Ifla and Fid: History and Programs

Abstract

T HE International Federation of Library Associations (abbreviated in the English form as IFLA; in the French form as FIAB, from Federation Internationale des Associations de Bibliothecaires) and the International Federation for Documentation (most commonly abbreviated as FID from the French form, Federation Internationale de Documentation) have shared in the difficulties common to international organizations generally. Of these, war is, of course, the most disastrous; and both have suffered-the FID from two world wars. Communications disrupted by war are re-established only slowly, and the aftermaths of war, both political and economic, accentuate the problems inherent in international organization. International co-operative efforts flounder among differing cultural backgrounds and values; differing philosophies and patterns of national organization; varying levels of development, both economic and educational; instability of financial support due in part to lack of economic resources and in part to indifference; and, inevitably, the language barrier in a world where even the previously accepted trilingual (French, English and German) communication is no longer adequate. Foremost among the difficulties at the present time, and facing both IFLA and FID, is the challenge to become truly international in representation and participation rather than predominantly western European as formerly. The original impetus for the organization of the two federations could scarcely be more in contrast. IFLA originated in a suggestion from the French Association of Librarians at an international congress in Czechoslovakia, was brought into being with the assistance of one of the strongest national library associations, the American Library Association, at the request of an international committee of prominent librarians. It had its first meeting in Rome under a Swedish chairman who was one of a group of international experts called in to advise on the cataloging of the library of an international organization, that of the Vatican. The FID was founded by two men, not librarians but lawyers, passionately international in outlook, who attracted as members individual scholars who shared with them the vision of one world of scholarship. The original goals of the two organizations are equally in contrast. That of IFLA was, and is, broad and diffuse: to promote international library cooperation. FID's goal was highly spe-