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(1) General International Survey
Znt. Libr. Rev. (1970) 2, 41-47
INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CZECHOSLOVAKIA,
(1) General International GEORGE
SYMPOSIUM1969
Survey
CHANDLER?
In order to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic an International Library Symposium was to have been held in September 1968 under the auspices of the Slovak Library Council, the Matica Slovenska (as the Slovak National Library) and the Slovak Institute of Library Economy. The occupation of Czechoslovakia by foreign troops led to the deferment of the Symposium. Fortunately, it proved possible to hold this in Tatranska Lomnica in May 1969. It was supported by representatives from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, East Germany, West Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia. It was also attended by the officers and members of the new Association of Czech Librarians and Information Officers and the Association of Slovak Librarians and Information Officers, which had been founded in December 1968. These two bodies will represent Czechoslovakia abroad and replace the Czech Library Council’s representatives. Because of the recent creation of two new library associations, the International Library Symposium was important from the point of view of Czechoslovakia and there were representatives at it covering the whole field of Czechoslovak librarianship and information science. The Symposium offered, therefore, valuable opportunities to discuss the organization of all types of libraries as well as the theme of provincial libraries. This topic had presumably been chosen as the Symposium was held in Slovakia, one of the provinces of Czechoslovakia. Because the international library meeting in Czechoslovakia in 1927 had been an important step towards the creation of the International Federation of Library Associations while the International Symposium in Prague in 1,966 helped towards the creation of INTAMEL (Intert 23 Dowsefield
Lane,
Liverpool
L18 3JG, England.
42
G.
CHANDLER
national Association of Metropolitan City Libraries), the organizers of the 1969 International Library Symposium must have been aware of the need to make a similar important contribution towards international co-operation in provincial librarianship and to do this in a new way. In the original invitation the theme of the Symposium was defined as the work of provincial libraries but later literature stressed rural or village libraries-a field particularly appropriate to Slovakia. As the official languages of the Symposium were to be Slovak, Czech, English, French, German and Russian and the word province has such widely different meanings, depending on the size and nature of the various countries represented, the problems of definition and communication proved to be difficult, even though facilities were available for the automatic translation of the main speeches, of which there were nearly 40. The subjects of the papers ranged from the organization of library networks in a country or province serving a minority linguistic group which involves national planning, to case studies of very small part-time library centres in villages. Because of the exceptional nature of the circumstances in which the Symposium was held, its main significance was from the point of view of its contribution to international and comparative librarianship: it gave an opportunity to study Slovak libraries in detail against the background of the libraries of other countries, which were described in the papers of the various delegates. The Symposium brought out a fundamental problem common to all countries to a greater or lesser extent: the need for closer co-operation between town and country in order to meet the increasing library demands arising from the development of education and industrialization. Mr Jan Irmler, Secretary of the International Library Symposium, surveyed library research in a number of countries and pointed out the tendencies to create large library authorities responsible for services to towns and countryside. In particular, he referred to the achievements of the English county libraries in supplying library services to a large number of small communities which had earlier been responsible for their own services. Increasing urbanization throughout the world was driving many countries to follow this pattern, particularly the countries which had hitherto been mainly agricultural, e.g. Slovakia, and were now becoming urbanized. Many people were commuting from the countryside to take up work in the towns and the library needs of country residents were becoming as varied as those in industrialized cities. I took up the point made by Mr Irmler and by a number of other
INTERNATIONAL
speakers that the English
LIBRARY
SYMPOSIUM
43
county libraries were one of the successful types of larger authorities. This was true but the process of urbanization was, as elsewhere, continuing in England, one of the oldest industrialized countries, and was requiring increased national planning and even larger local authorities. It had already been recognized that the division of local government areas into towns which tended to be industrialized and counties which tended to be rural was no longer valid in the world today. Reorganization of the London area had already recognized this, and had resulted in the fusion of borough authorities and the splitting’ up of county authorities to form new local government units normally of at least 250,000 population. A similar reorganization had been recommended for Wales. It was confidently expected that the Maud report on local government reorganization in England (Cmnd. 4050) would recommend a similar pattern and, in fact, it has subsequently recommended the drastic reduction of the number of local authorities by creating new unitary authorities serving town and country and with populations of 250,000 to l,OOO,OOO. Many of the other papers were dominated by this problem of the relationship between towns and countryside. Some of the papers revealed that some countries had adopted library standards which aimed at a higher level of book provision per head of population in the smaller areas than in the larger ones. These different standards were only a stop-gap measure until larger library authorities covering both town and country had been created. Mr I. Sallai (Hungary) described in German the situation in Hungary and discussed problems which were common to a greater or lesser extent to all countries which had hitherto been substantially agricultural and were becoming industrialized. Mr Sallai pointed out that the number of agricultural workers had declined in Hungary during the last 16 years from 2.1 million to 1.4 million-a decrease of 30%. He stressed that greater industrialization was making necessary the creation of public libraries, in the Anglo-Saxon-Scandinavian sense of the term, serving a wide range of the needs of the public, including some specialized ones, rather than the small popular public libraries which could only provide popular types of literature. To quote from Mr Sallai “the public library in its highest form is a general comprehensive library which is also concerned, up to a point, in satisfying research needs. In addition to satisfying the needs of the public for specialized literature and for information, the public library aims at satisfying the most varied demands”. Hence the public library must naturally be a large library. The small public library is a sub-standard library which is only able to satisfy the most popular demands of the public, for fiction and general
44
G.
CHANDLER
reading. Mr Sallai quoted from an Italian article which stressed the need throughout Europe to establish large public libraries on the AngloSaxon model rather than popular libraries: “The great majority of Italian libraries share the same opinion: it is evident that the role formerly played in Italy by popular libraries must now be taken over by comprehensive libraries of the Anglo-Saxon type”. Mr Sallai then discussed the problems in Hungary in detail and referred to the desire to establish large comprehensive public libraries in all towns of which the conurbation included 200 to 300,000 inhabitants. These libraries should be developed as reference libraries for all fields of knowledge and with some responsibility in research. As a first step, it was proposed to develop five regional libraries in this way. In conclusion, Mr Sallai stressed that the problem of the rural library could not be solved in the village. But that did not take away the necessity to develop village libraries further, even though they needed to be backed by regional libraries, as the village library is almost the only form of village culture of our generation. The studies from other countries showed a similar recognition that town and country were being united and that the needs of their residents required larger libraries with more comprehensive stocks, even though this involved the closing of the small popular libraries. The contribution from West Germany, prepared by Dr H. Schumacher (Stuttgart), pointed out that 49% of the residents of West Germany came from communities of less than 20,000 population: “The necessity to reduce the differences between town and country is being strengthened by industrialization and mechanization, by the influence of radio and television, and by the growth of education.” The new production methods in agriculture required increased technical knowledge from agricultural workers. Rural libraries could not, under their present organizational structure, meet these new developments. It was recommended that more comprehensive libraries were required in all districts which should also be available to residents in the surrounding areas. Rural libraries should be backed by loans of books and mobile libraries and by central libraries in large towns with special services for music and foreign literature and with other centralized services. Continued close co-operation between the different types of library authorities was necessary. M. L. D&graves, Chief Librarian, Bordeaux, and Director of the Central Lending Libraries of the dtpartements of Gironde and CharenteMaritime wrote that the French Central Lending Libraries of the departments serve rural areas of less than 20,000 inhabitants. One of the first acts of the French Direction des Bibliotheques et de la Lecture
INTERNATIONAL
LIBRARY
SYMPOSIUM
45
Publique, which was established in 1945 in the Ministry of National Education, was to create Central Lending Libraries in a number of departments. These are supported by the Minister through the prefets of the departments and are public free lending libraries. There are also a number of similar central lending libraries which were created and run by the departments, which are also supported financially by the Ministry. Some central lending libraries have new buildings, but most operate in sub-standard accommodation. In principle there is one mobile library for each department. In principle there are four staff-a directorlibrarian, a sub-librarian, a typist and a driver. Some departments have two sub-librarians. Book stocks vary greatly, but some have exceeded 100,000 volumes. The stock is classified by the Dewey Decimal Classification. M. Desgraves concluded that the library services offered to rural areas were insufficient and a report on public libraries in France in 1968 had recommended improvements. The contribution from Belgium by J. Gaerts listed in great detail the part played by the Public Libraries Department of the Ministry of Education and Culture in promoting the development of public libraries in the French-speaking part of Belgium and Brussels. The distinction was drawn between “important libraries and the remainder”. To be ranked as important, the public library had to have a comprehensive book stock of not less than 10,000 volumes, must lend at least 30,000 books annually, have a reading room and a staff of at least one librarian and one assistant. The total of grant aid for public libraries rose from 23,628,OOO Belgian francs in 1964 to 37,980,OOO in 1967. One of the papers from Yugoslavia by A. Korze-Strajnar described the network of public libraries in Slovenia, which has a population of approximately 1,700,OOO. The National and University Library in Ljubejana became the Central Library of Slovenia in 1968 and began to print catalogue cards of all Slovenian books. The object of the Central Library is to give technical organizational assistance to the network of libraries in Slovenia. The Universal Decimal Classification was adopted for all libraries and open access was introduced in all pubiic libraries. Miss T. Topalova (Bulgaria) described in German the evolution of village libraries in Bulgaria during the last quarter of a century. In Bulgaria there are 4530 villages and 12 13 small villages which are organized in 958 local authorities. Village population totals approximately 4,404,000, of which 1,973,OOO are in productive work in agriculture, forestry or industrial undertakings. The number of village reading rooms has increased from 2334 in 1944 to 4141. Issues in 1967 totalled nearly 14 million, and there were more than 1,400,OOO readers. There
46
G.
CHANDLER
were 1664 paid staff, and a total of 6755 workers. In financial support by other organizations of libraries greater than that provided by the state. Each village 150 new books a year and had on the average 2558 during the last 15 to 20 years. A Children’s Book Week Book Week are held annually. 700/ of the places at the Librarianship are reserved for students from villages.
many areas the is many times library received books published and a Bulgarian State Institute of
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
It is interesting to consider the papers relating to Czechoslovak libraries against the international background provided by the contributions from other countries. The organizers of the Symposium had obviously aimed at providing most comprehensive surveys of the libraries of Slovakia. Mr A. Kuruc provided an organizational survey of all the networks or libraries in Slovakia and this was followed by an account of the developments of public libraries in Slovakia by Mr Maruniak. Proceeding from the general to the specific, there were general papers on the social functions of libraries in villages and several surveys of the use of public libraries and of the use of agricultural literature, a case study of a district library, and several case studies of village libraries. Together these papers provide a complete framework illustrating the organization of libraries in Czechoslovakia. As the Symposium was attended by the directors and representatives ofthe Ministries ofculture for both Slovakia and of the Czech regions, there was an unprecedented opportunity of discussing the subjects of the papers with the most important persons involved. The Symposium was also concerned with improving the means of communicating experiences from one country to another. The editor of the Slovak library journal Citatel analysed the reports which had appeared recently in its columns relating to the libraries of overseas countries. This analysis was no doubt done to bring forcibly to the attention of delegates that so few articles had appeared relating to their countries and that many of these were not concerned with the more important developments. In line with its historical position between East and West, Czechoslovakia is internationally minded and the editors of the Citatel had done their best to be representative. Nevertheless, they recognized that the international coverage of their own journal needed improvement, like that ofjournals in other countries. They hoped that the exchange of articles and editors of periodicals would be possible, as a means of sharing experiences. This was generally agreed. The final resolution of the Symposium recommended the publication
m
of all the papers in the language in which they were delivered. Some criticism was expressed that they were not to be translated into English, but it was thought that the burden would be too great. Hence I have only summarized in English some of the more important points which were made in the papers delivered in French, German or English. A committee was also appointed to organize further research in the fields covered by the Symposium. The International Library Symposium was an important international experiment and may be a milestone in the evolution of international and comparative librarianship. It has at least demonstrated in great detail the difficulty of communication between various countries, even in a specialist field. Although many of the papers will not stand up individually as single contributions in their own right, because they need so much clarification and explanation to ,make them comprehensible to foreigners, they have at least demonstrated the urgent need for much more attention to be devoted to the problems of international and comparative librarianship. I hope that UNESCO will study very carefully the papers for this Symposium and will, as a result, support further studies in a field which is vitally important. The international symposium devoted to a narrow carefully defined theme, and with papers circulated in advance can be a most effective means of international co-operation.
INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CZECHOSLOVAKIA,
(1) General International GEORGE
SYMPOSIUM1969
Survey
CHANDLER?
In order to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic an International Library Symposium was to have been held in September 1968 under the auspices of the Slovak Library Council, the Matica Slovenska (as the Slovak National Library) and the Slovak Institute of Library Economy. The occupation of Czechoslovakia by foreign troops led to the deferment of the Symposium. Fortunately, it proved possible to hold this in Tatranska Lomnica in May 1969. It was supported by representatives from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, East Germany, West Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, United Kingdom, U.S.S.R. and Yugoslavia. It was also attended by the officers and members of the new Association of Czech Librarians and Information Officers and the Association of Slovak Librarians and Information Officers, which had been founded in December 1968. These two bodies will represent Czechoslovakia abroad and replace the Czech Library Council’s representatives. Because of the recent creation of two new library associations, the International Library Symposium was important from the point of view of Czechoslovakia and there were representatives at it covering the whole field of Czechoslovak librarianship and information science. The Symposium offered, therefore, valuable opportunities to discuss the organization of all types of libraries as well as the theme of provincial libraries. This topic had presumably been chosen as the Symposium was held in Slovakia, one of the provinces of Czechoslovakia. Because the international library meeting in Czechoslovakia in 1927 had been an important step towards the creation of the International Federation of Library Associations while the International Symposium in Prague in 1,966 helped towards the creation of INTAMEL (Intert 23 Dowsefield
Lane,
Liverpool
L18 3JG, England.
42
G.
CHANDLER
national Association of Metropolitan City Libraries), the organizers of the 1969 International Library Symposium must have been aware of the need to make a similar important contribution towards international co-operation in provincial librarianship and to do this in a new way. In the original invitation the theme of the Symposium was defined as the work of provincial libraries but later literature stressed rural or village libraries-a field particularly appropriate to Slovakia. As the official languages of the Symposium were to be Slovak, Czech, English, French, German and Russian and the word province has such widely different meanings, depending on the size and nature of the various countries represented, the problems of definition and communication proved to be difficult, even though facilities were available for the automatic translation of the main speeches, of which there were nearly 40. The subjects of the papers ranged from the organization of library networks in a country or province serving a minority linguistic group which involves national planning, to case studies of very small part-time library centres in villages. Because of the exceptional nature of the circumstances in which the Symposium was held, its main significance was from the point of view of its contribution to international and comparative librarianship: it gave an opportunity to study Slovak libraries in detail against the background of the libraries of other countries, which were described in the papers of the various delegates. The Symposium brought out a fundamental problem common to all countries to a greater or lesser extent: the need for closer co-operation between town and country in order to meet the increasing library demands arising from the development of education and industrialization. Mr Jan Irmler, Secretary of the International Library Symposium, surveyed library research in a number of countries and pointed out the tendencies to create large library authorities responsible for services to towns and countryside. In particular, he referred to the achievements of the English county libraries in supplying library services to a large number of small communities which had earlier been responsible for their own services. Increasing urbanization throughout the world was driving many countries to follow this pattern, particularly the countries which had hitherto been mainly agricultural, e.g. Slovakia, and were now becoming urbanized. Many people were commuting from the countryside to take up work in the towns and the library needs of country residents were becoming as varied as those in industrialized cities. I took up the point made by Mr Irmler and by a number of other
INTERNATIONAL
speakers that the English
LIBRARY
SYMPOSIUM
43
county libraries were one of the successful types of larger authorities. This was true but the process of urbanization was, as elsewhere, continuing in England, one of the oldest industrialized countries, and was requiring increased national planning and even larger local authorities. It had already been recognized that the division of local government areas into towns which tended to be industrialized and counties which tended to be rural was no longer valid in the world today. Reorganization of the London area had already recognized this, and had resulted in the fusion of borough authorities and the splitting’ up of county authorities to form new local government units normally of at least 250,000 population. A similar reorganization had been recommended for Wales. It was confidently expected that the Maud report on local government reorganization in England (Cmnd. 4050) would recommend a similar pattern and, in fact, it has subsequently recommended the drastic reduction of the number of local authorities by creating new unitary authorities serving town and country and with populations of 250,000 to l,OOO,OOO. Many of the other papers were dominated by this problem of the relationship between towns and countryside. Some of the papers revealed that some countries had adopted library standards which aimed at a higher level of book provision per head of population in the smaller areas than in the larger ones. These different standards were only a stop-gap measure until larger library authorities covering both town and country had been created. Mr I. Sallai (Hungary) described in German the situation in Hungary and discussed problems which were common to a greater or lesser extent to all countries which had hitherto been substantially agricultural and were becoming industrialized. Mr Sallai pointed out that the number of agricultural workers had declined in Hungary during the last 16 years from 2.1 million to 1.4 million-a decrease of 30%. He stressed that greater industrialization was making necessary the creation of public libraries, in the Anglo-Saxon-Scandinavian sense of the term, serving a wide range of the needs of the public, including some specialized ones, rather than the small popular public libraries which could only provide popular types of literature. To quote from Mr Sallai “the public library in its highest form is a general comprehensive library which is also concerned, up to a point, in satisfying research needs. In addition to satisfying the needs of the public for specialized literature and for information, the public library aims at satisfying the most varied demands”. Hence the public library must naturally be a large library. The small public library is a sub-standard library which is only able to satisfy the most popular demands of the public, for fiction and general
44
G.
CHANDLER
reading. Mr Sallai quoted from an Italian article which stressed the need throughout Europe to establish large public libraries on the AngloSaxon model rather than popular libraries: “The great majority of Italian libraries share the same opinion: it is evident that the role formerly played in Italy by popular libraries must now be taken over by comprehensive libraries of the Anglo-Saxon type”. Mr Sallai then discussed the problems in Hungary in detail and referred to the desire to establish large comprehensive public libraries in all towns of which the conurbation included 200 to 300,000 inhabitants. These libraries should be developed as reference libraries for all fields of knowledge and with some responsibility in research. As a first step, it was proposed to develop five regional libraries in this way. In conclusion, Mr Sallai stressed that the problem of the rural library could not be solved in the village. But that did not take away the necessity to develop village libraries further, even though they needed to be backed by regional libraries, as the village library is almost the only form of village culture of our generation. The studies from other countries showed a similar recognition that town and country were being united and that the needs of their residents required larger libraries with more comprehensive stocks, even though this involved the closing of the small popular libraries. The contribution from West Germany, prepared by Dr H. Schumacher (Stuttgart), pointed out that 49% of the residents of West Germany came from communities of less than 20,000 population: “The necessity to reduce the differences between town and country is being strengthened by industrialization and mechanization, by the influence of radio and television, and by the growth of education.” The new production methods in agriculture required increased technical knowledge from agricultural workers. Rural libraries could not, under their present organizational structure, meet these new developments. It was recommended that more comprehensive libraries were required in all districts which should also be available to residents in the surrounding areas. Rural libraries should be backed by loans of books and mobile libraries and by central libraries in large towns with special services for music and foreign literature and with other centralized services. Continued close co-operation between the different types of library authorities was necessary. M. L. D&graves, Chief Librarian, Bordeaux, and Director of the Central Lending Libraries of the dtpartements of Gironde and CharenteMaritime wrote that the French Central Lending Libraries of the departments serve rural areas of less than 20,000 inhabitants. One of the first acts of the French Direction des Bibliotheques et de la Lecture
INTERNATIONAL
LIBRARY
SYMPOSIUM
45
Publique, which was established in 1945 in the Ministry of National Education, was to create Central Lending Libraries in a number of departments. These are supported by the Minister through the prefets of the departments and are public free lending libraries. There are also a number of similar central lending libraries which were created and run by the departments, which are also supported financially by the Ministry. Some central lending libraries have new buildings, but most operate in sub-standard accommodation. In principle there is one mobile library for each department. In principle there are four staff-a directorlibrarian, a sub-librarian, a typist and a driver. Some departments have two sub-librarians. Book stocks vary greatly, but some have exceeded 100,000 volumes. The stock is classified by the Dewey Decimal Classification. M. Desgraves concluded that the library services offered to rural areas were insufficient and a report on public libraries in France in 1968 had recommended improvements. The contribution from Belgium by J. Gaerts listed in great detail the part played by the Public Libraries Department of the Ministry of Education and Culture in promoting the development of public libraries in the French-speaking part of Belgium and Brussels. The distinction was drawn between “important libraries and the remainder”. To be ranked as important, the public library had to have a comprehensive book stock of not less than 10,000 volumes, must lend at least 30,000 books annually, have a reading room and a staff of at least one librarian and one assistant. The total of grant aid for public libraries rose from 23,628,OOO Belgian francs in 1964 to 37,980,OOO in 1967. One of the papers from Yugoslavia by A. Korze-Strajnar described the network of public libraries in Slovenia, which has a population of approximately 1,700,OOO. The National and University Library in Ljubejana became the Central Library of Slovenia in 1968 and began to print catalogue cards of all Slovenian books. The object of the Central Library is to give technical organizational assistance to the network of libraries in Slovenia. The Universal Decimal Classification was adopted for all libraries and open access was introduced in all pubiic libraries. Miss T. Topalova (Bulgaria) described in German the evolution of village libraries in Bulgaria during the last quarter of a century. In Bulgaria there are 4530 villages and 12 13 small villages which are organized in 958 local authorities. Village population totals approximately 4,404,000, of which 1,973,OOO are in productive work in agriculture, forestry or industrial undertakings. The number of village reading rooms has increased from 2334 in 1944 to 4141. Issues in 1967 totalled nearly 14 million, and there were more than 1,400,OOO readers. There
46
G.
CHANDLER
were 1664 paid staff, and a total of 6755 workers. In financial support by other organizations of libraries greater than that provided by the state. Each village 150 new books a year and had on the average 2558 during the last 15 to 20 years. A Children’s Book Week Book Week are held annually. 700/ of the places at the Librarianship are reserved for students from villages.
many areas the is many times library received books published and a Bulgarian State Institute of
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
It is interesting to consider the papers relating to Czechoslovak libraries against the international background provided by the contributions from other countries. The organizers of the Symposium had obviously aimed at providing most comprehensive surveys of the libraries of Slovakia. Mr A. Kuruc provided an organizational survey of all the networks or libraries in Slovakia and this was followed by an account of the developments of public libraries in Slovakia by Mr Maruniak. Proceeding from the general to the specific, there were general papers on the social functions of libraries in villages and several surveys of the use of public libraries and of the use of agricultural literature, a case study of a district library, and several case studies of village libraries. Together these papers provide a complete framework illustrating the organization of libraries in Czechoslovakia. As the Symposium was attended by the directors and representatives ofthe Ministries ofculture for both Slovakia and of the Czech regions, there was an unprecedented opportunity of discussing the subjects of the papers with the most important persons involved. The Symposium was also concerned with improving the means of communicating experiences from one country to another. The editor of the Slovak library journal Citatel analysed the reports which had appeared recently in its columns relating to the libraries of overseas countries. This analysis was no doubt done to bring forcibly to the attention of delegates that so few articles had appeared relating to their countries and that many of these were not concerned with the more important developments. In line with its historical position between East and West, Czechoslovakia is internationally minded and the editors of the Citatel had done their best to be representative. Nevertheless, they recognized that the international coverage of their own journal needed improvement, like that ofjournals in other countries. They hoped that the exchange of articles and editors of periodicals would be possible, as a means of sharing experiences. This was generally agreed. The final resolution of the Symposium recommended the publication
m
of all the papers in the language in which they were delivered. Some criticism was expressed that they were not to be translated into English, but it was thought that the burden would be too great. Hence I have only summarized in English some of the more important points which were made in the papers delivered in French, German or English. A committee was also appointed to organize further research in the fields covered by the Symposium. The International Library Symposium was an important international experiment and may be a milestone in the evolution of international and comparative librarianship. It has at least demonstrated in great detail the difficulty of communication between various countries, even in a specialist field. Although many of the papers will not stand up individually as single contributions in their own right, because they need so much clarification and explanation to ,make them comprehensible to foreigners, they have at least demonstrated the urgent need for much more attention to be devoted to the problems of international and comparative librarianship. I hope that UNESCO will study very carefully the papers for this Symposium and will, as a result, support further studies in a field which is vitally important. The international symposium devoted to a narrow carefully defined theme, and with papers circulated in advance can be a most effective means of international co-operation.