National and international library planning: Key papers presented at the 40th session of the IFLA General Council, Washington, DC, 1974

The general theme of IFLA's 1974 annual meeting in Washington, D.C.,
"national and international library planning," was timely and represented a logical
development in IFLA's long-term activities. The 1973 meeting in Grenoble had
concentrated, with both enthusiasm and professional competence, on "universal
bibliographic control." It is evident that the gradual design of an effective system
of UBC requires a strengthening of our capabilities for large-scale library planning,
concurrently at both national and international levels. In the first instance, the
UBC program is based in the responsibility, and capability, of every nation to
develop a current, authoritative bibliographic record of each of its new publica-
tions, and eventually a similar retrospective record, in a form which is interna-
tionally acceptable, for both manual and machine handling; this task in itself
will require for almost all nations a much neater system of national library effort
than is presently in effect. The next stage, now under way through IFLA's new
International Office for UBC in London, requires the worldwide exchange of
national records and their effective integration at the international level to form
the total system. Moreover, it must be clear that libraries are not concerned
solely with the development and application of standardized bibliographic records.
The exchangeable records are intended to facilitate appropriate access to and
use of the recorded material. More recently IFLA has established at Boston Spa,
Yorkshire, again by way of the generous collaboration of the British Library, an
Office for International Lending. This forthcoming effort will also require a
better functioning of both national and international library practices.