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NEWS FROM FINLAND
The Finnish Council Member for EAHIL, Pirjo Rajakiili from Helsinki, was appointed as
the new Director of the National Health Sciences Library in Helsinki, from the 1st of
March, 1999. Pirjo Rajakiili previously worked here between 1973-79 following her
graduation. After that she became the Chief Librarian for the Finnish Sports Library,
where she expanded the activities of the library to cover a wide range of services to
various sectors of society.
From the Sports Library she moved to head the Library of the National Public Health
Institute between 1991-99, during which time she also became EAHIL Council Member for
Finland.
The National Health Sciences Library in Finland comprises, in addition to the National
Library, of the Library of the Medical Faculty of Helsinki University. This faculty
library also include some 30 collections managed by 12 departmental or clinical libraries.
As is usual in Finland, this medical library is a combined library for the university and
the university teaching hospital.
The administration is led by a board of 12 members, besides the Director of the
Library. Pirjo Rajakiili is facing many new challenges, since the library community at the
University of Helsinki has been under revision and reorganisation and she now starts with
a new model administration. The Library building is also rather new, having been completed
at the beginning of 1997.
Liisa Salmi
Kuopio University Hospital Medical Library
liisa.salmi@kuh.fi
Nouvelles de Finlande
Pirjo Rajakiili d'Helsinki vient d'être nommée Directrice de la Bibliothèque
Nationale de Médecine de Finlande. Elle est entrée en fonction le 1er Mars 1999. Pirjo
Rajakiili, membre délégué au Conseil de l'AEIBS pour la Finlande a travaillé dans
diverses bibliothèques rattachées au gouvernement avant d'être nommée à ce poste.
La Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine de l'Université de Finlande à Helsinki,
ainsi que 12 autres bibliothèques départementales ou cliniques sont rattachées à la
Bibliothèque Nationale de Médecine de Finlande. L'ensemble des bibliothèques de
l'Université de Finlande ontété ré-évaluées récemment. C'est dire que la tâche
pour Pirjo Rajakiili sera de haut intérêt mais certes peu facile.
Le bâtiment dans lequel se trouve la Bibliothèque Nationale de Médecine est récent
et n'a été terminé qu'en 1997. La Bibliothèque Nationale de Médecine est administrée
par un comité de 12 personnes en plus de la Directrice.
Liisa Salmi
Barcelona: SLA Mediterranean
Conference - February 26-27, 1999
Manuela Colombi
The Special Library Association organized a conference in Barcelona with the title:
"Management of the Library in the Electronic Era". The meeting was held in
cooperation with the Sociedad Espanola de Documentacion Informacion Cientifica (SEDIC),
DOC6 Consultants in Information Resources, both from Spain and Cenfor International Books
from Italy. It was a two day conference with plenary sessions and one round the table
discusion, with a summary . The themes focused on the most important management issues a
librarian has to take care of. The first day concentrated on copyright issues in the
digital environment.
The first speech was by Nuria Gallart from the Universitad Autonoma de Barcelona, who
presented the European Directive on copyright for electronic publications. In many cases
the exceptions allowed by the copyright law will not be transfered to the new law. The
librarians will face difficult times, if national laws adopt the directive as it is. The
second speech was given by Emanuela Giavarra, copyright advisor to EBLIDA (European Bureau
of Library, Information and Documentation Associations). Mrs Giavarra made an analysis of
the relationship between copyright law and licences. As copyright law will increase the
rights for rights owners and diminish the exceptions, access to information will be better
regulated by contract law. So the time has come for librarians to discuss licences with
the publishers. The presentation then focused on the major topics to be considered when
discussing a licence: parties, recitals, interpretation of the agreement, rights granted,
clauses.
Mrs Giavarra made a second speech about the opportunity to build library consortia.
Again she presented a framework to have in mind for organizing a good consortium. Who are
the partners, what is the purpose, what materials are covered. Should the consortium be a
legal entity or just an agreement between parties, how should it be managed. In building a
consortium one has to decide also what happens if things go wrong and the agreement comes
to an end.
The afternoon session was devoted to the preservation of digital documents with a
speech by Alice Keefer. There are problems in conserving new forms of documents, due to
the rapid change of technology. This topic is of major interest for public libraries which
have the duty of preservation. It is interesting to notice that old papyrus and
manuscripts have been saved because of being kept unused in some hidden places. What will
we do with our CD-ROMs in fifty year time?
The roundtable saw the participants discussing in groups copyright, licenses and
consortia. The second day saw a four handed presentation by John Akeroyd from the South
Bank University in London and Miguel Jimenez from the library of the Universitad Autonoma
of Madrid. They discussed the theme of introducing new systems for the management of
libraries. A system has to be as good and complete as possible, has to be flexible and
include as many services as are needed. One has to take care that from a situation of
multiple interfaces for a plurality of applications one has to stream towards an unified
service. Miguel Jimenez gave the framework to conduct needs assessment and how to find the
best product, considering technologies and prices.
Miriam Drake, Library Director of the Georgia Institute of Technology, faced the topic
of maintaining such a service: budgeting, technological support, staff and customer
training. This presentation was a good introduction to the last session by Ellis Sada,
from the Catholic University in Milan, who spoke about training in the electronic era.
Starting with the consideration of the environment in which a library has to work, the
presentation focused on the mission of the library and the need of cooperation among
librarians and professors. Moreover, not only the end-user has to be trained but also and
firstly the librarian. To be useful the training should adopt the methodologies which best
fit the required results.
The conference was very much appreciated: due to the restricted number of participants
discussions could take place among attendees and speakers. We hope to have the possibility
to meet at the second Mediterranean conference, may be in Italy.
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Newsletter 47; May 1999
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