From the Secretariat

Abstract

The removal of unnecessary legal and administrative obstacles to the flow of infor mation and its optimal use figure as important elements in the current work plan of the General Information Programme of Unesco. Aware of the many activities that are going on in the field of legal obstacles to information flow, the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Council for the General Information Programme, when being consulted on this matter, considered that many organizations were already at work in this field, and that it would be prudent for PGI to take no further action on copyright and related problems at present, but to await the outcome of present efforts, including the UAP Congress in 1982 at which copyright questions are likely to be discussed. After consultation with the preparatory committee on the UAP Congress, it was decided that the main issues related to copyright and other legal administrative obstacles to UAP be dealt with in a background document which could possibly be distributed to the participants of the Congress. This document will try to reflect the various points of view of the library, scientific publishers, and scientists and research workers' communities, as well as that of the Division of Copyright of the Unesco Secretariat. Out of these four communities' contributions to the document, a consultant will prepare a single document, outlining the issues and points of agreement and disagreement.

IFLA was asked to prepare such a document. A draft by M.B. Line, Director of the IFLA International Office for UAP, was discussed by the UAP Advisory Committee in Leipzig on 19 August 1981 and later by IFLA's Executive Board on 12 Decem ber 1981. These observations, however, are drafted in the framework of the Work ing Documents for the Unesco/IFLA International Congress on UAP. They are, therefore, geared to the items on the agenda of the Congress and cannot be regard ed as covering all IFLA interests in copyright. Herewith follows IFLA's contribu tion.