Photograph!

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Present: Jane Hutcheon (Edinburgh), Raymond Clarysse (Meise), Cees Lut (Leiden), Malcolm Beasley (London), Peter Hirsch (Berlin), Stefan Dressler (Frankfurt am Main), Marjatta Rautiala (Helsinki), Lennart Hultin (Alnarp), Maria Pilar San-Pio (Madrid), Lothar Nunnenmacher (Berlin), Terttu Lempiainen (Turku), Maria de Fatima Monteiro da Costa (Coimbra), Bertil Nordenstam (Stockholm), Diny Winthagen (Amsterdam), John Flanagan (London), Gina Douglas (London), Roger Mills (Oxford),Guda Bernard-Glijnis (Utrecht), Dag Ericson (Stockholm), Wenche Hafsahl Johansen (Oslo), Barbara Collecot (Wisley), Deborah Lane (London), Brent Elliot (London), Grozdana Sirotic (Zagreb), Kaia-Kadri Gailit (Tallinn), Georg Nakhutsrishvili (Tbilisi), Anne Lubrecht (Port Jervis)

Apologies: Monika Ivarsson Almgren (Göteborg), John Kenyon (Cardiff), Catherine Oldham (Farnham), J. Symoens (Brussels), Monique Ducreuc (Paris), Anne Marie Townsend (Oxford), Sven Koeltz (Koenigstein), Dmitro Chernyshov (Kiev), V. Opanasenko (Dnipropetrovsk), Mykola Lytvynov (Yalta), Maria Joao Tendeiro (Lisbon), Anne Welsh (Edinburgh), Elzbieta Nowak (Kornik)

Introduction and themes
EBHL Chairman Malcolm Beasley and host librarian Peter Hirsch introduced the meeting. The Chairman then invited Prof Greuter, Director of BGBM to formally open the meeting and give a short talk about BGBM which is the largest botanic garden in continental Europe.
Prof. Walter Lack, Director of the Library and Botanical Museum, then gave us a fascinating talk about "The Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem and its library - past, present, future".
Next, Mrs. Jeder of the Freie Universität library gave a talk on "How to find a book/journal/series in Germany" which highlighted the various on-line union catalogues and some specialised web sites in Germany. Useful address details were circulated for future reference.
After a break Brent Elliott and Deborah Lane described the Nursery Catalogue Project of The Royal Horticultural Society in London. Brent highlighted the reasons behind the project; nursery catalogues are a history of cultivated plants and sometimes give the first published description of a plant. Eventually they would like to see a union catalogue of nursery catalogues held throughout the UK and Europe. Brent distributed examples of some recently catalogued items to demonstrate the high quality and considerable details of their records. This project suggests the sort of work which may be achieved by the EBHL if it were able to bid for grant funding through such sources as the EU.
The morning ended with a guided walk through the Botanical Museum and the Botanic Garden with Dr. Kilian and Dr.Mory. The group photographs of delegates were then taken by the Garden's photographers.

Business meeting
This began after lunch, with an announcement from the Secretary that due to Monika Ivarsson Almgren's desire to not seek re-election to the office of President, a new President would need to be elected. The Board had already approached Jane Hutcheon who was willing to take on this role. Members were asked to consider this and make a final decision later in the business meeting.
There followed a report about the Council for Botanical and Horticultural Libraries (CBHL) in the Unisted States, from Anne Lubrecht, their representative at the meeting. She outlined the role of CBHL and affirmed the desire for long-term interaction between their membership and that of the EBHL.
Delegates from nine institutions sending delegates for the first time to the EBHL Annual Meeting then gave a brief overview of their institutions and libraries. These included delegates from Turku; Coimbra; Stockholm; Oslo; Zagreb; Tallinn and Tbilisi. Handouts were distributed for reference.
The Minutes of the 6th Annual Meeting of the EBHL, held in Lisbon in April 1999, had been made available via the EBHL homepage. It was felt unnecessary to go through them again and they were accepted as a true record. Minutes from future meetings would be sent by email where possible and only posted to those not having access to email.
The possibility of making a French translation of the minutes available via our web page was discussed, as was a French version of the EBHL site.

Secretary, Treasurer and Auditing Committee Reports
The Secretary's and Treasurer's reports were read, accepted and signed. The Audit Committee had previously scrutinised the accounts and found them to be in order. The Financial Report for 1999 was distributed. Cees Lut recommended a new biennial subscription arrangement to reduce bank charges, with organisational membership an additional category to allow two delegates to attend the annual meeting.This was unanimously agreed by delegates.
The Secretary said a printed membership directory would only be made every two years, with the next one being due in 2001. It was requested that draft corrections be sent to the Board before work started on the next printed version.

Election of the Board
Jane's election to President was carried unanimously by a vote of the delegates. The whole meeting expressed its gratitude to Monika for all her hard work and it was agreed that the Board would write formally to Monika, expressing their thanks for her service. It was suggested that the President should be able to hold two consecutive terms of three years in Office, if they agreed. The Board will consist of three members, the Organiser of the next annual meeting and the Chairperson.
As Jane would no longer be eligible for the Audit Committee because of her new role, another member would be needed. John Flanagan will be the other member of the Audit Committee along with Deborah Lane.

EBHL Web site development
The Board had received a fax from Ingrid Skoglund regarding the web page. She asked for support in updating the web site and asked for members to send their ideas to her. It is possible that several members may be able to offer technical help occasionally. The importance of all members details being correct and updated was emphasised by the Board. Corrections should be sent directly to Ingrid.

Associate memberships
Associate membership of EBHL for institutions or persons outside Europe was discussed. It was decided to offer CBHL up to two attendee places at future EBHL meetings, to further develop our interaction. Delegates from CBHL would have to be responsible for their own travel costs as they would not be eligible for any financial assistance.

Future EBHL meetings
Venues for future EBHL meetings were announced as the National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Meise in 2001 and the Royal Horticultural Society, London in 2002. Nominations for a meeting Chairperson for 2001 were invited.
(Note from the secretary: In the meantime Gina Douglas from the Linnean Society of London has accepted the task.)

Periodicals
Budgetary control of periodicals was the subject of a lively discussion highlighting the problems of deciding which titles to cancel when subscriptions became prohibitively expensive. The difference in prices between personal subscriptions and institutional subscriptions was also raised. The idea of formally writing as a group to the publishers was discussed. Concern about subscription costs was expressed by all delegates.

International Botanical Congress
The next International Botanical Congress (IBC) takes place in Vienna in July, 2005. There was discussion as to whether EBHL should participate and what themes and topics we should cover. It was felt that a sub-committee should be formed at least two years in advance of this meeting to co-ordinate our involvement. Malcolm Beasley gave a short talk detailing his involvement in IBC 1999. Roger Mills felt that our involvement in IBC 2005 should be noted on our web page.

Any Other Business
Roger Mills gave us details about a project to digitise the Flora Graeca as part of a forthcoming project with Oxford Digital Library Service, which is being established.
The Shirley Sherwood collection of botanical art is to be exhibited within the next two years at the Ashmolean Museum along with more historical works.

The UN-inspired Global Forest Information Service will be launched as a programme at the International Union of Forestry Research Organisations Congress in Malaysia in August 2000. GFIS will be an internet portal service built through a number of regional projects with a supporting infrastructure of libraries/information services in existing centres. They hope to have a GFIS-Europe project with a European network of forestry libraries to which any EBHL library covering forestry will be invited to participate.

Gina Douglas gave an update on the virtual catalogue of Linnaeus literature which is being co-ordinated by The Natural History Museum and the Hunt Institute and the British Library.

Walter Lack next gave details of the Austrian National Library Project.

Malcolm Beasley then gave details of the Natural History Serials Project organised conjunctly between the British Library and the Natural History Museum. This project hopes to establish a union list of natural history serials. So far it is only covering the UK but there are hopes that it will eventually extend to Europe as a whole.

The meeting was closed with a sincere vote of thanks to BGBM and its Director for hosting the event and for making the facilites and refreshments available for the meeting. A tour of the library followed. Later, the evening meal was preceded by a reception at the remarkable Schloss Tegel, the former home of Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. Transport was provided courtesy of the kind sponsorship of Koeltz.

12th - 13th May

Visits the next day were made to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz and the Kupferstichkabinett, with demonstrations and discussion generously provided by Professor Lack and our hosts. An optional tour of Berlin was arranged on the Saturday morning for the many delegates remaining.