50th Memorial General Assembly held

The 50th Memorial General Assembly of the Association of National University Library, Japan was held at the Omiya Sonic City Hall in Saitama on June 25 and 26, 2003 hosted by Saitama University Library and 107 universities and organizations were present.
In commemoration of just 50th counted from the 1st Meeting of the National University Librarians (which had changed to the Association of National University Libraries and strengthen its organization) in 1954, this year's General Assembly was held as the "50th Memorial General Assembly" and a commemorative ceremony and commemorative lectures were held in addition to the ordinary programs.
The commemorative ceremony was held attending guests of honor before the opening of the General Assembly.
After the opening address by Professor Hiroshi Komiyama, President of ANUL, and the greeting from Professor Tsutomu Hyodo, President of Saitama University, Mr. Akira Ishikawa, Director of Research Development Bureau, MEXT read for the congratulatory address of the Minister of MEXT. After that, Dr. Yasuharu Suematsu, Director General of NII, Professor Masataka Ozaki, President of the Japanese Coordinating Committee for University Libraries (and Director General of Yokohama City University Library & Information Center), and Ms. Sachie Noguchi, Chair of NCC gave congratulatory addresses. And last the message from Mr. Duane E. Webster, Executive Director of ARL was introduced.
In the General Assembly, first, there were the reports of the following committees and projects, etc.: general progress reports, ANUL Award Selection Committee, Ad-Hoc Committee on Copyright, Ad-Hoc Committee on Advanced IT at Libraries, Ad-Hoc Committee on International Scholarly Communication, Taskforce on Electronic Journals, Taskforce on Organizational Issues, Project Team for Resolving Common Issues among Universities after the Corporatization of National Universities and Project Team on Education Program.
Secondly, the following issues were discussed: election of the Directors, election of the Auditors, approval of the accounts and audit in FY2002, acceptance of NII and Yamanashi University into ANUL, approval of the proposed business plans for FY2003, approval of the proposed budget for FY2003, submission of a request to the Minister of MEXT, change of General Assembly schedule after the 51th General Assembly.
Next, the awarding ceremony of 2003 ANUL Award was performed and Nagoya University Library and Ehime University Library received the testimonial and commemorative medal.
Further, Manager Asakura (Scholarly Infrastructure Development Department, MEXT) explained the university library related budget for FY2003, how to evaluate the asset value of books, how to response to the Freedom of Information Act and the measures for improving university library functions toward the scholarly information dissemination.
After that, the workshop was held under the theme of "New development of university libraries" and five case studies and two foreign studies ware reported.
Last of the first day, two commemorative lectures were given, one by Mr. Hiroyuki Amenomori, Executive Director of Nagoya Women's University, titled "Along with ANUL: an idea of 'learning from the past and creating the future'", and the other by Professor Setsuo Arikawa, University Librarian of Kyushu University, titled "Universities change if libraries change".

On the second day, the joint section meeting was held and the following issues were discussed actively: library's efforts in response to the corporatization, what the New Association of National University Libraries should be, and the recruitment, education and personnel exchange of library staffs after the corporatization.
In the plenary session for summarizing the General Assembly, a draft of the new bylaws proposed by the secretariat was approved in principle and the transition to the "Japanese Association of National University Libraries" from April 2004 was determined. And it was confirmed that the Association would carry out preparations to start the new Association.