Planning for an International Government Information Center

ht. Libr. Rev. (1979)

11, 387-398

Planning for an International Information Center GENEVA

Government

FINN*

I.

INTRODUCTION

In a previous paper entitled “International Involvement of a National Center for Government Information”, the author described a hypothetical International Center for Government Information (IGIC) .1 The work of the IGIC in relation to national libraries was described as receiving bibliographical records for government publications, receiving the documents, preparing indexes, creating and distributing microforms, as well as training personnel of national libraries, maintaining contact with the libraries and researching improved methods. In that article national libraries were described as working with the Center to collect documents, prepare the documents for the Universal Bibliographical Control System (UBC), send documents to the Center, maintain contacts with the Center, receive microforms and indexes from the Center and send personnel to the Center to be trained.2 Obviously, no such Center now exists. In this paper an assumption is being made that there is enough interest in such a project throughout the world to justify organizing it. The rationale for taking such a decision in the first place is outside the scope of this paper. In this paper the author outlines a plan for bringing the Center into being. The plan is divided into intermediate objectives aimed at establishing the Center and a “final” goal of seeing the Center in successful operation. The overall plan will be described in outline and the next intermediate objective described in some detail. * 9114 W. North

Street,

Muncie,

1 G. Finn (1977). International tion. International Library Review 2 Ibid., p. 396. 0020-7837/79/030387+

IN 46303,

U.S.A.

Involvement 9, 383.

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for Government

Press Inc.

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G. FINN

II. A PLAN

FOR BRINGING

THE IGIC

INTO BEING

The first objective is to get the basic idea before the relevant public. This objective has already been addressed by the publication of the article in the International Library Review. The second objective is to rework the basic idea in accordance with the expressed needs, priorities, resources and perceptions of the nations that are expected to participate in the Center. The suggested method of accomplishing this objective is to organize a review and planning conference. The larger part of this paper is devoted to a detailed plan for such a conference. The third objective is to secure the official approval of UNESCO for the projected Center. Since the Center is conceived of as an actual service agency for libraries operating under the auspices of UNESCO, the wholehearted approval of the General Conference will be needed to ensure continuing support for the project. Pursuit of and success in the third objective will depend on the successful completion of the second objective. The fourth objective is a baseline study of resources, needs, conditions and priorities in the government information area as they relate to national libraries throughout the world. This study is needed to help insure that the Center is well articulated with its client groups. Execution of the fourth objective would depend on success with the third objective. However, much basic work towards this baseline study could be done in process of achieving the planning conference in the second objective. This point is developed more fully in the description of the planning exercises of the conference. The “final” goal is the establishment of the Center and its successful operation, A sequence of aims, actions, actors and time allowances to achieve the final goal is shown in Fig. 1. III.

THE

PLANNING

CONFERENCE

In the earlier part of the paper the author suggested a planning conference as a suitable method for ascertaining the attitudes of the national libraries toward the projected Center as well as the resources available for the project. The remainder of the paper will be devoted to ways of accomplishing this objective. 0 bjectives

The general objective

of the conference is to elicit a clearcut

opinion

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from potential participants of the desirability of the projected Center as it is presently described. Assuming that the opinion is favorable, the conference will then proceed to the second objective and lay the groundwork for a proposal for implementing the Center. The proposal must be acceptable to UNESCO General Conference since the Center is intended to be a library service agency under the auspices of UNESCO. Thus the group must come to a decision acceptable to most of the participants-which does not exclude the possibility that no decision will be reached. A third objective of the conference is to make a rough estimate of the resources available for the project. These objectives can be expressed in terms of effective and cognitive learning. The first objective will be to create a positive orientation among the group and to lead individuals to attach feelings to personal involvement to the project. Success in this objective will be judged by discussion with participants and by the willingness of participants to follow up on the results of the meeting. The author expects that natural leaders for the project will emerge during the conference as a result of affective learning. As a result of cognitive learning the group will, in the course of a simulation exercise, provide the program leaders with enough material to prepare a coherent proposal acceptable to the UNESCO General Conference. The author assumes that the General Conference will judge the proposal by the clarity of initial presentation, by the feasibility of the project in operational terms, such as the availability of funds, of technical experts and of the appropriate level of technology and by the level of interest expressed by member countries. The program leaders will be alert during the conference to record data relevant to all these criteria. Audience

The Center, as it is conceived on in this paper, is based on arrangements between UNESCO and member countries. The agency in each country that is concerned most directly is the national library. Therefore this planning conference is intended for authorized representatives of national libraries in a position to make policy. Other interested parties could be kept informed by a published report from the conference. The audience will be gathered by invitation from UNESCO. This audience is expected to be knowledgeable about the current situation in government publications and interested in discussing the Center. However, the audience may well be assumed to be skeptical about the benefits of the Center.

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Program The objectives will be addressed in a two-day meeting. The meeting will be preceded by the required study of a description of the project and followed by the preparation of the proposal for the General Conference. The meeting will have two major divisions, a “recall” section featuring a review of the current situation and a dramatization of the problem. The second and larger portion of the program will be devoted to reworking the proposal outlined in the paper in a planning exercise using simulation techniques. The first portion of the conference is intended to help the participants review the situation, to arouse interest in the project and to stimulate the will to do something concrete about the project. The planning exercise will take up the greater part of the meeting. The simulation medium was chosen because it offers an opportunity to gather previously unexpressed ideas and opinions, to try out the tentative structure of the Center on the persons who would actually have to deal with it, and to prepare a united front to back up a proposal to the General Conference. The audience is assumed to be knowledgeable about the general situation and to have a latent desire to rationalize the matter. The assumption is being made here that the elements needed to rationalize the situation are the belief that the situation can be reconstructed in a more reasonable pattern, the will to actually do something towards reconstruction, and perhaps more imagination about the possibilities of reorganizing government publications. The role of motivation in this project cannot be over-emphasized. Experience in one country has shown that a great deal of motivation can be found, given an appropriate focus. It will be interesting to learn whether the same is true for other countries. The meeting will provide a setting for this motivation to be aroused and focussed on a definite object.

IV.

DETAILED

LAYOUT

OF CONFERENCE

‘LRecall” section of conference. The first part of the program combines “recall” and a dramatization of the problem. The objectives of this part of the program are to review the background of the international center project, to dramatize the problem, preferably using a situation currently important in national libraries, and to set the stage for the simulation exercise to follow.

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The following seven points should be covered : Point 1. The present disorganized state of government information on the international scene. Many sets of information but a clear central focus is lacking. Point 2. Current foci for general organization that may be developing for organization of information at the international level. Point 3. A possible new focus specific to the needs of national librariesIGIC under the auspices of UNESCO. Point 4. Possible ways to structure the IGIC to function as an organization. Point 5. Model of the relationships of national libraries to IGIC as a two-way flow of information and documentation. Point 6. Effects of the new network in making information more readily available to users within any country participating in IGIC. Point 7. Develop the idea of actually doing something concrete about the projected center, thus setting the stage for the simulation planning exercise to follow. The dramatization should be performed at this point. Simulation Planning Exercise

This part of the paper may seem partly a repetition of what has gone before. However, the author is attempting to make the description of the planning exercise self-contained so that modification of it will be easier to do. The article in the International Library Review presents a model adaptable to international, national and state action. This simulation exercise in its final form also is intended to be adaptable at those levels.1 The method used here is derived from that presented by McLean and Raymond in Design Your Own Game with some ideas from the works of Horn and Maidment.sJ?J Instructional Objectives

It would be presumptuous to attempt to instruct this audience in details. They are already acquainted with this particular subject matter 1 Ibid., pp. 383-402. 2 H. W. McLean and M. .I. Raymond (1976). Design Your Own Game 2nd Ohio: Simulation and Gaming Association. 3 R. E. Horn (1973). How Students Can Make Their Own Simulations. Simulations/Games& E&cation and Training 2nd edn. (D. W. Zuckerman and R. Lexington, Mass. : Information Resources. 4 R. Maidment and R. H. Bronstein (1973). Simulation Games: Design and Columbus, Ohio: Chas. E. Merrill.

edn.

Lebanon,

In The Guide to E. Horn, eds), Im&mentatiorz.

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and with each other. However, the participants will learn to interact with each other in reference to this particular project. Natural leaders for this topic are expected to emerge. Role Objectives

Participants in the simulation will represent one of three culture groups (Western, Socialist or Third World) as well as their own countries. Those who are active in the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) which is the appropriate non-governmental organization (NGO) for this project will also represent IFLA. Participants will be playing themselves as representatives of their cultures. Length of exercise

One and one half day to carry out. Time and place

The UNESCO General Conference will meet in Capital City X next year to hear new proposals and will want to hear something new from the library community. Problem

The problem is to work up the projected Center as described in the article into a proposal that is acceptable to the General Conference and that can actually be carried out, probably by the same entities that make up the proposal in the first place. Information for Participants

Each group of participants will have one leader who has been prepared in advance with tentative definitions of terms and with record keeping instructions. Each participant will be notified before the meeting of the statistical information required but not of the details of the exercise. During the exercise all participants will receive the same information from the leaders. Participant Roles

The planning exercise will be carried out by what is estimated to be five groups of 30 to 50 participants each. Before the end of the exercise each group will prepare a report which will be judged by a proposal committee consisting of the program leaders, the leaders of the group plus one other individual selected from each group by the other group members. The committee is estimated to have 12 members. This committee will synthesize the reports and prepare the final proposal.

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Each group will be made up of members chosen by chance from participating countries. Each group will have some representatives from Socialist countries, from Third World countries and from Western countries. All representatives from any one country must act as a unit for the purposes of the planning exercise. This unit will be referred to in this paper as “the participant”. Resources

Resources will provide an interesting part of this planning exercise. Resources in this instance are documentation current and retrospective, staff time, funds and priorities. The fact is, no one really knows what resources are available. Part of the purpose of the planning exercise is to get some rough indicators of resources and likewise of the priority of the project. A major result of the planning exercise will be the report of the total resources that different countries have that relate to this project. Resources will be represented by colored cards and each participant will be entitled to pick out from the options offered cards that represent his situation. Definitions of terms will be provided. The groups may choose to use different definitions but, if they do, records of those definitions must be kept. The group leaders will interpret definitions of terms, resolve all disputes about resources and keep records of the resources reported by each country. The leaders may choose anyone from the group to assist them in this work. The records must be available at the end of the session so they may be verified. Cards represent : (i) One card for each national library. (ii) One card for each 5000 pieces of documentation. (iii) One card for each library that can be called an important research library and thus be a candidate for one of the IGIC nodes. (iv) One card for each full time professional staff member at the national library who deals with this subject. (v) One card for every $lOOOO(US) that the participant is willing to give for a set of the information services produced by the Center. (vi) One card for each staff member who could be sent to an annual training seminar at the Center. (vii) A priority card on which the participant will indicate on a scale of one to ten the priority this subject has in his mind, one being a low score and ten a high one.

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In addition to the cards that may be chosen among, each participant will draw from a set of chance cards which will include one-fifth disaster cards, three-fifths normal circumstance cards and one-fifth exceptionally favorable circumstances cards. Action

The planning exercise will be executed in four rounds. Each round is 1.5 h long and is followed by a break of at least 1 h. The sequence of action is diagrammed in Fig. 2. Round I. The participants gather their resource cards. The priority cards are tilled out, collected and recorded. The resources are recorded. At the end of the round each participant gets his cards back. Round II. This round is devoted to interaction within the group toward reworking the plan. The results of Round I are available for use. The group will discuss such questions as how specific countries would interact with IGIC and what changes in the organizational structure would be desirable. In this round the chance cards will come into play. Participants who drew exceptional cards get to tell how their plans would be changed by the change in luck. The chance cards are meant to stimulate thinking about unusual circumstances. At the end of the round each group will draw up a report of the discussion. Round III For Round III the result of Round I and II will be available. The principal part of this round is to find out and record how much of the resources represented by the cards the group would give for the services of the Center. At the end of the round the participants will again fill out the priority cards. It will be interesting to see if there are any significant changes from the assessment of priorities made earlier in the exercise. The debriefing follows at the end of this round. See the debriefing script in the following section. Round IV. This is the summarizing

round. First there are reports from each group leader summarizing the day’s planning exercise. Records from the first three rounds will be available. Then a vote is taken on whether to continue the project. If this vote is negative, presumably that will be the end of the project. If the vote is favorable, there will be a brief statement about the follow-up activities by the proposal committee as well as the selection of all committee members who have not yet been named.

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G.

FIG. 2. Sequence

of action

FINN

in the simulation

planning

exercise.1

Debriejkg suipb

In simulation exercises debriefing requires five steps: releasing emotion, description of the underlying reality of the exercise, analysis of the exercise itself, transfer of the exercise experience to the “real” world, and generalization. The debriefing is done by questions and answers guided by the group leader. The questions here are only samples. The group leader can use whatever questions seem appropriate to complete the five steps. (1) Releasing emotions. How do you feel about the exercise? Do you think you had enough opportunity to express your views ? Do you think you were fairly treated? (2) Description of underlying reality. How well do you think this exercise represents reality? Are there important elements that have not been brought out? (3) Analysis of exercise. What do you think the designer of this 1 The symbols

used in this diagram

are freely

adapted

from

McLean,

Op. cit., p. 36.

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exercise was trying to do ? What problems did you encounter and what did you do about them? (4) Transfer of exercise experience to “real” world. Would you say the exercise gives more authority to the proposed Center than any individual acting alone could do ? (5) Generalization. What conclusions do you draw from the simulation? Do you conclude that the Center is an important answer to a problem or the reverse? Is there an alternative? V. SUMMARY In this paper the author outlined a plan of action to bring the IGIC into being as a new international library service agency under the auspices of UNESCO. Much attention was given to spelling out in detail how to execute the next step in the process. It will be interesting to see how the entire plan develops in reality. Further development depends very much on how the library community around the world responds to the initial step which was the published description of the projected Center. BIBLIOGRAPHY Objectives, Handbook I: S. (ed.) (1956). T axonomy of Educational New York: David McKay Company. Cox, Robert W. and Jacobson, Harold K. (1973). The Anatomy of InJuence: DecisionMaking in International Organization. New Haven and London : Yale University Press. Finn, Geneva (1977). International Involvement of a National Center for Government Information. International Library Review 9, 383-402. Fry, Bernard Mitchell (1978). Government Publications: Their Role in the National Program for Library and Information Services. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Horn, Robert E. (1973). How Students Can Make Their Own Simulations. In The Guide to SimulationsJGames for Education and Training 2nd edn. (D W. Zuckerman and R. E. Horn, eds), Lexington, MA: Information Resources. Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, Benjamin S. and Masia, B. B. (1964). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York : David McKay Company. Mager, Robert (1975). Preparing Instructional Objectives 2nd edn. Belmont, CA: Fearon Publishers. Maidment, Robert and Bronstein, Russell H. (1973). Simulation Games: Design and Implementation. Columbia, OH: Chas. E. Merrill. McLean, Harvard W. and Raymond, Michael J. (1976). Design Your Own Game 2nd edn. Lebanon, OH: Simulation and Gaming Association. Sewell, James P. (1975). UJVESCO and World Politics: Engaging in International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. United States National Commission for UXESCO (1977). United States Participation in LJJVESCO Rev. edn. Washington, DC: The Commission.

Bloom,

Cognitive

Benjamin

Domain.