U.S./Central and Eastern European Agricultural Library Roundtable meetings have been held continually since 1991. The first meeting was organized by the U.S. National Agricultural Library and was held in Beltsville, Maryland. Succeeding roundtables were held in Budapest, Hungary in 1992, Radzikow, Poland, 1993, Nitra, Slovakia, 1994, Prague, Czech Republic, 1995, and Tucson, USA in 1997. Moscow's 7th Roundtable of 1999 is concluding this millennium, and, hopefully, providing all the participant countries with a motivating impetus for the advancement of the library and information activities in the 21st century.

The main object of these roundtable events is to assist the development of agricultural information systems and to help information specialists of CEE countries as well as to promote the development of the partnership relations between participating countries and organizing institutions. More information on the history of the Roundtables is available at the Web site maintained at the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information for Agriculture in Nitra, Slovakia: http://www.nitranet.sk/ iaald_roundtable.htm. Further information on the 7th Roundtable is available at http://www.cnshb.ru/agroweb/roundtable/round_he.htm.

We wish to commend all the respective Roundtable organizers which have always managed to maintain a high level of human and technical services and logistic support to the Roundtable activities. The Roundtables are a product of concerted efforts of many persons. These represent institutions without which these meetings would not have been possible. From the very beginning generous intellectual as well as financial support has been provided by the US National Agricultural Library and the US Department of Agriculture who have also been very helpful in sponsoring training programs of individual library specialists. Recently the Roundtables have been sponsored also by the International Association of Agricultural Information Specialists (IAALD) along with its Central and Eastern European Chapter, United States Agricultural Information Network (USAIN), and by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) along with its Sub-Regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe (FAO SEUR) in Budapest, Hungary. The later has been indispensable in setting up a modern Internet-based AgroWeb network of Central and Eastern European countries what is just one of many tangible results of the course of the Roundtables.

The host organizer of the 7th Roundtable was the Central Scientific Agricultural Library of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences in cooperation with the above institutions, and also by the Ministry of Agriculture of Slovakia. Our Russian colleagues provided for a very active course of the meeting what resulted in adoption of outlines for our further intensive mutual cooperation.

The Roundtable was held in the pleasant surroundings of the Czech and Slovak Center of Commerce and Technics in the Moscow's neighborhood of Chertanovo. The attendees included Russian hosts of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Ministry of Agriculture, and participants representing international organizations such as FAO, USAIN and CAB International. National representatives included library or information center managers, information services officers and scientists. 21 countries were invited and most of them were able to participate at the event.

At the conclusion of the formal welcome and introductory speeches, participants were invited to present the state-of-the-art of their past activities. This included the current status of international cooperation of the countries taking part in the Roundtable with regard to the fulfilling of the Joint Program of Cooperation, a description of the agricultural library and information infrastructure in each respective country, and changes in libraries since the 6th Roundtable in Tucson. Special consideration was given to the impact of transition on stabilization and development of human resources. Each presentation was followed by question-and-answer sequence. After conclusion of the presentations the attendees were called to form working groups. The discussions sought to reflect the key problems that had received the most attention during the course of presentations. Working in the sections resulted in drafting of general conclusions and recommendations. These were considered and endorsed on the closing day of the conference.

The talks and discussions of the event were complemented by visits of the Central Scientific Agricultural Library in Moscow and the famous monastic complex in the ancient town of Sergiev Possad.

Roundtables have focused on many topics and issues. Central attention, however, was always placed on development and stabilization of technical as well as human resources, the later being also the central object of the last Roundtable in Moscow. In the course of the last decade the Roundtable participants have lived through an impressive array of events. Not only did they see the advent of the Internet and its enormous impact on the development and transformation of library technologies. Most of them also saw the birth or rebirth of their countries and the ensuing transition of political as well as economic system. In some of the countries this has not always had a very beneficial effect on the course of work in the libraries and information centers. Some libraries adapted to the new situation very quickly and managed to thoroughly transform their activities to successfully serve the demanding end-users of the networked society of the turn of the century. Some other libraries nevertheless are still coping with seemingly insurmountable problems. Most of the problems are related to the lack of financial support what not only hinders timely implementation of the uses of new technologies in libraries but also discourages many a young professional from seeking employment in this field. These are tempted by much more lucrative offers from the so called private sector that happily embraces well educated and versatile library and information professionals. However, the established and regular Roundtable meetings have undoubtedly played a very significant role in boosting the morale of the participants. New technologies were always presented and many practical demonstrations were carried out. Participants were able to exchange their experiences internationally and did on quite a few instances also gain more professional recognition at home. Even though the meetings occasionally appeared somehow too predictable we can be sure that in the long term they will significantly enhance the utility of most of the participating libraries and information centers. Many efforts have already become material what is communicated in the ensuing contributions.

The paper schedule at the Roundtable meeting has been reorganized into alphabetic sequence with the sorting by the country of each participant. We have also taken some editorial liberties of editing and abridging the papers in order to enhance clarity and consistence of texts submitted by the authors.