Aims, organization and announcement of the next seminar

ELAG, the European Library Automation Group, brings together once a year people involved in library automation in the leading European libraries and information centres. The organization counts 450 members in 27 countries all over Europe. Last years over 100 colleagues attended the seminars.

The meetings aim at in depth discussions of particular library automation topics and at the promotion of informal exchange of ideas and experience. The topics covered are technical and meant for participants with computing background.

The ELAG seminars consist of four parts :

• the presentation of papers on the main theme of the seminar
• round table discussions of progress reports
• workshops
• forums (eventually).

A number of papers are given about the main theme of the meeting, for example: "The virtual library", "Document publishing and delivery", "Object oriented approach", etc.. New automation projects in the participating institutes and countries are presented and discussed. The applications operational at the organization hosting the seminar get particular attention.
Every ELAG-member participates in a very dynamic way in the different activities organized.

Annual progress reports, relating on new developments, prepared, before the meeting takes place, by each member-organization, are put on the Web-site of the local organiser. During the seminars time is provided for discussing these.

Topics debated in the past are :

• "Data Base Management Systems"
• "The virtual union catalogue"
• "Object Oriented Approach"

During the forum session a few specialists highlight the subject from different points of view, afterwards the polemics starts.
There is also plenty of time foreseen for open and for private deliberations.

The driving force behind the seminar is the motivation of each individual participant to bring in the best of his experience and to learn from his member colleagues. One of the main benefits of the meetings are the informal contacts between the participating members.

The next ELAG seminar will take place in Prague, 6 - 8 June 2001 The main theme of this meeting is "Integrating Heterogeneous Resources". As usual a number of presentations on other interesting topics are programmed.

For membership to ELAG a motivated request has to be sent to: