APLIC-INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATOR

Spring 2000, Issue #72

• Presidents' Message
• More Thoughts on Closing Thoughts
• Preservation of Electronic Resources: Problems and a Solution
• USAID Working Group and JHU Center for Communication Programs Release "HIM" (Helping Involve Men) CD-ROM
• APLIC-I Treasurer's Report
• APLIC Members (Complete listing)
• Membership Renewals
• Conferences/Events Calendar
• 33rd Annual APLIC-I Conference Update
• Conference Travel Fellowships Update
• Knowledge Management: Your Role or Hers?
• APLIC-I Welcomes New Member from Thailand
• APLIC-I Welcomes New Member from Malawi
• APLIC-I: The Saga Continues
• New APLIC-I Brochure Available
• Population Index to cease publication
• APLIC Acronym Mixup
• Czech POPIN Website Launched
• New Internet Resources
• Subscribing to the APLIC Listserv
• Subscribing to the APLIC DUPS Listserv

President's Message: APLIC-I & POPIN
Peggy D’Adamo, Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs

APLIC-I has always had as its mission the development of effective documentation and information systems and services in the field of population and family planning as well as the encouragement and support of worldwide information exchange. APLIC-I has done this in part through its membership in the United Nations Population Information Network (POPIN). Many of us, in our individual and institutional capacities have participated in and supported POPIN activities. In 1979, POPIN was established largely through the efforts of APLIC-I members and since 1994 APLIC-I has served as the North American POPIN. I believe that this is the time for APLIC, and its individual membership, to take a more active role in supporting POPIN and the resources and activities that we have come to depend on POPIN to provide.

Many of us are aware of the financial problems that POPIN is now experiencing, problems that have forced POPIN to discontinue (at least temporarily) providing access to a number of very important resources that were accessible via its website at http://www.undp.org/popin/popin.htm. These include the Briefing Kit on the 1998 World Population Estimates & Projections, the Long-Range World Population Projections, the World at Six Billion, the Multilingual Dictionary of Demographic and Reproductive Health Terminology and the Worldwide Directory of Population Institutions. The disappearance of these resources creates a serious information gap for the population community, not only for those of us in APLIC-I who have come to depend on these resources being freely available on the web, but also for the publishers and distributors of population information and data. In the current world of global interconnectivity, the Internet resources that POPIN provides have become both fundamental and crucial to the conduct of population activities in all countries and regions. The POPIN Multilingual Dictionary is used by publishers of population information and the Directory is used to produce mailing labels and mailing lists. The statistical information and data made available free-of-charge in the POPIN website provided the basic tools for students, policymakers and governments. The withdrawal of these resources from the Internet has removed a current and reliable source of information and data and has had a chilling effect on future publication and dissemination of population information. This is a loss to the entire population community. We cannot work effectively without them.

Of equal importance are POPIN's achievements in the area of capacity-building and establishment of regional networks of population institutions worldwide. In the brief period since the Internet has become available, POPIN has helped to set up over 200 regional, national, and institutional web sites which themselves provide access to valuable resources--presentations and papers, statistical information and population policies. This information has never been readily available previously. POPIN's efforts have been instrumental in making these valuable resources available to all, free-of-charge, via the Internet. Through its efforts POPIN has served as a champion for population organizations in developing countries and regions, helping them to use the Internet to gain global attention for local problems.

Just at the moment when developing country organizations and government agencies are beginning, with POPIN assistance, to provide access to their own population and demographic information and to use the Internet for the worldwide exchange of population information and data, much of this effort may be undermined by the current funding crisis that POPIN is facing. Most of us in APLIC-I are fortunate that we have ready access to population information in printed and digital format. Without POPIN's valuable assistance, our developing country colleagues may never share this privilege and their information needs will continue to go unmet. The Internet offers us the ability to address the information poverty that has long separated the developed and the developing countries. We must not allow funding decisions to create a "digital divide".

I urge all APLIC-I members (individual and organizational) to continue to actively support the work of POPIN. Please get in touch with the United Nations Population Division at population@un.org and let them know how important these resources and activities are to the international health and population community. If you have already contacted them once, please contact them again and let them know that you need to have continued access to these Internet resources and that your colleages in developing countries need continued support for their web-related programs and activities. Ask your colleages at work and in other organizations to do the same. POPIN has done so much with very little resources. I believe that our efforts can help to ensure that these activities will continue in the future.

Peggy D'Adamo
President, APLIC-I

More Thoughts on Closing Thoughts
by Jean C. Sack, Medical Informatics Consultant

I recently re-read Nika's Baraket (formerly of the University of Michigan Population Studies Center) article in the last issue of the APLICommunicator (Fall 99, #71) and think it has important points to which we should respond.

Nika had written "The bottom line seems to be that as long as we as information professionals stay one step ahead of the game we are doing as much as anyone can expect of us." Nika indicates that solo librarians have such a chorus of demands these days and the electronic elements don't always enhance the timely personal interactions, which are the most valued by our patrons. As I've been visiting many libraries here in Bangladesh, I again realize what amazing professionals are part of APLIC-I. None of you have "given up" on your libraries, your researchers, your responsibilities. You take very seriously the ability to share documents and information in a timely manner. So many of the "libraries" I have seen here are not only alarmingly old, dusty, underutilized, unfunded, and lackluster, they also have poorly trained staff or a desk-sitting head librarian. What a profound lack of necessary basic infrastructure and support, even in older universities! Few libraries here have Internet connections or CD-ROM drives, most are not regularly receiving paid for subscriptions to journals (if they still have funds to order materials), and many don't allow books to circulate but suffer enormous loss because of failure to repair photocopiers.

The exceptions here in Dhaka include a very much-improved British Council Library that has an excellent medical section. The Bangladesh National Scientific & Library Information Network is struggling with continuing a government grant for an on-line catalog and printed union list of serials but is implementing a cybercentre for patron use. The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council definitely has the best collections and staffing with new initiatives in Geographic Information Systems and computer skills. They sing praises for a Canadian librarian whose consultancy gave them a boost in morale and funding. A small Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed (CRP) about an hour north of Dhaka has developed a specialized collection for disabilities and rehabilitation studies. I've been volunteering some attention to a young Bangladeshi librarian at CRP as he acquires a computer, attempts to computerize it's small Physio and Occupational Therapy collection, and responds to the urgent need to teach their growing student body computer skills. With just a nudge from me, the library staff at my husband’s institution, ICDDR,B, has been very willing to help this CRP library.

Of all the libraries I have seen, the ICDDR,B Centre for Health and Population Research Dissemination and Information Service Centre (DISC) is the best medical library in Bangladesh. (www.icddrb.org) Outside researchers even pay a small fee to use the collections. But every day is a struggle beyond what we in the USA have had to face. Books are stolen from the mail after months of waiting; journals fail to arrive and vendors refuse to honor claims; electronic subscriptions are prohibitively costly and nearly impossible to access during the working hours because of poor telecommunications. Although ICDDR,B will soon have its own satellite link, the library does not yet have upgraded computers. But the DISC staff make an effort to restore missing documents, consult with other libraries, and train young librarians and the head librarian with his two assistants persist in improving the electronic collection.

If you are not currently sending your reproductive health and demography technical papers to Mr. Shamsul Khan* at ICDDR,B, please consider e-mailing him a list with hyperlinks to the full text copies on the web. (MSIK@icddrb.org) Mr. Khan helps edit some excellent project reports and field surveillance studies here in Bangladesh and could implement exchanges. He could also use your valuable experience in mounting documents or producing CD-ROMs. The publications department at ICDDR,B is considering cutting CD-ROMs with documents and mounting archives of their own publication Journal of Health, Population, and Research (formerly know as the Journal of Diarrhoeal Disease Research) on the web. In fact, a new position has been announced and will be posted for a Head of Information Services at ICDDR,B because of the need to integrate computer services, publications, library, and electronic information exchange at the Centre for Health and Population Research. I believe that other research organizations are also awakening again to the need for revitalizing their information resources and that die-hard professionals will see a pendulum swing back into better funding and staffing of computerized libraries.

So, in response to Nika's insights, it is true that our USA population libraries have been rapidly changing and that our jobs are becoming much more demanding. But in comparison to the challenges and lack of monetary and collegial support here in Bangladesh, APLIC-I members located in the States have countless more resources not easily obtained elsewhere. If you are tempted to retire, consider adopting a developing country library for upgrading!

Contact info:
* Mr. M. Shamsul Khan
ICDDR,B:Centre for Health and Population Research
P.O. Box 128
Dhaka 1000 Bangladesh
msik@icddrb.org
E-Fax: 801-729-8389

Preservation of Electronic Resources: Problems and a Solution
By Tonya Allen, Information Core Director, Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University

On Friday, 4 February, while searching for online statistics on neonatal mortality rates for a researcher based in Puerto Rico, I came across the following on POPIN’s home page:

Due to discontinued funding the Population Division is no longer able to provide access to the following: Briefing Kit on the 1998 World Population Estimates & Projections, the Long-Range World Population Projections, the World at Six Billion, the Multilingual Dictionary of Demographic and Reproductive Health Terminology, and the Worldwide Directory of Population Institutions. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may cause.

This brief paragraph struck me with unease – not just because I could no longer access these resources, not just because I realized I would have to remove a link from our own web page on the Day of 6 Billion, but because it seemed to me a rather sinister indicator of a larger problem.

Since the birth of the Internet, the trend has been for organizations to place more and more information online. Governments and NGOs have quickly embraced the web as a means of distributing documents; many publications, particularly newsletters and working papers, are no longer published in hard copy, but instead are published exclusively on the web.

Information volume on the web has been expanding rapidly, but recently there have been signs that this expansion will not be limitless, at least in terms of the most valuable information. Individuals’ web pages devoted to their hobbies and families will flourish and die as they have always done; but for the first time in the brief history of the World Wide Web, valuable information resources mounted by governmental and non-governmental organizations are disappearing, either due to funding cuts, or because the publisher, for whatever reason, simply decided to remove them. (As another example, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recently removed web access to several datasets it had been making available. No reason for their removal was provided. Our data archivist is following up with NCHS to investigate the cause.)

In spite of occasional network congestion and, for developing countries, sometimes high dial-in and access costs, the web has truly signified a revolution in the possibilities for disseminating accurate, current information to those who need it, regardless of the geographical distance between the creator of that information and the user. As Jean Sack pointed out, books and journal issues are easily stolen on their long voyage from publisher to library in developing countries; web-based resources do not suffer from that particular problem. And as for the Puerto Rican researcher, it was extremely fast and convenient to answer her question by directing her to a selection of web sites that contained the information she needed.

However, it is clear that web-based resources pose a problem in terms of preservation. In the past, when funding for a hard-copy publication ceased, those who had already received it retained their copies, and could share access (via interlibrary loan, photocopies and faxes) with those who lacked it. In contrast, when an electronic resource loses its funding and is removed from the web, no one who used it in the past will retain a copy or the ability to use it unless they have taken the step of printing it out. As a concrete example, we can examine the case of one of the recently withdrawn POPIN materials, the Worldwide Directory of Population Institutions. Unless someone took the trouble to print it out or otherwise archive it, this resource may as well never have existed. Members that rely on the APLIC-I community for resource-sharing to get hard-copy materials will obviously not be able to do this, since the single copy of the item has become inaccessible to all.

There are two issues working here. One is the market force, as old as libraries themselves that can be encapsulated in the phrase "Whenever there’s a budget shortfall, the library is the first to feel it." The other issue is the inherently ephemeral nature of electronic resources.

The traditional book is blessed with relative immortality. Books, regardless of the status of their publishers or authors, will continue to exist in libraries until they are weeded, lost, or otherwise physically removed from useful service. This removal must be accomplished by an individual, who must deliberately deal with the books one by one, making a decision as to the value of each. At the time of publication, each title is produced in multiple copies numbering in the dozens, hundreds, thousands, or millions; these copies are held by libraries and individuals throughout the world.

In comparison, gigabytes of electronic resources can be erased virtually instantaneously with a single command. This erasure is generally performed by the publisher or author, on whose server the files reside. Rather than discarding individual items based on an evaluation of their utility, the pattern is to delete (or deny access to) entire directories of files. (For example, recently the first online book vendor, books.com, closed its virtual doors and sold the rights to its domain name to Barnes & Noble. Besides selling books, books.com used a portion of its web site to provide free access to a large collection of full-text books, both classics in the public domain and the efforts of striving new authors. When books.com went out of business, this full-text collection was not transferred to Barnes & Noble or moved to another web server; it simply vanished.)

Finally, only a single master copy of any item is usually kept. The publisher or author may make backups, but if the publisher closes up shop, the original and all its backups are lost to use. This feature of electronic resources is in diametric opposition to the characteristics of hard-copy resources. Shakespeare’s works have outlived him by three hundred years, in millions of copies in various languages around the world; and if Penn State University Press ever ceased to exist, its publications would still be accessible in libraries across the country – simply because producing multiple copies of a title, each owned permanently by the purchaser, is the paradigm for distribution of hard-copy materials. Medieval monks realized the dangers of relying on a single copy of anything, and devoted their lives to copying books by hand so that they would not be lost to future generations.

One consequence of our failure to apply this reasoning to electronic resources is that libraries, and information, are much more vulnerable to funding losses (as well as to other catastrophes) in the electronic age than they were in the paper age. Add to this the increasing trend to view information as a commodity - to lease or license information instead of selling it, thus making temporary access rather than permanent ownership the industry standard - and it is clear that control and custodianship of information is in danger of slipping from the grasp of librarians and into the careless hands of vendors and short-sighted organizational decision-makers.

One solution that came to mind immediately on learning about the plight of the POPIN resources was to transplant those resources to a server at another organization. After all, the files already exist; it is merely a question of providing space for them. This is a clear illustration of one of the salient characteristics of the web – equal access to information regardless of the respective geographic locations of the resource and the user. This solution would be facilitated by the fact that disk storage space is relatively cheap, and relatively easy to come by, compared to physical storage space.

From that thought, I went on to consider the possibility of making a concerted effort to archive and preserve APLIC-I member publications. I soon discovered I was not the first to come up with this idea; an item dated 10 February 2000 on the web site of the Chronicle of Higher Education ("Stanford Project to Test Method for Preserving Digital Journals") describes a similar undertaking called "Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe" (details on their web site at http://lockss.stanford.edu).

It is indeed encouraging to learn that others are devoting some thought to these issues. I would like to suggest that APLIC-I develop a similar system, so that those of us who can take advantage of our organizations’ computing resources can archive one another’s publications - either reactively, in time of need (for example, the case of the POPIN resources); or proactively, as a matter of policy.

There would be many details to consider, and it would take some time to devise guidelines and construct procedures. But I think that, as well as evidence of a chilling trend, POPIN’s misfortune can also be viewed as a milestone in the ability of libraries to provide mutual aid in preserving their collections. If a library must close its doors, no one of us can take ownership of and provide access to its physical collection – we simply don’t have the shelf space. But we definitely can take this action with electronic collections. Given the fact that for the foreseeable future libraries and information will likely remain at the mercy of market forces and the accountant’s axe, we should think of electronic resources as portable rather than as ephemeral, and thus turn this quality of web-based materials to our advantage to ensure their preservation.

USAID Working Group and Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs Release "HIM" (Helping Involve Men) CD-ROM

Involving Men in Reproductive Health

Reproductive health for women and men cannot be achieved without the constructive involvement of men. To help men share responsibility for reproductive health with women, those charged with developing policies and programs, particularly in developing countries, need access to information on men's knowledge, attitudes, health needs, and what has been done elsewhere to reach men. The Men and Reproductive Health Committee of the Interagency Gender Working Group, supported by USAID's Office of Population, commissioned the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs to produce a new tool: a CD-ROM providing a treasure trove of information on men and reproductive health. The CD is being published this week by the POPLINE Digital Services Division of JHU/CCP's Population Information Program.

The new Helping Involve Men (HIM) CD-ROM brings together for the first time hundreds of documents from around the world about men's participation in reproductive health. The CD-ROM contains 497 documents totaling over 11,000 pages. Designed mainly for use by policy makers and program planners in developing countries, the CD provides easy access to an "essential library" of important research and programmatic findings and guidance. The Men and Reproductive Health subcommittee recommended the documents for the new CD.

Documents on the CD are organized to address major aspects of men's involvement in reproductive health. Categories include: Gender, Couples, Men & Reproductive Health, IEC & Men, Institutional Influences, and Future Research. Each category lists topic questions or statements to make it easy for the browser to seek out relevant documents. For example: What do we know about men's knowledge and opinion of family planning? Adolescent males: What special attention do they need? What influence do men have on women's health? Communication to involve men in reproductive health. What institutional obstacles prevent men from participating in healthy reproductive lives?

Also, the CD-ROM features a resources section that lists materials, organizations, LISTSERVs, and web addresses for follow-up information. For example, the section on future research includes articles about operations research, research gaps, indicators of men's participation, less-than-successful men's participation projects, lessons learned, and recommendations from conferences and literature reviews.

JHU/CCP will distribute the CD at no cost to people in developing countries.

For more information, contact Rick Glasby, CD-ROM manager, POPLINE Digital Services, Center for Communication Programs, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA. (FAX: 410 659-6266, E-MAIL: popline@jhuccp.org; Internet site: www.jhuccp.org

APLIC-I Treasurer's Report
(for the fifteen month period ending 31st December 1999)
Anil Kumar, Population Communications International

Introduction

I am pleased to present my report for the 15 month period ended 31^st December 1999.  Please contact me if you are interested in looking at any of the following schedules:

• Income and Expenditure for the 15 month period ended 31^st December 1999.
• Balance Sheet at the end of that period.
• with comparatives for the previous year.
• Detailed list of cash receipts and payments during the period for the bank accounts in Texas (Norwest) and in New York (Chase).
• A statement "reconciling" the cash book balance with the bank statement at 14 December 99.
• A copy of bank statements showing the balances held by Chase Manhattan bank.

Income

Total income: during the period amounted to $7787.37 as compared with $7427.12 during the previous year.

Membership fees: at $2205.00 were $246.50 less than last year.

Interest income: at $984.1 was $330.20 less than last year. This is partly due to lower interest rates and partly to the fact that during the hand-over between Treasurers surplus funds were not placed in an interest bearing account.

Conference fees: received were $675.77 higher than last year but this was offset by expenses being $700.54 higher than last year. This resulted in a deterioration of $36.77 in APLIC’s overall finances.

Expenditure: Expenditure during the 15-month period, at $5767.44 was $1471.59 higher than the previous year. Changes are as follows:

	Increase ($)	Decrease ($)
Conference & Proceedings	700.54
DUPS Programme		76.78
Supplies/Postage/Copying	40.25
Bank Charges	129.87
Banquet Expenses	130.00
Travel Expenses	825.52
Legal Expenses		277.81
Total	1826.18	354.59
Net Increase	1471.59

I regret that I am unable to account for some of these increases/decreases since I do not have details of prior year’s expenses. However, there are some significant items that I can explain:

Bank Charges: This represents charges incurred in Texas and New York in effecting the transfer of funds from Gera to me and to the establishment of an account in New York.

Travel expenses: This was to cover the expenses of Gera’s attendance at the March 1999 Annual Conference.

Audit expenses: The expense of $150 incurred in the period is for fees relating to the prior year’s audit. At the last Executive Committee meeting, we agreed that instead of incurring audit fees, I would submit a schedule of all transactions with appropriate bank certifications and certify the financial statements. These are duly attached.

Surplus: At the end of the 15-month period, APLIC had a surplus of $2019.93. i.e. income exceeded expenditure by this amount.

Balance Sheet: This is a statement of APLIC’s financial standing at 31^st December 1999. Our assets amounted to $29,917.24, all of it in the form of cash and CD. The only "liability" was an amount of $390.00 of membership fees received in 1999 for the following year’s dues. This means that APLIC has a "Fund Balance" of $29,527.24 available for distribution. This leaves us in a very healthy financial situation.

Membership Renewals

Membership Renewals were mailed out last fall. If you haven't renewed, there is still time to send in your renewal!

Send all renewals and fees to:
APLIC-I Treasurer
c/o Demography Library
Population Studies Center
University of Pennsylvania 3718 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6298

Thanks!

The 33rd Annual APLIC-I Conference: Knowledge in the Digital Age: Preservation, Communication & Training

APLIC-I's 33rd anual conference will take place from Monday, March 20^th through Wednesday, March 22^nd 2000 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, California. The conference will preceed the Population Association of American (PAA) Conference which will also be held at the Westin. For more information on PAA activities, visit the conference web site. Download the final program, a list of participants, and other related information.

This year's APLIC conference was planned by the APLIC-I board and promises to be an exciting and educational event. Speakers will discuss preservation and dissemination of information in the context of the small library, how to plan and execute preservation projects in a small library, how to prioritize materials for preservation, and the relationship between preservation and the virtual library. We can expect to hear about recent trends in the field of preservation and what can be anticipated in the future.

Center for Motion Picture Study Tour

Conference activities will kick off on Monday March 20^th with an early (8:30-10:00 AM) tour of the Center for Motion Picture Study of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ( www.oscars.org/cmps/index.html). The Center for Motion Picture Study is the home of the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library and the Academy Film Archive. It is a restored Spanish-Romanesque building that originally housed the City of Beverly Hills' Water Treatment Plant. Built in 1927, the building was abandoned in 1976, when Beverly Hills began to purchase its water from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District. In March of 1988, the city of Beverly Hills accepted a proposal by the Academy that the Waterworks be restored to house the Center for Motion Picture Study. The Library is one of the most complete collections of film-related materials ever assembled. It includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, still photographs, scripts, clippings files, personal and business correspondence, production memoranda, sketches, sheet music, music scores and scrapbooks. The Film Archive is one of the largest repositories of motion pictures in the United States. APLIC members will be given a tour of that includes the Materials Processing and Preservation Area of the library. This will be just days before the Oscars so that should add a little drama to the tour. Anne Coco, the graphic arts librarian who is in charge of the poster preservation project, will be available for questions as well.

Sonny Fox

APLIC is honored to have Irwin "Sonny" Fox, Vice-President of Population Communication International (PCI) USA (www.population.org) as our keynote speaker on Tuesday morning. PCI was founded in 1985 and combines the power of entertainment with the reach of broadcasting to empower people worldwide. In the United States, PCI works with professionals in the entertainment industry to recognize the positive contributions they can make to increasing public awareness of important social and public health issues. Sonny Fox will discuss advocacy and entertainment, arguing that there is a growing realization that mass media is having a profound, and not clearly understood, role in shaping our society. From new definitions of intellectual property to the effect of the internet in promoting candidacies and new movies, to purposeful efforts to change cultures, the spores are everywhere.

Sonny Fox brings more than forty years of experience in television to his position as Senior Vice President of Population Communications International. His career includes an award winning tour as Voice of America’s corespondent covering the Korean War. He later hosted the CBS-TV series, Let’s Take a Trip, the TV game show The $64,000 Challenge, and for over eight years produced and hosted Wonderama, a children’s TV program in the New York area. He produced an off-Broadway musical, Taking my Turn, which he later presented as a PBS Masterpiece Theater special, and a film with Julie Harris, Bronte.

Sonny has been the Vice President, Children’s Programs, NBC-TV, and Chairman of the Board of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS). He has served as Chairman of the Board of PCI, and has been a consultant to Granada Television in England. He currently serves on the national steering committee of the Partnership for Children’s Health, as a member of the board for Dance Outreach and is Chairman of the Past Presidents Council of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS). He is a Fellow of the International Council of NATAS, and has honorary lifetime membership in both TV academies.

LAPNET

We will also hear from Emily Bergman of the Los Angeles Preservation Network (LAPNET. Emily will speak on how a network like LAPNET works together for disaster planning. LAPNet was established in January 1987 in the aftermath of the Los Angeles Public Library fire by a group of library, archival and museum professionals in an effort to meet some of the preservation needs of librarians, archivists, conservators and records managers working in Los Angeles (city and county). It is a non-profit, cooperative program that involves a wide range of interested professionals by inviting them to serve on subcommittees and to participate in workshops and programs. Beginning as an informal information exchange, LAPNet has now grown to an organization with a mailing list of approximately 350 people. Membership is automatically extended to all institutions and individuals with an interest in preservation. Through programming, publication, and a Web site, LAPNet provides information about preservation to anyone who wants it. Besides its activities, its history and organization will be described; LAPNet is easy to replicate in other communities. Emily herself is Coordinator of Collections and Access Services at Occidental College and became past chair of the LAPNet Steering Committee last month. In her 23 years as a librarian, she has worked both public and technical services in corporate, public, hospital, museum, and academic libraries. Her involvement in preservation grew during the 8 years she spent at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. She is involved in library organizations both locally and nationally.

Silvia Texidor

Silvia Texidor, Head Librarian of the Centro de Estudios Poblacion (CENEP) Library in Buenos Aires, Argentina has been an APLIC member since 1990 but has never attended an APLIC conference before. She is a recipient of this year's APLIC-I travel scholarship. The CENEP library is a specialized library which is open to the public. It includes materials in several areas of the social sciences such as population, labor, education, reproductive health, childhood, poverty, and women. It is the largest library in Argentina containing population documents, with about 13,000 holdings. The library was created when CENEP was founded and has become a resource for the public providing services to many different types of users including researchers, teachers and students, reporters, local authorities, and market analysts, etc. Services currently include consultation on site and by email, interlibrary loan, bibliographies, document delivery to users in other cities in Argentina. The CENEP web site was put up with assistance from POPIN and can be found at http://www.undp.org/popin/regional/latam/argentina/cenep/. Silvia is interested in updating her own knowledge in archival and preservation techniques and collection development for the digital library.

Breakout Sessions

Tuesday's agenda also includes four breakout sessions, each chaired by an APLIC member.

• Session 1: How are APLIC-I libraries are using DBTextworks? (Anne Ilacqua)
• Session 2: What are the problems of working in small libraries -- increased work-loads, decreased funding?
• Session 3: Can/should we develop tools to assist our developing world colleagues?
  This breakout will include a review of resources that are currently available, including the M/MC's Resource Center Checklist, Intrah's Where There is No Librarian (old), the new World Library Partnership's Libraries for All: How to Start and Run a Small Library, and Healthlink Worldwide's Resource Centre Manual. Discussion may also include Jean Sack's work as part of a Fogarty grant in Malawi. (Julia Cleaver).
• Session 4: What preservation activities are APLIC-I libraries involved in, including digitization efforts?

Karen Jean Hunt

Our final speaker on Tuesday will be Karen Jean Hunt, Director of Department of Archives & Special Collections at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

APLIC Banquet

After a full day of activities on Tuesday, conference participants will attend the annual APLIC-I Banquet, which is being organized again this year by APLIC-I Treasurer, Anil Kumar. Anil organized a fabulous dinner in 1999 in New York and he plans to make Los Angeles a memorable event as well.

Josefina J. Card

Our first speaker on Wednesday is Josefina J. Card, the founder and President of Sociometrics Corporation and an APLIC member herself. She will discuss three areas of major concern for data librarians and users: data quality, format, and dissemination. She will review and contrast the issues and concerns of librarians and users, outlining areas of similarity and difference. She will explore how one large data collection, the Social Science Electronic Data Library (SSEDL), compiled over the last 17 years by Sociometrics Corporation, has addressed each of these issues and the conflicts and problems that arose during that process. Finally, she will peer into the future, assessing how data providers can bridge knowledge gaps via recent technological advances.

Dr. Card, Founder and President of Sociometrics Corporation, is a nationally recognized social scientist and an expert in the establishment and operation of research-based social science resources, products and services. She has served as Principal Investigator of the Data Archive on Adolescent Pregnancy and Pregnancy Prevention, the American Family Data Archive, the Data Archive of Social Research on Aging, the AIDS/STD Data Archive, the Maternal Drug Abuse Data Archive, the Behavioral Science Research Instruments Archive, the Program Archive on Sexuality, Health, & Adolescence, the HIV/AIDS Prevention Program Archive, and the Institute for Program Development and Evaluation. Alongside her track record as a project leader, Dr. Card has established a solid track record as a health and population scientist. She has authored over 50 books, monographs, and journal articles. Her work is noted for its integration of behavioral and demographic perspectives. Throughout her career Dr. Card has recognized the importance of communicating scientific findings both to scientists as well as to other professionals (data librarians, service providers, policymakers, practitioners) and lay citizens who could benefit from the body of knowledge.

Anne Gilliland-Swetland

Anne Gilliand Swetland, Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA [ http://skipper.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/swetland/HTML/index.html] will be the final speaker at the APLIC 2000 conference. Sshe teaches in the graduate specialization in Archives and Preservation Management. She has published widely in the areas of electronic records administration, digital archives, and archival education. She is currently co-director of the US-InterPARES Project. Dr. Gililand-Swetland holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, M.S. and C.A.S. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an M.A. from Trinity College Dublin.

There are currently 23 people registered to attend the conference with a few more who are still finalizing their plans. Click here for a list of attendees. Click here to view the conference agenda. If you'd like to take a look at some Los Angeles links complied by APLIC (information on restaurants, movies, museums, etc.) click here for links related to Los Angeles. I look forward to seeing all of you in Los Angeles.

Peggy D'Adamo
APLIC President

APLIC-I Travel Scholarship Update

At the September APLIC-I Board meeting, the APLIC-I Board decided to set aside $2000 to subsidize APLIC-I members' attendance at the 2000 conference. Half of this money would be available to active members who need financial assistance to attend the conference. The other half would be earmarked for paying the registration fees of first time attendees to encourage them to become more active. Recipients of both awards would be asked to help at the conference by doing such things as staffing the registration table and taking notes.

These scholarships were announced in the Fall 1999 Communicator and applications were due by January 1. Three people applied for the registration waiver, two of whom also applied for travel funds. The third person who requested a waiver is a speaker and would have had the registration fee waived in any case. Two active members applied for funds to help cover their travel to the conference. After consultation among the Board, $250 each was offered to APLIC Secretary Wendy Brandt and board member Julia Cleaver to help with their travel expenses. $1000 was offered to Silvia Texidor, Head Librarian at the Centro de Estudios de Población-CENEP in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to cover her registration and help with travel and hotel expenses. Silvia has been an APLIC member for a number of years but has never been able to attend a conference in the past. She is very interested in preservation and in setting up a digital library for her own organization, CENEP. I. The CENEP library is a specialized public library covering social sciences such as population, labor, education, reproductive health, childhood, poverty and women. Silvia will be making a presentation about CENEP as part of the APLIC Conference. Julia accepted the travel funds and will be attending the Los Angeles conference. She is hard at work organizing the breakout sessions for the first day. Wendy has not yet decided if she will be able to come. Due to staffing changes at her library, Wendy will be working elsewhere in the University of Wisconsin and her position will be filled by a new librarian.

Knowledge Management: Your Role or Hers?
Teresa Frydryk, John Snow International Research and Training Institute - Boston, MA

As information service professionals, we have traditionally been called upon to identify sources--both external and internal to our parent organizations--to fulfill inquires from our patrons. Within the current information age, the value of knowledge is being discussed in quantifiable terms and companies and universities are understanding the economic benefits of internal resource sharing and systematic control of the dissemination of knowledge generated or held by internal sources, our staff.  This process of systematizing internal knowledge is called knowledge management (KM)

KM processes encompass both tangible products and activities such as reports, working papers, audio-visual tapes, software, and training programs and intangible knowledge such as individual expertise. Librarians and information service professionals, by the traditional nature of their work, can be key players in the KM process. However, to successfully integrate KM across company offices worldwide, many categories of staff should assume clear roles for initiating, developing, and maintaining KM system. The following is one possible scheme of responsibilities for key participants organizing KM processes within an international development assistance group.

Initial Schema for Tasks and Responsibilities

Once there is a commitment to develop a KM system, senior management should identify a lead organizer who would be responsible for organizing a KM Planning Team and generating an examination of current issues important to staff. The team--composed of staff with varied expertise and from various offices--would be responsible for 1) defining tasks and responsibilities for operationalizing KM, 2) establishing categories of products and their intended audiences, 3) establishing objectives and prioritize activities for a one-year start-up period, 4) establishing and formalize systems across offices, 5) defining standards and common elements for products; 6) establishing a peer-review process; 7) establishing virtual teams and an database of experts; 8) solving problems throughout the course of the year, and 9) other tasks identified by the team. Some responsibilities for anticipated tasks of key players might be the following.

Senior management (operating in a virtual environment) will be primarily responsible for promoting knowledge generation and dissemination among staff worldwide. Specifically, they should maintain an understanding of emerging issues and knowledge generating from field offices, practitioners, researchers, trainers, and administrators; recommend publication and training ideas; recommend and support staff who consult internally, write for publication, and make conference and training presentation; establish and maintain peer review processes; and build and maintain distribution channels for publications (including print, non-print, and electronic) and presentation.

Field staff, in general, will be responsible for maintaining current knowledge of emerging issues in their area of expertise; consult with staff through a virtual environment on their areas of expertise; proactively write for publication and present at conferences; edit, fact-check, and proof-read documents; participate in peer review processes; and submit print and electronic copies of all final publications to the library.

Information Systems staff will be responsible for building and maintaining electronic and telecommunication systems to facilitate information dissemination and communication among offices and staff worldwide.

Publication production staff will be familiar with editing, layout, and other aspects for producing both print and electronic products.

Education and training staff will develop face-to-face presentations, distance learning programs, and virtual discussion groups; educate staff on training opportunities and skills, and prepare staff for working within KM systems.

Library and information services staff will be responsible for building and maintaining the collection of corporate knowledge (archival materials, proposal libraries, reports library, project reports, promotional materials, etc.) in both print and electronic formats; responding rapidly with identification, retrieval, and dissemination of information when requested; providing research and reference service to support publication and presentation; editing, fact-checking, and proof-reading documents; participating in peer review processes; and other duties.

Marketing Group will be responsible for promoting publications and presentations through established media and outlets; monitoring outside news and information; and other duties.

To be successful, knowledge management should be everyone's business. Its success depends on its integration within the organization, commitment from senior management, participation of knowledge holders and generators, reliable information systems, support for production and dissemination of knowledge products, and organizing the knowledge to maximize effective retrieval. As librarians and information service professionals, our skills are applicable in several of these areas.

APLIC-I Welcomes New Member from Thailand

Please welcome our new colleague, Mrs. Sansiri Chulerttiyawong, Chief Librarian at the Institute for Population and Social Research (ISPSR) Library at Mahidol University. The Institute is a non-profit academic organization, staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of professionals in areas ranging from anthropology to women and development. With activities in four main program areas--research, training, academic services, and information dissemination--ISPSR explores population and development vis-à-vis economic, social, and health issues, as well as providing relevant technical and information support. Institute for Population and Social Research (ISPSR) Library at Mahidol University. The Institute is a non-profit academic organization, staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of professionals in areas ranging from anthropology to women and development. With activities in four main program areas--research, training, academic services, and information dissemination--ISPSR explores population and development vis-à-vis economic, social, and health issues, as well as providing relevant technical and information support.

Sending his best wishes from Africa, Mr. Nyaluso tells us, "I am currently working at the Medical College Library, in the University of Malawi, in a country located in the southern part of Africa. It is a very beautiful small country with a lot of natural attractive tourist scenes, and probably the most peaceful country in Africa." He works as senior library assistant and reports to the College Librarian. Mr. Nyaluso is responsible for supervising 6 library assistants and other junior library staff. The collection includes books, journals, and AV materials as well as some CD-ROMs and in-house databases. At the moment Mr. Nyaluso is the only staff person besides the librarian who assists students, staff, and other medical professionals with all their literature searches on the Internet.

He met Jean Sack when she came to Malawi to conduct a week-long course on medical information this past summer (1999). He assisted her and conveyed the great in developing on-line services and especially in obtaining more journals.

Mr. Nyaluso is hoping that his association with APLIC-I will result in sponsorship for his training needs and assistance in filling their resource and information gaps.

APLIC-I: The Saga Continues
Lisa A. Newman, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania

Editors/Author note: This is the 2^nd of a series— started in the Fall 1999 issue—describing the institutional history of APLIC-I.

In May 1970, the "Third National Conference on Population and Library Information Services" met in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and was sponsored by the Carolina Population Center and the Population Council. Fifty-one people attended, representing more than thirty organizationsfrom around the world. At this conference, a Charter Committee was set up to formulate a plan for organizing population libraries in the United States and it proposed that the national organization should grow into an international one as quickly as possible. The plan was to be presented at the fourth annual conference in May 1971.

The second annual conference had produced a Steering Committee which met several times to explore the possibility of establishing a formally organized association. The Steering Committee later evolved into the APLIC-I Board of Directors and the Charter Committee wrote the APLIC-I by-laws.

The first APLIC-I president (1968-1971) was Bates Buckner from the Carolina Population Center and she generously supplied me with her account of those early, formative years. She was Chairman of the Steering Committee and edited part of the conference proceedings.

Between 1970 and 1978, much of what characterizes the APLIC-I organization was established. "International" was added to the name of the association. Proceedings of conferences were published and distributed among members and the APLICommunicator began publication. A working relationship was established with PAA and APLIC-I conferences were scheduled to meet just prior to PAA meetings. The membership had increased from 15 founding members to 156 members worldwide. In 1978, the first "North American Union List of Serials" was compiled with the help of Susan Pasquariella and Judith Wilkinson. It combined two union lists previously compiled by the New York and Washington/Baltimore chapters of APLIC-I. Neil Zimmerman and the Population Council Library initiated the "APLIC Duplicate Book Distribution Program (APLIC DUPS).

The APLIC-I dues structure, membership categories and membership year were reviewed and changed to improve APLIC-I's financial base. At this time the Membership Committee consisted of 8 individuals, there were also two Vice-Presidents, a Conference Committee of sixteen members, and three national Chapters!

To be continued in the next APLICommunicator.

New APLIC Brochure in Print!
Peggy D'Adamo

The Board of Directors approved the text of the new APLIC brochure that was written by Laurian Carroll (Management Sciences for Health) and diane rubino (The Population Council). With that accomplished, the brochure has been laid out and will be distriuted at the Los Angeles meeting.

The text will also be made accessible on our website. Now we need to develop a strategy for distributing it. We intend to discuss the design and distribution at the APLIC membership meeting in Los Angeles. Please contact Peggy D'Adamo if you have distribution suggestions or bring your ideas to the meeting.

Now when someone asks about APLIC-I, you can avoid the awkward hemming and hawing and offer a concise, professional response.

I received a letter dated February 21, 2000 from Marta Tienda of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. The letter states that "Population Index will cease publication after the last issue of 1999 has gone to press (Vol. 65, No. 4). This decision was reached after extensive deliberation by the Administrative Oversight Committee of the Office of Population Research and upon careful consideration of the recommendations made by an external review committee in late Fall 1999. Although the external review committee acknowledged the great value of the Index to the demographic profession, the committee also noted several weaknesses and recommended immediate and substantial changes in order to maintain the viability, integrity, and currency of the Index. Unfortunately, both internal and external circumstances preclude the implementation of these recommendations in the required time line to assure continued funding. In the end it became clear that a dignified and orderly closing is much preferable to a slow death."

"We have developed a transitional phase-out plan in order to meet the obligations to our current subscribers and to close the operation in a manner that appropriately acknowledges the seminal contributions to the demographic profession of this distinguished journal. All subscribers who paid for their year 2000 subscriptions will receive a refund. The website version of Population Index will be updated for the last time in March 2000, when the last issue and the 1999 Cumulative Index will be added to our search and browse pages. The Population Index website with the annotated bibliography for the period 1986-1999 will remain on the OPR server for searching and browsing."

Recently there was a strange posting to the APLIC listserv about getting copies of Canadian laws mailed out to all of us. It caused a number of APLIC members to wonder who had joined the listserv! I contacted the poster and discovered that there is indeed another APLIC out there.

In their case the acronym stands for ASSOCIATION OF PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARIANS IN CANADA. The organization's mandate is to support the provision of high quality parliamentary library service to legislators in Canada. The objectives are: to foster communication among members concerning mattters of public interest; to identify and address issues requiring research and to cooperate with parliamentary officers, associations and organisations having related interests.

François LeMay (LemayF@parl.gc.ca) was kind enough to explain it to me. He is secretary - treasurer of the other APLIC.

The Department of Demography and Geodemography at Charles University in Prague has just finished the Czech POPIN Website. You may find it at the URL address popin.natur.cuni.cz.

The Czech Popin Website was built according to standards based on POPIN recommendations. It provides multiple information on national population trends, population policy in the Czech Republic, population research and training, demographic and geodemographic events, and both Czech demographic studies and studies by Czech authors. Time series of population data and indices for the Czech population stored both in XML and HTML formats are available as well.

The site is continually updated in all items with respect to contents, use, etc. A proposal of further development and all standards are now being prepared for discussion. The Czech POPIN team will present this soon through an e-mail discussion forum.

The website team hopes you will find the Czech POPIN Website interesting and useful, and welcome any comments and suggestions especially those concerning further development in the field of population data exchange.

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Last updated 04/29/01