Chair's Report 1998

Martin Svoboda, ICAU Chair

Dear guests, ladies and gentlemen, dear ICAUers,

Though I am not fully satisfied how I performed as a chairman, I hope you will agree that ICAU changed remarkably since 1995 when you elected me for the first time. Definitely, the environment changed a lot as well, in particular the communication network. The Ex Libris' business success brought us new members, some of them from overseas. Let me list the changes I consider the most visible ones:

ICAU Web server became a main vehicle of communication: I hope you like both its contents and new appearance; its continuous updating demands more and more working hours,
ICAU News were usually published late after the annual meetings; there are doubts as to their efficiency, we have to decide about their future,
ALEPH development request processing was automated using a Web form and a direct access to the Request database. The cost of request processing declined remarkably. It is a question how the technique can be used in a new Aleph 500 modules oriented environment,
The membership grew remarkably from 55 reported at the 6th Annual Meeting in Prague to 84 members who paid their 1998 membership fee so far (plus several others whose fees hopefully would reach ICAU account).

That means we are more and we communicate better, still the level of our influence on the Aleph development does not satisfy us fully. And this remains a task for the new management you are going to elect at this meeting.

1. Review of income and expenses

Title	Income	Expenses
Remainder as of 8.9.1997	12 712,09
fees 1997	218,52
Banking charges till 12/97	36,46
Interest 8/97-12/97	65,85
Aalborg meeting expenses		640,00
Returned Chair's airfare + other expenses	795,91
Totals	13 828,83	640,00
Cash remainder as of 31.12.97	43,85
Account remainder as of 31.12.97	13 103,26
True remainder	13 147,11
Difference (exchange rate losses)	41,72
Remainder at the end of fiscal year 1997	13 147,11
Fischer Lorenz at Aalborg meeting		1 445,68
Lawyer's advice		42,87
fees 1997	215,03	2,15
fees 1998	18 155,02
News'97 editing & printing		498,46
Mailing (invoices, News&invitation)		411,08
Office petty expenses (paper, labels, envelopes)		30,08
SC meeting (-Guido, see below)		2 678,94
Banking charges 1/98-7/98		197,80
Interest 1/98-7/98	192,08
Totals	31 709,24	5 308,50
Cash remainder as of 6.8.98	643,50
Account remainder as of 6.8.98	25 710,98
True remainder	26 354,48
Difference (exchange rate losses)	46,26
Remainder as of 6.8.1998	26 400,74

Estimate of expected expenses & incomes
Member fees expected (5*210)	1 050
ExL support 97	5 000
ExL support 98	5 000
Staff work(National Library)		1 407
Staff work (State Technical Library)		7 173
Guido's participation at the SC meeting		700
Chair's participation at the Annual meeting		425
Web server: Request form modification		221
Web server: new appearance-Java		1 105
Totals	11 050	11 031

The financial standing of ICAU is much better than it was when I took it over with no assets at all. The reason might be that the labour cost in Prague is much lower (though rising) than in Lyngby. We have to decide whether to keep the fee or decrease it. My opinion is not to change the amount but to change the denomination from ECU to US dollars. This would reduce problems for some overseas members and would decrease the exchange charges as well.

2. Membership

The Secretariat maintains an Excel sheet containing all pertinent information about ICAU members. The file is periodically exported to the ICAU Web server where the most of information can be seen. The Steering committee discussed recruiting of new members. We came to the opinion that both the ICAU server and the Ex Libris server provide all those who want to participate in collective efforts of sharing knowledge and of improving Aleph with sufficient information. To become ICAU member is so simple now that who wants he/she does. And we agreed that we prefer a smaller company of those who will work together to a large group of formal members. We also discussed a repeated Ex Libris proposal to make the ICAU membership almost mandatory and to collect the ICAU fee as a part of Aleph maintenance fee. Though it will make the clerical work of ICAU secretariat cheaper, we agreed we prefer to bear this cost of our independence.

3. The Steering Committee

The Steering Committee consists of five members including a Chair. As the Assembly re-elected Naomi Steinberger and Karen Kvist for another two year term in Aalborg last year, the members were:
        Guido Badalamenti, Siena Library System, Italy
        Karen Grundvad Kvist, Aalborg University Library, Denmark
        Iva Pribramska, National Library, Czech Republic
        Naomi Steinberger, JTSA, USA
        Martin Svoboda, State Technical Library, Czech Republic
We announced already a call for new candidates as my term is over and I decided not to run once more again for a variety of reasons. Naomi Steinberger is the only continuing Steering committee member as Karen Kvist left Aleph user family and the terms of Guido Badalamenti and Iva Pribramska are over. That is we have to elect a new Chair and three new SC members.

4. Activities

The Aalborg meeting made no specific decisions as to the tasks of the Steering Committee for the coming year; so the activities were as in previous years:

Publish the 1997 ICAU News. It was published late again, but the cost was kept at acceptable $500. It should be decided, whether to publishing the next News in paper form or just on the Web.
Keep the ICAU member database. It is necessary to repeat that without your active participation, the secretariat cannot keep the list of members up to date.
Process the development requests: because of the intentionally low number of requests, the collection and processing run smoothly and we received an answer from Ex Libris well in time. I am looking forward to hear a report about this activity.
Prepare amendments to the Statutes: the Italian proposal allowing to vote by proxy could not have been accepted in Aalborg as the needed two thirds of all ICAU members were not present there. At the Steering committee meeting we proposed another minor improvement regarding the balanced ICAU budget. The proposals were distributed to all members in August and published on the ICAU WWW. It is my pleasure to announce that just the needed two thirds of ICAU membership used their right to vote and both the amendments were approved.
Increase the influence of ICAU over Ex Libris: though there is some improvement, this remains the main task of the new Steering committee. As a possible instrument we discussed an independent survey of user satisfaction that will be discussed with Ex Libris.

Though most of the work of the Steering committee was done via e-mail, it met once in Prague. It seems apparent that two meetings a year will be more efficient.

5. Conclusion

Instead of a conclusion, I would like to thank all who worked for the better of ICAU in the years under my chairmanship. And of course I wish the new Chair and the Steering Committee the best luck and a fruitful relationship with Ex Libris for the benefit of all ICAU members.

Martin Svoboda

Moscow, 18 September 1998