1. CREATION OF ICAO

With all the jets buzzing above our heads, enabling us to get to almost any destination in a matter of couple of hours, very few of us would consider civil aviation to be an old or classical subject. Still, it is almost a century ago that Mr. Charles Furnas, flying with Wilbur Wright at Kitty Hawk became the world's first airplane passenger. It was 14 May 1908. On 1 January 1914 the first regular - scheduled passenger service started in Florida, USA. It was a modest beginning with two flights a day across Tampa Bay carrying one passenger each way. On 22 May 1917 a load of 220 kg. of mail was carried from Turin to Rome, Italy, opening the route for air mail and freight transport. By the end of 1920 there were already a number of regular daily, international commercial services established.

The period before the Second World War brought the global expansion of civil aviation. By 1939 almost the entire world was covered by an inter-connecting air transport system organized by 10 world airlines and 19 intercontinental air routes.

The end of the Second World War marked the beginning of the new era of rapid growth of civil aviation based on bigger and better airplanes, offering safer and cheaper commercial air transport. The age of modern civil aviation had taken-off.

On November 1944, representatives of 52 nations came together at Chicago, to create a framework for the growth anticipated in world civil aviation. The Convention on International Civil Aviation, also known as the Chicago Convention, provided the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) - an international body to guide and regulate international civil aviation. ICAO came into existence on 4 April 1947, after 26 states had ratified the convention. Between 1944 and 1947 a provisional organization (PICAO) operated, laying down the foundation for a new international organization to be headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

2. OBJECTIVES OF ICAO

As elaborated in the Chicago Convention, ICAO's aims and objectives are to develop the principles and techniques of international air navigation and to foster the planning and development of international air transport so as to:

1. Insure the safe and orderly growth of international civil aviation throughout the world
2. Encourage the arts of aircraft design and operation for peaceful purposes
3. Encourage the development of airways, airports, and air navigation facilities for international civil aviation
4. Meet the needs of the peoples of the world for safe, regular, efficient and economical air transport
5. Prevent economic waste caused by unreasonable competition
6. Insure that the rights of contracting States are fully respected and that every contracting State has a fair opportunity to operate international airlines
7. Avoid discrimination between contracting States
8. Promote safety of flight in international air navigation
9. Promote generally the development of all aspects of international civil aeronautics.

Standards and recommended practices are further expanded and elaborated by ICAO in 18 technical Annexes to the Chicago Convention. They govern the performance of airline pilots, flight crews, air traffic controllers, and ground and maintenance crews; the carriage of dangerous goods by commercial aircraft; security requirements and procedures at international airports; the interdiction of illicit drug transportation by air; and meteorological services for international air navigation. Aeronautical telecommunications; search and rescue; aircraft accident investigation; aeronautical information services; and environmental protection are also ICAO's responsibility.

3. LIBRARY FUNCTIONS

A wide spectrum of ICAO's objectives set the agenda for the Library's development from the very first day. The Library had to meet complex requirements in regard to multiple subjects, various types of information and documentation sources, different users and their different information needs. Given its tasks and its functions, the role of Library has always been considered important, from its creation to the present some fifty years later.

On August 29, 1945 the Interim Council of PICAO approved the organizational chart of PICAO which included the Library as part of the Bureau of Administration under the Assistant Secretary General. The functions of the Library were to build and maintain a library for the Organization which would contain an authoritative collection of books, periodicals and documents relating to aviation and allied subjects; to operate an exchange service with other international, national and educational organizations.

A temporary Library was set up in September 1945, during the First Session of the Interim Council of PICAO at the Windsor Hotel for the benefit of delegates to the Session. The nucleus of the PICAO Library was a collection of books loaned by Dr. Edward Warner. In comparison to other United Nation's organizations ICAO was very fortunate to have this working library collection during its formative years.

In November 1945 Mr. A. D. Thiessen, then librarian of the Meteorological Services of Canada, was seconded to PICAO, and he proceeded to set up basic library routines and presented a report to the Council on the organization of a permanent library. Early in January, 1946, Mr. Thiessen was appointed librarian of PICAO, and he assumed his duties on 1 March 1946, becoming officially the first librarian employed by PICAO, i.e. ICAO. Soon after, an Assistant Librarian and Clerk typist were hired.

The First PICAO Interim Assembly, held between May 21, 1946 and June 7, 1946, was serviced by a small Library collection. In the Blue Room of the Windsor Hotel a display of 113 books, 29 dictionaries and 22 periodicals was set up. This was the first time for the Library to offer its services to Assembly delegates coming from 44 member states, and to delegates coming from another 10 non-member states and 8 international organizations.

Today, the Library is responsible for the maintenance of a complete collection of documents and publications of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The Library also has an extensive collection of publications of the United Nations and specialized agencies and other organizations within the Untied Nations system as well as books, periodicals and documents on aviation and related subjects. Its functions involve the acquisition of library materials; the provision of reference services to the Secretariat and National Delegations, members of other libraries and to the general public. The Library also provides an index service for ICAO documents and the publication of different lists and bibliographies.

Grouped systematically, this list of responsibilities clearly underlines the following Library functions:

• maintenance of the document collection
• user oriented services.

4. DOCUMENT COLLECTION

Functions and corresponding activities regarding the maintenance of the collection are directly related to various categories of documents hosted by the Library. ICAO's Library collection consists of four different categories of documents:

• ICAO Publications
• United Nations Publications
• Serials
• Monographs.

These four categories differ in many important aspects. They differ in the form that they are produced, in frequency, in subject, and in relative importance. Another important element in the organization of the Library's work is the difference in the way each category is processed, circulated/routed, shelved and disposed of.

4.1 ICAO Publications

The most comprehensive part of the Library document collection is the section with ICAO publications. It covers a full range of ICAO documents published during its 50 year long existence. Besides the historical documents from the Chicago Conference and PICAO era, it covers all saleable publications as well as other documents, such as ICAO Assembly, ICAO Council and various committees and commission minutes, decisions and resolutions.

The following document groups have been established, maintained and are available in the Library:

• International conventions and acts of conferences related to civil aviation
• Annexes to the Convention on International Civil Aviation
• International and multilateral agreements and arrangements
• Procedures for Air Navigation Services (PANS) and Regional Supplementary Procedures (SUPPS) developed mostly through ICAO divisional and regional meetings
• ICAO Assembly resolutions and recommendations, reports and minutes
• ICAO Council proceedings and actions, reports of the Council to the Assembly, and reports of its Committees
• Air Navigation documents
• Airport Characteristics Data Bank
• Technical publications (Aircraft Type Designators; Designators for Aircraft Operating Agencies, Aeronautical Authorities and Services; Location Indicators)
• Facility and Service documents (Information concerning the availability of aeronautical charts and aeronautical information services provided by States)
• Manuals (Guidance and information on uniform application of international standards and recommended practices, personal licensing and training)
• Circulars
• Air Navigation Plans
• Reports of meetings
• Air Transport documents
• Economic studies and surveys
• Facilitation documents
• Manuals
• Statistical documents
• Reports of meetings
• Legal documents
• Indexes of ICAO Publications
• Miscellaneous documents.

The Library collection includes also other ICAO documents and papers, such as Personnel Instructions, Staff Rules and Notices, Vacancy Notices, Staff Association Rules and Announcements, ICAO News Releases, Telephone Directories and others.

The estimated number of single document titles exceeds 130,000.

4.2 United Nations Publications

The second biggest part of the Library's collection is the set of United Nations publications. It is not the Library's intention, nor does it have the capability to keep a comprehensive coverage of any particular part of the UN documents set. However, some particular programs, organizations and specific topics are very thoroughly covered, while others are just represented with some core documents. The following document sets are available:

• UN Treaty Series (a complete set)
• UN Assembly
• Annual reports of the Secretary General (since 1958)
• Program Budget and Financial Reports
• Index to Proceedings and Official Records
• UN Resolutions (a complete set)
• Security Council
• Annual reports
• Index to Proceedings and Official Records
• Security Council Resolutions (a complete set)
• Economic and Social Council
• Annual reports
• Index to Proceedings and Official Records
• ECOSOC Resolutions (a complete set)
• UN Trusteeship Council
• Index to Proceedings and Official Records
• Resolutions
• International Court of Justice
• Some relevant documents
• Economic Commissions (ECA, ECE, ECLAC, ESCAP, ECWA)
• Documents on various subjects
  (Such as: outer space; racial discrimination; statistics; law; human rights; environment; disarmament).

Sets of documents are also available from almost all of the United Nations agencies and programs. The most numerous are documents from IAEA, IMO, ITU, UNESCO, WHO and WMO.

The estimated number of United Nations documents is close to 200,000.

4.3 Serials

A total number of serials in the area of civil aviation and related topics runs into the thousands. ICAO subscribes to, or receives as a gift, the total of 550 serial titles. Most of them are periodicals. Obviously, the Library's serial collection is far from providing providing a comprehensive or even a substantial coverage, but great efforts were made to cover the core periodicals in the area of civil aviation. Almost 80% of the total Library budget allocated for acquisitions is spent on subscription to serials. There has been a slow increase in the Library budget over the years, but it is still not enough to cover rising cost of journal subscriptions. This has resulted primarily in cuts on number of monographs purchased and decrease of journal titles subscribed to.

Some of the more popular serials available in the ICAO Library are: Flight International; Aviation Week & Space Technology; Aviation Daily, Interavia Air Letter; Air Transport World, Air & Cosmos/Aviation International, Air and Space Law. There are over 12,000 serial issues received and processed annually by the Library. All the serials are circulated/routed to various users according to their expressed interests, and after circulation they are kept in the Library for a specific predetermined number of years.

The Library also receives 13 newspapers in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian language.

4.4 Monographs

The once intensive book purchasing policy followed by the ICAO Library, especially at the beginning of its existence, has been gradually replaced with a very modest one. There are only about 250 monographs added annually to the already existing 16,000 books in the Library. Most of the new acquisitions are, in fact, dictionaries and other reference materials necessary for regular operation of ICAO employees. This fairly weak monograph base is in part compensated by the intensive use of available journals and articles in the area of international civil aviation.

5. LIBRARY SERVICES

The ICAO Library information and documentation services are the functional outcomes of three main roles the Library performs.

Firstly, the ICAO Library is a type of corporate library servicing the information needs of ICAO staff, National Delegations, various commissions and committees. It also tries to meet the requirements placed by participants of numerous meetings. This category of, so called inside ICAO users, may either consult the document collection in the Library, or borrow some of the items. The Library does not lend reference items such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, national, regional or world-wide directories which are located in the Library Reference Section. The Library runs a circulation service for routing periodicals, documents and working papers to ICAO staff and National Delegations.

Secondly, it is a specialized library open to the public. People from outside ICAO, i.e. researchers, professors, students, consultants, commercial and public sector employees, are all welcomed to use the Library during opening hours for the public. The Library does not require advance appointments and the procedure to gain access to the Library is simple. Every visitor to the Library is issued a temporary Library pass, by the Security Officer in the Lobby, which allows free access to the Library and its facilities.

Thirdly, since the ICAO Library is the only specialized agency of the United Nations system in Montreal, and it carries a substantial amount of UN related documents, it also takes some of the functions that the public would expect from a regular United Nations Information Center. Particularly, in the area of availability and accessibility of UN related information and documentation.

Library reference assistance is available to answer general or specialized reference questions related to civil aviation, air law, air transportation, aviation medicine, meteorology, communications, or United Nations related topics. On the average, there are about 3,000 visitors annually coming to the Library, in addition to which 2,000 reference inquiries are received and answered by telephone.

Since 1993 the Library offers a direct on-line access to MUSE and CLUES library systems at McGill and Concordia universities. However, the Library does not have access to any commercially available on-line data bases or services. Inter-library loan service is available, but it does not represent a substantial activity.

The Library prepares and publishes a number of publications in order to help the users to keep up-to-date with new items available. For example: the Library Bulletin is published monthly and it brings a list of selected periodical articles and recent acquisitions of monographs, United Nations documents, new serials, audio-visuals and proceedings received by the Library. At the end of the year, an ICAO Library Bulletin - Annual Cumulative Index of Selected Journal Articles, with subject and author indexes, is compiled. An alphabetical List of Serials is also published on a regular basis, as well as a List of Personal Training Materials.

The Library is responsible for the preparation of the indexes of all Assembly reports and minutes of different ICAO Commissions and Committees. Index of ICAO Publications: Cumulated Edition is an annual cumulative edition of the documentation of the sessions of the Council and its bodies.

6. LIBRARY AUTOMATION

ICAO Library automation is based on the Automated Library System (ICAO-ATLAS), developed entirely by Library staff. It is a PC and MS-Windows based application developed using Microsoft Access relational data base management system. Presently, the system runs on a stand-alone basis, but it is soon expected to be made available to ICAO users by connecting it to a local area network.

ICAO-ATLAS is an integrated library system and it attempts to cover most of the functions that the ICAO Library performs. The functions, organized in different window modules, include:

As the basic library function, Cataloguing was given prime attention during the system design. The USMARC Bibliographic Format, which provides a good basis for exchange of cataloguing records, was followed during the data base design. Various approaches were taken to accommodate functional requirements for cataloguing of books, serial, ICAO documents, UN documents, audio/visual materials, meetings, maps and microfiches. Each of the cataloguing formats has a separate entry form, offering therefore a more direct route for relevant data entry. The system provides for the control of authors' names, since they are all entered into one data base ('table' in MS-ACCESS terminology), and the names could be consulted or chosen/entered through a combo box/field. A similar concept was also used for selecting the Library of Congress subject headings.

The ICAO Library uses Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) as its classification tool. A system is being currently design to facilitate the classification process by making direct links between the LC subject headings and the DDC tables.

The Cutter classification, used as a part of book-spine numbers, is fully automatic. An Expert System for Automatic Assignment of Cutter Numbers (CUTT-x) was designed using elements of the standard expert system building methodology. Full description of this expert system is given in an article soon to be published. In short, this expert system enables direct, automatic assignment of Cutter numbers using built-in Cutter tables, given information from the entry form, and rules from the knowledge base. Cataloguer triggers the CUTT-x and receives the corresponding Cutter number just by double-clicking on the Cutter field of the entry form.

A number of other features are also incorporated into the cataloguing module. For example: automatic Book Label and Bar Code printing; default values; system entered data, etc.

Query Module offers quick search facility for items available in the Main Catalog, or selective search for ICAO publications or UN documents. There is also a data base of frequently asked reference questions, which is maintained using document and information resources available in the Library. Query also offers short and long document views, as well as printing of the hit list.

Serials Control Module has two main functions:

• to maintain Circulation slips (add user; update slip; view/print slip)
• to check-in received serials (update; view/print; print missing issues list).

It is also used for printing of the List of Serials available in the ICAO Library.

Users Management Module plays a special role since all the serials are being circulated to ICAO staff and to National delegations. ICAO-ATLAS offers a centralized control of users, since the same information is being related to and reused by other modules, such as the Circulation Control Module and the Circulation slips generation.

Besides standard functions such as Add/Modify/Delete user, and Print Short/Long circulation lists, Users Management Module also offers various statistical reports such as a number of serials per user - arranged alphabetically or by frequency of use, Annual circulation control list and others.

Closely connected to the Users Management Module is the Circulation Module. Its standard functions are Circulation control, Charge out report and printing of the Bring forward report.

The Financial Management Module is in fact, a part of the ICAO Library Management Information System. It allows close monitoring of Library financial transactions such as updating of financial data and received invoices; Budget control; and control of Library suppliers.

ICAO-ATLAS provides direct access to the UN Earth data base. It is a convenient, user-friendly, PC-based package developed by the United Nations in order to answer questions on the United Nations system. It provides access to information on administrative offices, information services and data bases from many sources of the UN system, its structure and its activities across the globe. Information is available by country, organization, region, political, economic grouping or globally. Search results could be printed or downloaded.

ICAO-ATLAS application has substantially automated the production of the ICAO Library Bulletin. The Bulletin, under different names, but with the same contents, has been continuously published by the Library since 20 July 1946. The present system allows direct entry of articles which are being selected from the journals that Library receives and scans, into a corresponding data base. The system added date of entry allows automatic printing of the Bulletin for a particular month. Each issue brings together items entered during the previous month, arranged according to assigned LC subject heading. Besides the classical search through printed issues, ICAO-ATLAS also allows computer based querying and hit list printing. Presently there are over 2000 articles available in the data base.

There are also some Electronic Documents available through the ICAO-ATLAS application. They include: UN Charter; Statute of the International Court of Justice; Abbreviations, acronyms, codes and initials; Chicago and Warsaw conventions.

As a special feature, ICAO-ATLAS automatically displays a wisdom each time it is started. The wisdom is randomly selected from the Wisdom data base, which has over 1,100 records.

The Automated Library System, if requested, can also display brief description of ICAO, as well as some guidelines and help information regarding its use.

7. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

The present level of Library development, quality and quantity of its services could only be regarded as partially satisfactory. The late starting of Library automation, which happened only in 1993, could be used as just one of the examples where progress should have come earlier. Some progress has been made in this area with the development of ICAO-ATLAS, but there is still a lot more to be done. Besides general goals in future developments, as for example, securing of sufficient financial funds for the Library operation, provision of support from ICAO's higher level management, and improvement of Library's visibility, there are three main lines of planned future developments. They are:

• development of new Library services and improvement of existing ones
• upgrading of Library work methodology and information and documentation processing
• establishment of stronger and more efficient links with outside information and documentation sources.

In line with these future developments the Library is planning to increase the use of its ICAO-ATLAS application and to add a number of new features making the system even more powerful and useful. Connection to ICAO's local area network and therefore extension of its services through electronic means will be another important steps in the right direction. Access to the ICAO Library through INTERNET will be also one of the expected future developments.

It is expected that new demands for safer skies and even more efficient international body for the regulation of civil aviation will require modern, highly developed and quality oriented information and documentation services. All necessary efforts are being made to secure that these services are provided by the Library in the near future.

written by Dobrica Savić & Ghislaine Giroux
December 1994, Montréal