The Past, the Present and the Future for the IAALD in Russia, V. G. Pozdnyakov

IAALD NEWS
Central and Eastern Europe

The Past, the Present and the Future for the IAALD in Russia V.G.Pozdnyakov, Director of the Central Scientific Agricultural Library of the Russia's Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CSAL RAAS), member of the IAALD Executive Committee

    CSAL RAAS (prior to 1992 it was CSAL of All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences) has participated in the IAALD activities actually from the start of the organization - since 1957. In the former USSR CSAL was a single institution that represented the country in the international association. It is note-worthy that for the entire period of time, from the beginning till now the Library's Directors (A.M.Bochever, A.G.Yaikova and V.G.Pozdnyakov) were sustaining members of the IAALD Executive Committee. At the same time they were at the head of the IAALD National Committees that were first under the USSR Ministry of Agriculture and then under the USSR Gosagroprom (State Agricultural Industry).
    It was a paradox that the USSR that in its time was the great power and even superpower for the reason of money saving, paid fees only from one organization (CSAL) to the IAALD for its membership and in addition, established a national committee to involve the representatives of the country's large agricultural information bodies.
    However, there was no noticeable effect from the activities of the Committee for not a single library, or any other organization of the USSR except for the CSAL deprived of the right to be a member of the IAALD (and of the international organizations as well), could participate in its procedures. Of course, the CSAL specialists did their best to have wide library public aware of significance of the IAALD and its role in the world information process but these efforts could not exert influence on the work of over 1,360 scientific agricultural libraries in the USSR-potential IAALD members.
Alongside it, it is impossible to ignore the advantages the CSAL gained as a result of the IAALD membership. In the first years of its existence the organization rendered assistance to the Library in settling the issues pertaining to a book-exchange between libraries and inter-library subscription; of lately the participation in the IAALD work has helped to settle many issues concerning the exchange of the visits by specialists, their qualification upgrading, the application of new information technologies. Quarterly Bulletin, which we are receiving as the IAALD members, is a valuable source of information about innovations in informatics. In other words 90 US dollars that are paid by us as membership fees, have been repeatedly justified.
    Following the USSR disintegration and subsequent transformations, many ideological and administrative restrictions were lifted to join the IAALD, and yet, actually there was no sharp rise in the IAALD membership from the area that had been the former USSR. It is primarily associated with extremely complex economic situation occurred in the states resulted from the USSR break-up. Many libraries and information organizations in Russia and former union republics, now independent states, are undergoing, real hardships: they do not have money enough to pay very modest salaries to the staff and to acquire needed literature.
    Another cause for limited representation of Russia's libraries in the IAALD is the complexity of membership fees payment. It consists in that that in order to pay fees it is necessary to apply only to those banks, which have their affiliated branches in London. There are not many of them and they, as a rule, are not interested in handling operations with such small amounts as membership fees. Due to this fact 20 to 25 Russia's potential members of the IAALD at least cannot legalize to-day their joining it.
    Having examined the entire situation we have come to a conclusion that it is necessary to establish the Russia's branch of the IAALD the way it was done in other regions of the world similar in geographical size. It will enable not only to overcome

difficulties in paying fees, but also to create an activating mechanism to organize and increase participation of Russia's information institutions and citizens in the IAALD activities. With this being the case, one cannot do without bureaucratic procedures and delays but we do hope to open wide the door of Russia to the organization well-known to the professional community for the IAALD nowadays unites an overwhelming majority of specialists in agrarian information. Such authoritative information centers as CABI, IFIS, ZADI, NAL and others maintain close cooperation with this organization. The IAALD work has become more active in the countries of Central and East Europe. A branch of the IAALD intended for the countries of Central and East Europe was opened last year with the IAALD backing and that of its President Yan van der Burg in person. M.Demes, a renowned specialist in the field of new information technologies, Director of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information for Agriculture, Slovakia, Nitra, was unanimously elected as the head of the branch. This Institute is the base to improve qualification of specialists engaged in the field of information in the large region. In November 1996 the workshop on new information technologies was conducted jointly with FAO. That was a very helpful, well-organized undertaking that involved the representatives of almost all the countries included in the region.
Two specialists (CSAL RAAS) have recently received two-week training in Nitra and now are successfully working as Web-Masters.
There is no doubt about the necessity to attract more Russia's scientific agricultural libraries and information centers to the IAALD activities that are becoming known to many of them. In its turn, CSAL having gained great experience resulted from its participation in the IAALD is ready to offer help and support to any organization either in Russia or in the CIS and Baltic countries to join the association. We are ready to exchange experience in application of new information technologies and provide the IAALD members with its information product on easy terms.