Cooperation in the Asia/Pacific Region

Abstract

It seemed to me very appropriate that the subject of this Guest Editorial should be issues connected with national library developments in the Asia/Pacific and Oceania regions. This is not only because of a number of very interesting recent developments, butalso since it is being written prior to my leaving Australia for the IFLA Conference in Barcelona. There will be relatively few people from national libraries in our region of the world in Barcelona, primarily because of distance and the high costs of travel. It is a great pity that so little is known of developments in this region, partly because we do not publish enough but also because of these constraints. Regular attenders at the annual meetings of the Conference of Directors of National Libraries (CDNL) know for example how much the attendance at meetings varies when they are in Europe/North America or elsewhere. Almost all national librarians in the region attended a meeting of CDNLAO (the AO of course referring to Asia and Oceania) in Kuala Lumpur last November. This was not only an opportunity to see the striking new National Library of Malaysia building, but also to note how similar are many of the shared concerns across the region, notwithstanding the different level of economic development between countries. But two other features stood out, at least to me. The first was the long-term vision and time frames of the planning for the development of