Report on the European Conference on Library Automation and Networking

The first European Conference on Library Automation and Networking was held in Brussels during 9–11 May, 1990 and was attended by about 700 participants from some 26 countries. Most participants came from the Northern European countries such as Scandinavia, Belgium, Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Switzerland and the UK, but there were also some from Southern Europe (e.g. Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece), as well as a few from Eastern Europe (e.g. Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia) and even three from the USSR. The conference was organised on the initiative of the EFLC, the European Foundation for Library Cooperation. EFLC was founded in 1986 and is an organisation of some 19 members, acting in a personal capacity, from nine countries. EFLC's aims are to strengthen library co‐operation in Europe and to manage libraries' information resources in order to improve user services in Europe. However, other European groups related to libraries also helped in the organisation of the conference; these were: