Who goes to IFLA?
Data and methods

Data and methods

In Berlin, ninety percent registered before July 15, 2003 and were included in the main list of participants. About three hundred only registered at the conference itself, and were included in the supplementary list. The list contains information on the names, the professional title, the institutional affiliation and the address of the delegates.

Cultural regions

I have divided the world`s countries into twelve social and cultural regions. The regions correspond to well-known political and geographical areas. But some decisions must still be made. And they could have been made differently.

• The division between Northern and Southern Europe follows linguistic criteria. Austria is therefore allocated to the North.
• The border between the Germanic and the Romance languages cuts across Belgium and Switzerland. I place Belgium in the South, with France, and Switzerland in the North, with Germany.
• I have put Afghanistan in South Asia rather than in the Middle East.
• I have put Mauretania in sub-Saharan Africa
• Melanesia was originally settled from New Guinea, so I place Papua New Guinea in Oceania.
• Some states span several regions. Individual stateshave not been divided. This means that
  • Siberia is included in Europe rather than Asia
  • Tibet and Xinjiang is included in East Asia (with China) rather than in Central Asia
  • Western New Guinea is placed in South East Asia (with Indonesia) rather than in Oceania.

Country statistics

The population data are mid-year estimates for 2003. The data on economic size (GDP = Gross Domestic Product) are estimates for 2002. Both come from CIA. The world factbook. Despite its origin, this is a very substantial and valuable statistical resource on the WWW.

In the tables and the statistical analysis I have only included countries with more than 1 million inhabitants. For the sake of completeness I also mention the nine smaller countries that participated, with a total of 28 delegates:

• 1 participant each from Barbados, Greenland, Guam, the Holy See, and Martinique
• 2 participants each from Malta and Fiji
• 8 participants from Luxembourg
• 11 participants from Iceland

The conclusions in the study do not depend on highly accurate data. For legibility, many numbers have therefore been rounded down to two (or even one) significant digits. This means, e.g., that I write

• 1 300 million - rather than 1,286,975,468 - for the population of China in 2003
• 9 600 USD - rather than 9 598 - for the GDP per capita of Botswana in 2002

Sample data

For the analysis of library sectors I took a 5% random sample (150 participants) from the final participation list. Both countries and persons (within countries) are ordered alphabetically. The sampling method was simple: the first person on every page was selected. This gave a total of 138 persons. An additional 12 were selected by taking the last person on every 11th page.

Obvious misprints in the data were corrected. When the professional title, or the institutional affiliation, was missing, the nearest person with complete information was selected as a substitute. In some cases (abbreviations, Asian names) the sector affiliation was uncertain. Usually, a web search resolved the issue.