The Seventh Annual Directors' Meeting of the Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) was held on Sept. 5-8 in the Library's Mumford Room.
The meeting began on an upbeat note as Dr. Billington greeted the international participants with a reference to the assessment of GLIN in the recent report of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), which praised GLIN as a "worthy" effort that exemplifies the kinds of linkages with other institutions that the study recommended.
Following Dr. Billington's remarks, Law Librarian Rubens Medina implored the members to continue their commitment to the GLIN standards of currency and completeness. Mr. Medina remarked that, "with so much available on Internet, our legislators now have increased expectations. We need to make GLIN the database of first resort for the laws of nations, and this will only happen when our records are complete and up to date."
A New Charter
One of the highlights of the meeting was a decision made concerning the future of the GLIN organization. GLIN members unanimously supported the principle of a new organizational structure, necessitated by the network's growth. The culmination of two years of discussion, GLIN's new charter will be more formal, outlining members' rights and obligations. To date, GLIN nations have signed a provisional GLIN: Guiding Principles document. The expanded principles have been revised, pro bono, by attorneys Tedson Meyers and Gwyneth Hambley of Coudert Brothers. Under the new arrangement, to be reviewed and adopted by the network, the right of GLIN members to retain their own data remains at the heart of the new bylaws, which are supplemented by new procedures for election of officers and the conduct of GLIN business in general.
GLIN MERCOSUR Regional Meeting Report
A regional development featured at this year's meeting was unveiled in a report from the MERCOSUR nations (the "southern market" countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) which staged a regional GLIN meeting in the spring. Hosted by the GLIN station in Montevideo, Uruguay, and supported by the Inter-American Development Bank, this meeting provided the opportunity for the MERCOSUR countries to discuss methods of adopting GLIN standards.
Satellite Communication Demonstration at NASA
NASA, one of GLIN's partner institutions, welcomed GLIN members on a field trip to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to demonstrate the lightning speed of satellite communication and how it applies to GLIN. The demonstration of a few typical GLIN transactions showed how they are routed through a VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) satellite dish owned by GLIN, up to a satellite owned by PanAmSat (which generously donated the connection time) and back through a second GLIN-owned VSAT. Although the transactions traveled some 44,000 miles in their round trip, the elapsed time was a matter of seconds. After some additional experimentation at NASA, GLIN intends to provide information to nations that have poor terrestrial communications links so that they might explore the possibility of such linking to GLIN via satellite.
Six New Potential Members
In his opening statement, Mr. Medina informed those assembled that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Law Library's indexing of Latin American law. Both the historical roots of GLIN and its expanding scope were symbolized by the attendance of representatives of six potential new GLIN member nations: Costa Rica, Ecuador, Japan, Mali, Nicaragua and Peru.
GLIN in Use in the U.S.
While the focus of yearly meetings usually centers on administrative and technical matters, discussions were also held concerning GLIN from the users' perspective. The representative from the United Nations, Rosemary Noona, librarian for the U. N. Office of Legal Affairs, noted that GLIN is an excellent source of foreign law. She stressed, however, that, "librarians and others not so familiar with GLIN have to be made to realize that GLIN is in its infancy. It does not yet contain all countries, as some librarians automatically assume."
Despite the need for further development, GLIN has been enthusiastically received, Ms. Noona noted. One librarian from a Southern university library "with scant foreign law holdings told me she is very happy with the GLIN database and uses it all the time," Ms. Noona said. "It's good to hear this positive feedback."
