarians who are not directors of libraries or the official representatives

to larger organizations or for whom travel to expensive international locations

for meetings is beyond their budget or the travel budgets of their

organizations.

Another reason for its success is that it is a trailblazer for state

associations. ILRT established some precedents. It may have marked the first

time a state association established a formal international librarianship

subdivision, though the California Library Association recently established an

International Relations Round Table (IRRT) similar to the IRRT of the

American Library Association (ALA). ILRT was the first group to monitor an

international travel/exchange endowment program at the state level. Third, it

recommended the establishment of an international conference separate from the

association's annual conference. That resulted in the Transborder Library Forum

discussed below.

In addition, Arizona, as a state bordering another country I employs

librarians in all types of libraries who see an immediate need to learn

about the extensive resources and common interests of Mexico, especially

the border states of Mexico. Arizona librarians have extensive experience

in international situations all over the world, and this core of

leadership sets the tone for the round table. Finally, the projects proposed

by ILRT become reality. Projects, include library exchanges between

Arizona and Mexican librarians for education and training; the

creation of its own subgroup, the Arizona-Mexico Committee, whose purposes were

to report to Arizona members on the work of the Arizona-Mexico Commission, a

statewide (nonlibrarian) initiative; to report on Arizona's participation

at the Guadalajara Book Fair; and to begin the organization of the Binational

Conference which became the Transborder Library Forum, now organizing its

eighth conference.

Finally, ILRT became the administering body for the Horner Japanese

Exchange Fellowship Award from an endowment established by Dr. and Mrs.

Layton (Jack) Homer, Arizona residents who lived for many post-World War II

years in Japan. This fund was initiated with the Arizona State Library

Association in 1988 to promote professional cooperation and international

understanding through an exchange program between Arizona and Japanese

librarians. The fellowship from the endowment is unique among state library

associations in the United States and is still active. Several Arizona

librarians have visited Japan, primarily the Osaka area, and on at least three

occasions Japanese librarians have officially visited Arizona (AzLA W"V

Document).

ILRT remains strong. Its 1996 annual report, published at the AzLA, Web

site, indicates a membership of eighty-nine, four programs during the year,

and four additional programs at the 1996 Annual Conference (AzLA WWW Document).

Foro

The Transborder Library Forum/Foro Transfronterizo de Bibliotecas

developed because of the Arizona Library Association's growing international

librarianship interests in the 1980s and because Sonoran librarians

were available and interested in engaging in binational networking.

The group of meetings is referred to collectively as the foro, which is

Spanish for "forum." It was established as a forum, rather than a conference,

because of ASLA's reluctance to provide sponsorship for a gathering

which could be seen to compete with its annual conference.

The Foro was conceived by a group of fifteen librarians from Arizona

and Mexico who gathered at the 1989 ASLA. Annual Conference in

Tucson. That conference was exceptional because the participation of

fifty-seven Mexican librarians brought a fresh new perspective on Arizona

librarianship, and attendees expressed a need to continue the contact.

The leadership of the International Librarianship Round Table became

the logical pool for Arizona organizers, but the Special Libraries

Association Arizona Chapter and the members of the ASLA Spanish Speaking

Round Table quickly joined in. In Sonora, Jalisco, and Baja, California,

librarians expressed interest in helping organize another opportunity

to bring together these two countries' librarians. It tool, eighteen

months for the first Foro to occur, but that early planning set the stage

for future successes. For example, program planning topics were selected

by librarians in both countries by means of a questionnaire. Planning

meetings, called "encuentros, I were held in Mexico and on the Arizona

border. Bilingual keynote speakers and dual facilitators in the breakout

sessions were essential. The first Foro, held in Rio Rico. Arizona (near

Nogales) in 1991, was a huge success and, at the closing banquet, the

librarians from Sonora invited the group to attend a second Foro the

following year in Hermosillo. This invitation set the stage for alternating

meetings in Mexico and the United States with the exception of the fourth

and fifth Foros which were both held in Mexico. The following is a brief

listing of the history of the Transborder Library Forum:

Foro I. February 1991. The first Transborder Library Forum took place in

Rio Rico, Arizona, when 130 information specialists from the United States

and Mexico met to establish interlibrary cooperation. The meeting was

typified by keynote speakers and discussion groups called "Talk Tables."

Cultural, political, and language barriers were challenges to overcome in

order to create professional and personal relationships between librarians

of both countries. This was accomplished in large part by three

factors: the presence of simultaneous translators, the high percentage of

bilingual attendees, and everyone's strong desire to make the conference

succeed (Foro Binacional, 1992).

Foro II. March 19. The second forum was held in Hermosillo. Sonora

(Mexico) with the attendance of 200 librarians from the United States

and Mexico, who met to continue to work on recommendations set at the

prior forum. Relations, both professional and personal, were strengthened

and information on library issues shared through the same format of

keynote speakers and Talk Tables (Foro Binacional ... II, 1993).

Foro III. February 1993. The third transborder forum was held in El Paso.

Texas. Important advancements were achieved toward greater representation

by librarians in all types of libraries and by programs in areas of

interest to all attendees. A creative binational document delivery system

coordinated by librarians from the University of Texas, El Paso, and the

Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City was one of the exciting developments

announced at this forum.

Foro IV. February 1994. The Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores

(ITESM) hosted the fourth forum in Monterrey, Mexico. Participation

was extended to Canadian librarians for the first time. The importance

of the NAFTA, treaty to the three countries was illustrated by the

transformation of the Transborder (binational) Library Forum to a Trinational

Forum, and most programs featured speakers and resource persons from

all three countries (Foro Trinacional ... IV, 1995).

Foro V. February 1995. The fifth forum, hosted by ITESM's Mexico City

Campus, explored a variety of opportunities and problems facing librarians

in relation to the NAFTA treaty. Keynote speakers and discussion

group facilitators represented all three countries and delved into ways to

promote informational and personnel exchanges (Foro Trinacional ... V

1996).

Foro VI. February 1996, With a return to Arizona, the sixth transborder

forum, hosted a second time by the Arizona Library Association, brought

the forum full circle. The goal of Foro VI was to increase the numbers of

programs and topics of interest to academic, public, school, and special

librarians in Canada. Mexico, and the United States. Attendance broke

300 for the first time: nevertheless. Canadian attendance remained very

low and the Canadian component was abandoned for Foro VII.

Foro VII. February 1997. Foro VII, held in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua.

Mexico, reaffirmed many of the goals of earlier Foros. Describing the

Foro as the venue for exchanging ideas, experiences, and efforts related

to border issues, binational or trinational, the organizers Sought to meet

the following objectives: (1) to strengthen library linkages among librarians

interested in "building information bridges" (the theme of Foro VII)

along international borders: (2) to discuss cooperation schemes beyond

library borders; (3) to provide opportunities for networking: (4) to become

a forum where library resources are shared: and (5) to understand

the friendly way of living on the U.S. Mexican border (Foro Information

Handbook, 1996, p. 6).

The Transborder Library Forums are unique in the library world.

Held every year since 1991, these events are organized without benefit of

a secretariat, an association umbrella, dues, or elected officers. Each forum

is administered by a different volunteer group of librarians whose

motivation is increased library, contact between the two countries. The

highlight of all of the Transborder Library Forums has been the networking

opportunities between the border librarians of the two countries.

Informal exchanges, internship opportunities, and materials exchanges

are frequent topics of discussion, and everyone works on language proficiency.

Communication about the Foro is enhanced by the existence of a

listserv, FORO-L.(2) Printed proceedings of the first conferences were prepared

for attendees. Selected proceedings of the sixth Foro, held in Tucson

in 1996, are available on the WWW (Foro VI WWW Document). Plans

to make the proceedings of the seventh Foro (Juarez. Mexico. February

1997) available in this manner are pending. The sixth, seventh and eighth

Foros (the last planned for Riverside, California, in March 1998) all have

Web sites. Consistent with the grassroots and noncentralized nature of

the forum, however, each is at a different site with a different Webmaster

and format (see references for URLs at the end of this article). Links are

being developed to unite them.

The future of the Foro relates to its "growing pains." Attendance at

the annual meetings is now consistently 300, three time the size of the

first few meetings. This size requires more programming, more logistics,

as well as more fund-raising to subsidize expenses because the Foro is

operated on a cost-recovery basis. Further, Transborder Library Forum

members are now working to establish a statement of mission and objectives

that reflects its continued growth and relevance to long-standing, as

well as to new, participants. Program planning documents, including

budget information, the exhibitor and sponsor pool, and tips for success

are handed down from one planner to another.

CONCLUSION

In summary, these five associations (IATUL, IAALD, SLA, AzLA ILRT,

and the Foro) typify the common activities and goals of international

library associations:

* To expedite agreements for the loan, exchange, or transfer of materials

between countries.

* To promote agreements which facilitate the commerce of information,

such as cooperative copyright agreements, and postal regulations

and rates.

* To create standards for the recording of bibliographic data to ensure

greater use of library catalogs between libraries and countries.

* To develop information systems that facilitate transfer of information

or data.

* To share information between countries on new ways of doing things,

in the library.

* To publish materials that are of international interest.

* To work to unite librarians in geographically dispersed area.

* To establish an effective means to recruit and train library personnel

in the international marketplace or for dealing with international

information.

* To compare functions and design of new library buildings.

* To identify opportunities for personnel exchanges.

All the international library associations under discussion in this article

face issues which require resolution. Some of these include:

1. The appropriate payment of dues relevant to the members' ability, to

pay for services and the value of those services to all members.

2. Planning programs that meet the needs of all member constituencies

and how to identify and satisfy those needs.

3. The ability to maintain continuity from year to year with no secretariat

at all, such as the Foro, or no permanent secretariat, like IATUL.

4. The ability to disseminate and archive the published and nonpublished

records of the association. No one library has a whole set of IATUL

publications, for example, and the information regarding the founding

of ILRT and the Foro as described in this article is based in large

part on the professional experiences of the author.

5. The development of a mission and vision which is broad enough for

flexibility and change but exact enough to distinguish one association

from another in the constant quest for new members.

6. Ascertaining ways to detail accomplishments. Questions such as: "Must

accomplishments be measurable and identifiable in order to be evaluated?"

are related to continued Support for the maintenance of the

association. For example, are developing friendships and professional

networking opportunities without any additional results enough to

justify existence?

7. To establish the limit to the geographic coverage of the association.

Some of SLA's U.S. members have expressed concern that service to

a growing international membership will decrease or dilute services

to them. Some Sonoran and Arizona librarians have felt that expansion

of the Foro to "trinational" status, the experiment in 1994-1996

to include Canadian border and generic North American issues, diluted

the scope and relevance of the meetings for them. IFLA and

IATUL were U.S./European organizations in their early years but

have developed to embrace a truly global membership, making it more

difficult for everyone to remain active.

8. To communicate appropriately with their members. To deliver information

both physically and in a language that is understandable to

members--e.g.. SLA, translates the abstracts of articles in Special Libraries,

and now Information Outlook, its membership brochure, and

other key communications. The World Guide lists as a trend the increased

number of official journals through the three editions of the

work, but how many members of a global association can read the

official language of their association?

9. Use of the World Wide Web and e-mail to Unite geographically diverse

members or those for whom traditional infrastructure methods

of communication are more difficult: telecommunications, telephone

service, language issues, and long delays with postal service.

10. The relevance of affiliations with other organizations. All of these

featured associations affiliate with other associations. They continue

this practice, but what meaningful member-level services are derived

from those affiliations and at what cost?

Katherine Cveljo (1996), professor emerita at the University of North

Texas, Denton, has summed tip the relevance of international

library associations:

Viewing the information profession globally as the predominant profession

of the future, it is important to emphasize that at no point in

history has there been such a high level of understanding about the

importance of global interdependence and the need to establish

and maintain strong and harmonious international relations . . . . It

is logical to conclude that only dynamic, forward-looking, and

globally-oriented information professionals, aided by up-to-the-minute

information generated both nationally and globally, can provide quality

service in the realm of continuously changing specialized information

needs.... (p. 17)

All the successes of the international library associations described in

this article suggest the key reasons behind their growth and continued

existence--i.e., that within these organizational entities rests the

opportunity for librarians to network, to explore new ways of

organizing and disseminating information, to make their work more

relevant for their clientele, and to feel connected to other information

professionals who, throughout the world, are in the same position.

Notes

(1) URLs are available for even association mentioned in this paper. See the

Reference, section at the end of the article for full Web citation. Each WWW

Document is alphabetized by the acronym of the association.

(2) Subscribe at [e-mail]. Send message: Subcribe

Foro-L First name Last name.

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