International library associations. (The Role of Professional 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 …