Robert Wedgeworth, president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and interim university librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was the keynote speaker and the head of a group of prominent American librarians who participated in a Feb. 11, conference at the Library to discuss the role of U.S. Information Agency (USIA) libraries abroad.
Sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in cooperation with USIA, the USIA Alumni Association and the Public Diplomacy Association, the conference and a dinner the preceding evening were organized to mark the 50th anniversary of American libraries overseas.
The Benjamin Franklin Library in Mexico City, founded in 1942 as a joint project of the U.S. State Department and the American Library Association (ALA), was the precursor of what is now a worldwide total of 153 USIA libraries and information centers. (USIA also supports 58 binational center libraries in 20 countries.) Ambassadors from countries that hosted the first U.S. libraries overseas were invited to the celebratory dinner on Feb. 10. Australia, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain and Sweden all sent representatives.
Librarian of Congress Emeritus Daniel J. Boorstin was the featured speaker at the dinner, which was chaired by Dorothy Robins-Mowry, president of the USIA Alumni Association and retired USIA foreign service information officer. Other dinner speakers were McKinney H. Russell, counselor, USIA; Leonard Marks, director of the USIA, 1965-68; and Arthur S. Hummel Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Burma, the People's Republic of China, Ethiopia and Pakistan, who pointed out in his remarks that his father was the first chief of LC's Asian Division.
Mr. Russell was the opening speaker at the conference on Feb. 11, which was chaired by John Y. Cole, director of the Center for the Book. Mr. Russell challenged the 110 conference participants, through their ideas and dicussion, to help USIA do three things:
* "To make our libraries more effective and integrated sources of the information about America that we are charged to project;
* To do a better job of helping democracy and market systems flourish in this new world that is trying to be brave against heavy odds; and
* To focus our resources and programs better than ever before to meet the needs of a very variegated world of foreign posts whose needs and expectations vary widely."
The conference program featured 30 brief presentations and discussion organized around five broad themes: USIA and democracy- building, past and present; USIA libraries abroad, their mission and international librarianship; the USIA/ALA Library Fellows Program as a successful combination of librarianship and public diplomacy; the role of technology in reshaping USIA libraries abroad; and possibilities for new partnerships and cooperative arrangments that will strengthen USIA library and information services abroad in a time of budget limitations and reductions.
Discussion was stimulated by the presentation of the results of an internal USIA study about the management of its libraries abroad in the 1990s, a study commissioned because of growing concern as to whether USIS libraries (as they are called overseas) can respond effectively to the new demands and program priorities of a post- Cold War world. The study team found a strong consensus within USIA that its libraries are a communication tool well suited to a complicated new world in which USIA must deliver information on many issues to many different audiences at the same time.
At the same time, the team felt that the libraries could contribute much more than at present to USIA objectives and it focused its recommendations on this task: how the libraries might do the best possible job of supporting USIA's mission at the lowest possible cost.
The panel on the Library Fellows program was one of the day's highlights. Since 1987 the program, which is funded by USIA and administered by the ALA, has enabled more than 60 U.S. librarians to initiate and carry out projects in other nations. In introducing the presentation, ALA's Robert Doyle cited as an inspiration for the program a 1985 statement from Dr. Boorstin: "In a world divided by ideology, by trade barriers, by military threats and nuclear fears, we librarians are not powerless. We are the ambassadors of an indivisible world -- of culture and books and ideas."
Four former Library Fellows briefly described their fellowships, enlightening and entertaining the audience with stories of their valuable experiences as library and information "ambassadors." The speakers were: Richard Greenfield, consultant, Lowe Foundation Project, Library of Congress, who was a lecturer and automation consultant to India from June to December, 1988; Maria Pedak-Kari, head, Chevy Chase Library, Montgomery County (Md.) Department of Public Libraries, who worked at the National Library of Estonia from September 1992 to January 1993; Henry Raine, assistant head of cataloging, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., who worked at the National Library of New Zealand from October 1989 to September 1990; and Debra McKern, former preservation officer at Emory University in Atlanta and now assistant binding officer, Library of Congress, who worked at the National Library of Egypt from October 1991 through April 1992.
Other conference speakers and special guests included: Mohammed N. Aman, dean, School of Library and Information Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Mary Boone, training and exchanges officer, Library Programs Division, USIA; Mary Nell Bryant, management specialist in Central European parliament development, Congressional Research Service, LC; Marianna Tax Choldin, Mortenson distinguished professor for international library programs, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana; Ernest DiMattia, president, Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn.; David Hitchcock, director, Office of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, USIA; Edwin S. Holmgren, senior vice president and director of the branch libraries, New York Public Library; Gary Kraske, associate director for administrative services, University of Maryland Libraries; Judy McDermott, chief, Overseas Operations Division, LC; Robert E. McDowell, senior foreign service officer, USIA; Mary Niles Maack, associate professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of California at Los Angeles; William Mitchell, chief, field services branch, Library Programs Division, USIA; James L. Morad, senior foreign service officer and director, Book Programs Division, USIA; Sandy Morton-Schwalb, director, government relations, Special Libraries Association; Wilda Newman, information resources manager, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, representing the Special Libraries Association; Donna Oglesby, diplomat-in-residence, Fletcher School of Diplomacy, Tufts University; Hilary Olsin-Windecker, chief, book promotion branch, Book Programs Division, USIA; William S. Pattis, president, NTC Publishing Group, and chairman, USIA Book and Library Advisory Committee; Hannalore Rader, director, Cleveland State Univerity Libraries, Cleveland; Pamela Spence Richards, professor, Department of Library and Information Studies, Rutgers University; Susan Roman, executive director, Association for Library Service to Children, ALA; Alicia Sabatine, foreign service library specialist, Library Programs Division, USIA; Peggy Sullivan, executive director, ALA; Robert D. Stueart, dean, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, Boston; Lucille C. Thomas, president, International Association of School Librarianship; Hans N. Tuch, retired USIA foreign service information officer and author of Communicating with the World: U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas (1989); Abbott Washburn, deputy director, USIA, 1953-61; and Robert O. Zeleny, senior vice president, World Book International, and member of the USIA Book and Library Advisory Committee.
The Center for the Book, with support from the Public Diplomacy Foundation and the USIA Alumni Association, will publish a book based on the presentations and discussion at the dinner and the conference. The center also plans to host a followup conference in 1994.
