Roundtable meetings were initiated by the former NAL Director Dr. Govard and the first meeting was held at NAL in 1991.

They have since been held successfully in Hungary, Budapest (1992); Poland, Ragikov (1993); Slovakia, Nitra (1994); Czech Republic, Prague (1995); and USA, Tucson (1997).

"The 7th Roundtable meeting of Central and Eastern Europe and the USA agricultural libraries, held in Moscow in 1999, at the end of the millenium, gave impetus to the countries and participants to continue successful information library activity in the 21st century.

The main goal of maintaining these Roundtables is to provide help in developing agricultural information systems, training Central and Eastern European information specialists, and establishing cooperative relationships between countries, participants and organizers.

More detailed information on the history of the Roundtables is displayed on the Web-site of the Agricultural Information Scientific - Technical Institute (Slovakia, Nitra): http://www.nitranet.sk/iaald_roundtable/htm, and on "the 7th Roundtable meeting: http://www.cnshb.ru/agroweb/roundtable/round_o.htm (CSAL).

Roundtables are usually organized in the form of free discussion and experience exchange.

"The 7th Roundtable was held in May, 23-28, 1999 based at the Central Scientific Agricultural Library, Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CSAL).

It should be noted that this Roundtable was the first full-scale meeting for the Russian agricultural libraries community. More than 51 representatives of agricultural libraries, information centers, and international organizations from 19 countries took part in the meeting.

Sponsors and participants together with CSAL were United Nations/ FAO, USAIN, NAL, CABI, IAALD, the Russian Federation Ministry of Agriculture and Food Production, the Ministry of Agriculture of Slovakia, and the Information Network, Nitranet (Slovakia).

Together with traditional participants - the directors of Central and Eastern Europe, USA information centers and agricultural libraries there were the newcomers - representatives from Armenia, Georgia, Aserbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Kirghizia.

The Roundtable subject was of great importance: "Stabilization and development of human resources in agricultural information system in CEE territory".

During the last ten years the Roundtables participants have witnessed the appearance of the Internet and its great influence on the development of library technologies and have suffered a difficult transition.

Not everywhere has this transition been fruitful for information centers' and libraries' activity. Some libraries adapted to it very quickly and have gained successful results in providing information for users on the basis of new technologies. Other libraries have been struggling against obstacles. A lot of problems have been caused by the lack of financial help, which prevents uptake of new technologies by libraries. Young specialists are going to work for commercial institutions which now have access to the new information technology. Many problems were discussed at the 7th Roundtable, one of them was the staff problem.

This fact is evident if you look through the participants' papers. All the members displayed the activity of their own institutions. The presentations reflected the current state of international cooperation between countries - which included the realization of memoranda on cooperation, agricultural libraries and information centers network activities in these countries, and the transformation which had taken place since the 6th Roundtable (Tucson, USA).

What are these Roundtables organized for? As for CSAL, the library has been a member of Internet community since 1998 and now has its own Web-site which is considered to be the best among Russian information centers' Web-sites.

Several specialists of CSAL have been trained in information technologies abroad free of charge. Our intellectual information products are the data base "AGROS" (862,000 documents including abstracts), and reference journals which correlate up to date international standards. The library staff prepare abstracts for international organizations such as CABI and IFIS, and is ready to provide experts and trainers in the framework of FAO international programmes. In a few years CSAL has transformed from an ordinary library into a modern information center. The Roundtables have influenced this transformation.

The success of the 7th Round table has been an important step towards the CEE agricultural libraries and information centers collaboration and their penetration into the world's information arena. All the participants confirm their desire to take part in this kind of Round table meeting in the future.