International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts

Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle

Minutes of the General Assembly of SIBMAS

Friday 9 September 1988 at 2.00 p.m. at the Rosengarten, Mannheim

17. Internationaler SIBMAS-Kongreß / 17ème Congrès International de la SIBMAS / 17th International SIBMAS Congress, 1.-9. September 1988, Mannheim

Bericht / Actes / Documentation. Red.: Liselotte Homering. Mannheim : Städtisches Reiß-Museum, 1990. pp. 198-201

Minutes of the General Assembly in London 1985 were approved as a correct record. It was agreed that in future "East Berlin" should be referred to as Berlin GDR and "East Germany" as GDR.

Reports:

1. The Acting President reported with deep regret that Harald Zielske had resigned due to reasons of ill health and that the Secretary General would read a message he had received from Professor Zielske (see pp.17, 18).
   The Acting President then reported on the participation of SIBMAS in other international conferences. He, with Martin Dreier and Eric Alexander attended the liaison meeting of the Standing Committee of International Theatre Organizations which took place in Schildow, GDR, 16-20 May 1988. Professor Wolfgang Greisenegger, the new President of FIRT was in the chair. The main business of the meeting was how to raise finance from UNESCO. To that end a paper on data banks and the theatre was being prepared by André-Louis Perinetti. Part 1, dealing with data base systems in the fields of festivals and contemporary theatrical information, was being written by John Elsom (IATC). Part 2, dealing with data base systems in libraries, archives and documentation centres, would be prepared by the SANDAS Commission during the Mannheim Congress. Part 3, dealing with video libraries and other such collections, would be written by Professor Greisenegger. André-Louis Perinetti would arrange for the delegates to UNESCO to have an appointment with the organisation in October 1988 although it had been agreed that it would not be possible to prepare a very detailed paper about data base systems by then. The initial report would be confined to politico-cultural perspectives.
   The Acting President reported that the links between SIBMAS and IFTR/FIRT were very close and cordial, and, further, that from 13 - 17 June 1988 he had attended an international gathering on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the ITI in Prague. It had been most useful to establish contacts in Eastern Europe. Finally, only the previous week, on behalf of SIBMAS he had given a small reception at the Museum in Vienna during the FIRT conference.
   Professor Veinstein, Vice-President, reported on the meeting he had attended a consultative committee at ICOM, on behalf of SIBMAS on 5 - 6 July1988 to discuss the relationship between SIBMAS and ICOM, and it was agreed that there should be a closer association between the two bodies although there was some difficulty about membership. It was, however, hoped to resolve this at a subsequent meeting of ICOM. It was generally agreed that it was important for SIBMAS to be affiliated to ICOM in order to strengthen the relationship between the two bodies, and the Council was asked to check on the effects of double membership. It was pointed that seven members of SIBMAS were also members of ICOM.
2. The Secretary General read the letter which had been received from the President Harald Zielske
3. The Membership Secretary reported on the renewals of subscriptions for 1988 and said that there were now 100 members and five National Centres. There were new national centres in Czechoslovakia and the Flemish speaking part of Belgium and the possibility of a national centre in Italy. The United Kingdom national centre had 30 members. He commented that a national centre helps the international aspect because it provides the necessary focal point. There was a total of 38 ordinary members and 35 associate members with 13 included under a National Centre. He said that he hoped that there would be a campaign for new members through the new edition of the Blue Book. Finally, he commented that there was still a difficulty about members in East Europe because of problems of currency and exchange controls.
4. The Honorary Treasurer presented his reports on the financial years 1985, 1986 and 1987 together with a statement on the fund raising campaign in memory of Eva Steinaa. These reports were approved unanimously.
5. Eric Alexander, on behalf of Liliana Alexandrescu, made the following report for the editors of the Information Bulletin IFTR/FIRT/SIBMAS:
   "Since the meeting of the Executive and Plenary Committee of FIRT in New York in October 1987 the second issue of the Bulletin (1987 No.2) was published. The French version was published a bit late in early 1988. Due to some complications it was impossible up till now to publish the next issue - 1988 No.1. It is no lack of enthusiasm from our side, there is also enough material, funds are available, but simply the fact that doing this work next to our other activities proves to be difficult, but we'll do our best. The covers are ready! 350 copies in English and nearly 100 in French are published. The co-operation between the editors remains excellent. Amsterdam, August 1988."
   Mr. Alexander expressed his thanks to all contributors and said that the co-operation between editors continued to be excellent. Finally, he announced that he was not standing for re-election as Secretary General of IFTR/FIRT.

III.

Biennial programme activities:

1. Professor Rohmer reported on the progress with WECT (World Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Theatre). 124 countries were co-operating with 91 national contributions covering 110 countries. 50% of the material had been edited and would be processed by the end of 1988. There were 2,500 entries divided into four subjects (individuals, companies, terms and festivals) and three categories (A of greatest significance, B and C). All being well, the English version was expected to be published in 1992-3. The Encyclopaedia was expected to be in five volumes with 2,500 pages and 1.000 illustrations each. The bibliography was being prepared in conjunction with IBT and the co-operation with them was proving to be extremely productive. In all, there was a genuine hope for the project in spite of the fact that full funding for the publication had not yet been secured. The total cost was $ 2m of which $ 1m had been raised. Another $ 3/4 m had been promised by 1 September1988. Committees would be meeting in October to decide whether the project can continue or not. In answer to a question it was stated that the interested publisher was Toronto University Press and that it was anticipated that the editions would also be in German, French, Russian, Chinese and Spanish.
2. Miss Giteau reported first on the SANDAS commission and made four points about Data Banks:
• a) it was agreed that a specialised Data Bank should be developed in the context of general documentation and that national libraries should be involved;
• b) that TANDEM was being generally adopted and accepted;
• c) that there should be more discussion and exchange of information on Data Banks concerning different projects;
• d) that there should be closer co-operation in future between IBT and SANDAS.
Heinrich Huesmann reported on IBT and made the following points:
• a) there was no alternative to the success of the bibliography but it could be improved and expanded;
• b) improvements could come from publishing annual volumes although it was recognised that this was likely to be difficult. At present the user cannot easily determine the year of publication. It had been proposed that monographs and articles should be differentiated. Indexes should be rearranged and should be multi-lingual. The name index should include qualifications, and a cumulative index should be established;
• c) it was proposed to hold another conference with a working party to study the possibilities of improving and enlarging the IBT in co-operation with the US centre. The working party would also look into the problem of funding the project.
3. Professor Golding reported on the Blue Book commission and confirmed that the 4th edition would appear with approximately a 2-3 year delay, that the publishers CNRS had agreed to finance the publication costs but that the editing costs remained to be found.
4. The Secretary General reported on the Circus Commission, first on progress with the publication of volume 5 of Toole-Stott's bibliography Circus and Allied Arts (report from Claire Hudson, Librarian at the Theatre Museum, London), and secondly that the next task of the commission would be to tackle the vexed problem of the classification of circus acts.

IV.

1. Election of President. Oskar Pausch was nominated, seconded and unanimously elected President of SIBMAS.
2. Election of Council. Hedvig Belitska-Scholtz (Hungary), Vitor Pavão dos Santos (Portugal) and Roswitha Flatz (FRG) were nominated, seconded and elected to be members of Council on the retirement of Eszter Gyorgy, Paul Delsemme and Oskar Pausch.

V.

The Executive Committee, consisting of the President, the two Vice-Presidents, the Honorary Treasurer and the Secretary General, was re-elected for a further term. Barbro Stribolt and a number of other members present raised the question of membership of the Executive Committee and suggested that the membership should be expanded to include other members. It was proposed by Mary Henderson, seconded by Jack Reading and agreed by a majority that the Council should study the constitution and suggest any necessary amendment to Article 1l which would more properly reflect the wishes of the members of SIBMAS with regard to membership of the Executive Committee.

VI.

Date of next meeting was agreed to be at the Theatre Foundation of Drottningholm in September 1990 at the end of the 18th International Congress. Members were reminded that IFTR/FIRT was meeting in Stockholm in 1989 and that there would be discussions between the President of SIBMAS and the President of IFTR/FIRT about future cooperation. Members were also reminded that the subsequent SIBMAS congress in 1992 would be in Lisbon.

VII.

Eric Alexander, on behalf of all delegates, expressed his great thanks to the organizers and especially to Mrs. Homering for such a successful, fruitful and happy Congress. Mr. Riemenschneider also added an expression of gratitude on behalf of the delegates who unanimously signified their enormous appreciation.

The President then closed the Congress and said that it had been a wonderful opportunity for representatives from 24 countries to make important professional and personal contacts.

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