Publications
IASI Newsletter
No. 12, June 1998
Table of Contents
IASI is a non-profit making organisation whose aim is to
stimulate, support and develop activities in the field of
international documentation and information for physical education
and sport. It brings together a world-wide network of scientists,
documentalists, librarians, information experts and managers of
sports information and documentation centres.
In order to reflect worldwide developments in sport information
the editor of the newsletter welcomes contributions from all
countries in all languages.
- For contributions to the IASI Newsletter contact:
- Nerida Clarke
- Director
- Information Services Australian Sports Commission
- PO Box 176
- Belconnen ACT 2616 Australia
- E-mail: nclarke@ausport.gov.au
- Fax: (+61) 2 62141681
IASI is fortunate to have an active and interested membership
which is shown in the willingness of IASI members to host the IASI
Annual Meetings.
The following locations have been decided on for the next 3 IASI
Meetings:
- 1999 Los Angeles USA
- Hosted by Wayne Wilson of the Los Angeles Amateur Athletic
Foundation.
- 2000 Santiago Chile
- Hosted by Eugenia Salazar of the Universidad Metropolitana de
Ciencias de la Educacion, Santiago Chile.
- 2001 Lausanne Switzerland
- Hosted as part of the IASI Congress by the IOC and the
University of Lausanne.
IASI had the pleasure of holding its annual meeting at the Hong
Kong Sports Institute from 2-4 April 1998.
The meeting was only the second IASI meeting to be held in Asia
(the first meeting being held in Beijing in 1991) and it was a
great success with 43 participants from 23 countries in
attendance.
Before the IASI meeting 17 members of IASI from the Asian region
gathered and agreed to the formation of a provisional regional body
for sports information, the objective of which is to take
initiatives to establish an Asian Sports Information Association
hopefully in 2001.
Professor Zhao Ya-ping, IASI's Vice President for Asia was
elected convenor and Mr Li Tak Nang of the Hong Kong Sports
Development Board was appointed secretary general for the
provisional body. Two issues of a newsletter will be published.
Information specialists, librarians and documentalists are welcome
to contact the secretary of the Asian group for more information
at:
- Hong Kong Sports Development Board
- Sports Institute
- Yuen Wo Road
- Shatin, Hong Kong
- Tel: (852) 26816182
- Fax: (852) 26921940
- E-mail: ltn@hksdb.org.hk
Prior to the meeting on 1 April a Sport Information Seminar was
held which attracted 70 local and overseas participants. The
seminar saw papers presented by information specialists from North
America, Oceania, Asia and Europe which covered topics relating to
the development and future of the sport information profession,
efforts in international cooperation and the role of sports
information in major events. The seminar was a fantastic
opportunity for IASI to explain the role of sport information
professionals and the role which IASI plays in disseminating sport
information to an audience which contained not only sport
information professionals but the consumers of sport
information.
The 1998 IASI meeting in Hong Kong saw the IASI Executive
Committee take the decision to hold its 2001 Congress in Lausanne
in cooperation with the International Olympic Committee and the
University of Lausanne.
The IOC and the University of Lausanne made an excellent
presentation to the IASI Executive Committee and convinced IASI
that it would be a wonderful opportunity to hold the Congress in
the city of Lausanne which is the headquarters of the IOC and which
has such outstanding Congress facilities.
Immediately after the IOC, University of Lausanne presentation a
Congress Ad Hoc Working Group consisting of Nerida Clarke, Jill
Haynes, Fatollah Mosayebi, Alain Poncet, Albert Remans, Eugenia
Salazar and Cindy Slater held discussions with Ms Francoise Schenk
of the University of Lausanne and then went on to look in more
detail at the Congress proposal and to begin discussions regarding
the format and content of the Congress.
As a result of those discussions it was decided that the
Congress would be entitled 'Sport Information in the 3rd
Millenium: 11th World Congress of IASI'
A Congress planning timetable was also set in place and a
meeting will be arranged between IASI, the IOC and the University
of Lausanne in September 1998 with the first announcement of the
Congress being made at the end of 1998.
The Ad Hoc Working Group then held broad discussions about the
Congress themes and proposed the following themes. It should
however be noted that these are not finalised and the ideas and
thoughts of ALL IASI members are sought in relation to these
themes. If you have any suggestions regarding the themes please
pass these to Albert Remans as soon as possible.
Proposed Congress Themes:
- Sport Information and Olympism
- Legal and Economic Aspects of Sport Information (to include
papers on censorship, copyright, ethics etc)
- Sport Information Management (to include papers on systems of
managing and disseminating, marketing of information).
- New Technology in Sports Information
- Geographic Developments in Sport Information (to include papers
on status of national, linguistic and regional networks
Mr Abdel Malik Elismail
Director of Information Centre
General Presidency for Youth Welfare
Saudi Arabia
The primary objective of the Saudi Arabia Sport Information
Centre (SASIC) is to supply the concerned people with adequate
information on sports and youth affairs in the proper time as well
as follow-up the user departments in using computers to accomplish
their daily routine work.
SASIC is organised and equiped in such a way as to facilitate
the achievement of this objective. SASIC has a management staff
with assistance and a technical team comprising hardware engineers,
business and systems analysts, software developers, system
programmers, data base specialists, network and communication
engineers and data entry professionals.
SASIC is equipped with an IBM Mainframe and the associated
peripherals (mass storage devices, terminals, printers
communication controllers etc). Integrated with the mainframe, a PC
local area network is installed to facilitate and enhance
communication between the various departments of the General
Presidency for Youth Welfare. User requirements have been met
through the development of various database applications both on
the mainframe and the PC LAN.
SASIC has a responsibility to all sporting federations,
installations, the Olympic Committee, General Presidency for Youth
Welfare Offices throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who use
computers and their applications via communication links to the
central computer and the network server.
It is the view of SASIC that information is the prime asset of
the organisation.
- For more information about SASIC contact:
- Mr Abdel Malik Elismail
- Director of Information Center
- Saudi Arabia Sports Information Center
- PO Box 99768 Riyadh 11625
- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
- Fax: 96614022979
Mr Abdel Malik Elismail
Director of Information Centre
General Presidency for Youth Welfare
Saudi Arabia
Information is the prime asset of the Saudi Arabia Sports
Information Center (SASIC). It represents the image of the past the
wealth of the present and the basis for future planning. From this
standpoint information should be carefully collated and, whenever
necessary, expanded, divulged and shared for the benefit of
all.
The concept of a database helps make best use of data by
arranging it in such a way that facilitates accessing, retrieving,
manipulating and restoring it. The database management system
(DBMS) considers all of the above and acts as a man-machine
interface, in this respect and according to a particular model of
database design whether hierarchical, network, or as the most
commonly used 'relational model'. Furthermore the DBMS incorporates
tools for database recovery, security and data privacy at various
levels.
SASIC has been designing and implementing databases for sports
nformation and the supporting administrative functions. In addition
to the above applications programs have also been developed. It was
ultimately useful to link the correlated entities in the sports
activities in a linked set (chain) according to particular
criteria. A top-view example is illustrated in the following
diagram which was further broken down and converted into tables and
relations.
From the diagram, it is obvious that the pattern of a database
model is not just a randomly scattered non-linked or sequentially
arranged records or collection of documents or sheets stored on a
magnetic or optical media, as it is misunderstood by those who used
to misuse the term database in a wrong place. On the contrary
records are logically organised in such a way that each set of
related records under a particular relation (as relationships shown
on the diagram) are linked together by so-called foreign keys, they
are named so to differentiate them from primary keys which uniquely
identify each record. In other words, relationships on the model
are mapped as foreign keys on the computer (implementation) level.
This arrangement makes it easy to group records according to
different criteria. It also increases the maintainability of data
stored in the data base. More importantly it highly supports data
security ie integrity, privacy and consistency.
Typical examples of DBMS's are Oracle, Ingres, Sybase, Power
Builder, DB2. They support the various DB functions as well as
having their built-in full development tool kit which enables
developers design and write programs in addition to database
facilities.
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The President of the International Olympic Committee Mr Juan
Antonio Samaranch visited the Oceania Sport Information Centre
(OSIC) in Fiji and launched the OSIC Internet site on 3 May 1998.
This was an extremely important event for the development of sport
information services in the Oceania Region in that it provided the
IOC with an opportunity to see first hand the operation of the
first regional sport information centre in the world which is being
supported by the IOC.
Mr Samaranch was in Fiji on his way from a meeting in Sydney and
took the opportunity to look at sports events and facilities in the
region.
The OSIC www site can be viewed at www.ausport.gov.au/osic.
Dr Robin Mitchell Secretary-General ONOC, Mr Juan Antonio
Samaranch President of the IOC, Professor Rajesh Chandra Acting
Vice Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific and Mr Kevan
Gosper President of ONOC at the launch
The Russian Sport Information Centre "SportAcademInform" was
created in 1996 on the base of the Russian State Academy for
Physical Culture.
The goals of the Centre are to:
- Develop a system of collecting sports information
- Introduce modern information technology into sport and sports
management
- Accumulate and systematise a branch of sports information
- Provide service to sports organisations in Russia in creating
an Internet presence and providing access to international sports
databases.
- For more information about the SportAcademInform contact:
- Syrenevy boulevard, 4
- Office 211
- 105122 Moscow
- Russia
- Fax: 166 4954
- E-mail: inform@infosport.ru
- Internet address: http://www.infosport.ru
In January 1998 the Latin-American Association for Sports
Information - Sportcom has been formed as a result of the
undertaken by the Andalucian Institute of Sport of the Junta de
Andalucia, which since 1992 has been developing an intensive and
efficient task for the dissemination in Latin-America of the values
of sport information and documentation.
The main aim of the Latin-American Association for Sports
Information - Sportcom is the promotion of the work related to
sports information and documentation in Latin America, while
coordinating as far as possible the efforts of all concerned
parties and trying to set action plans and systems for the best use
and diffusion of the results obtained for the benefit of the
Latin-American Sport System. It will try to achieve this through
leading and managing the Latin-American Network of Sport
Documentation and coordinating the work developed by it.
The Association has a number of goals and tasks to be carried
out which were documented in a paper presented to the Hong Kong
IASI Meeting.
- Copies of this paper are available from Association
Ibericoamericana De Informacion Deportiva - Sportcom through:
- Instituto Andaluz del Deporte
- Consejeria de Turismo y Deporte Junta de Andalucia
- Avda Sta Rosa de Lima no5 29007
- Malaga, Andalucia, Spain
- Fax: +34 52 39 70 66
- E-mail: jaker@uida.es
- Internet: http://www.uida.es/sportcom/sportcom/html
ICSSPE has recently published a Vade Mecum or handbook of
disciplines which make up sports science. Sport Information and
Documentation is described as one of the disciplines with the
contribution on this coming from Gilles Chiasson and Nerida Clarke
from IASI.
The handbook contains useful contact information and information
on resources which relate to the key disciplines of sports
science.
ICSSPE has also produced a new brochure which describes its
history, structure and organisational goals.
- These publications are available from:
- ICSSPE Secretariat
- Am Kleinen Wannsee 6
- 14109 Berlin GERMANY
- Tel: +49 30 80500360
- Fax: +49 30 8056386
- Email: icsspe@icsspe.org
ICSSPE has also announced that it will produce an International
Calendar of Sport for All Events. The Calendar will be produced by
ICSSPE under the patronage of the IOC.
It is intended to include the Calendar in the ICSSPE Bulletin
and to also have it available on the ICSSPE Internet site at http://www.icsspe.org. It is hoped
that the first Calendar will appear in ICSSPE Bulletin number
25.
New President for SIRC
Gilles Chiasson has advised that he has resigned his post as
President of the Canadian Sport Information Resource Centre (SIRC)
after 25 years and that as of 12 June 1998 SIRC has a new
President. The new President of SIRC is Debra Gassewitz who has
been SIRC's Vice-President since last June.
Gilles advises that he is not leaving SIRC and that he will take
on the position of Chief Information Officer for SIRC with
responsibility for the SPORTDiscus database. Gilles advises that
SIRC is in the process of moving the database operations into a new
database management system (STAR), and that he will be mostly
occupied by that. Gilles advises that he will also very likely help
with the input of data from foreign contributors, so he will still
have a direct working relationship with IASI members.
In his message to the IASI Listserv Gilles said "To all my very
good friends on IASI (I can't name them all), I would love to say
how much I have enjoyed working with you. I hope SIRC will continue
to value the input from the world sport information community as
much as I have".
We hope that we will continue to see Gilles at future IASI
meetings and wish Debra every success in her new position.
There is no doubt that the energy of Gilles as the President of
SIRC and the support of IASI by the SIRC Board has been critical to
the development of IASI and we thank Gilles and the SIRC Board for
that support.
Laurie Templehoff
It is with regret and sadness that we report that Laurie
Templehoff is not able to continue in the position of IASI Vice
President for Africa. Laurie made this announcement to the IASI
meeting in Hong Kong via the Secretary of IASI.
Laurie has made an outstanding contribution to the work of IASI
and his dedication and enthusiasm will be missed. We wish him every
success and happiness for the future and thank him for his work in
IASI.
The National Sport Information Centre of the Australian Sports
Commission will be holding their annual Oceania Sport Information
Workshop on October 12th and 13th 1998 at the Australian Institute
of Sport in Canberra.
In addition this year in the lead up to Sydney 2000 Olympics
they will also be hosting an Olympic Information Seminar. The
seminar to be held on October 15th 1998 will be open to anybody
with an interest in Olympic information. Speakers include Wayne
Wilson, Vice President for Research and Information, AAFLA, Craig
Boaden and Dr Kristine Toohey, SOCOG and Richard Cashman University
of New South Wales Olympic Studies Centre.
- Further details of the seminar can be obtained from:
- Jill Haynes
- IASI Vice President Oceania
- National Sport Information Centre
- Australian Sports Commission
- PO Box 176 Belconnen ACT 2616
- Australia
- Fax: +61 2 62141681
- Email: jhaynes@ausport.gov.au
Increasingly members of IASI are gaining access to the Internet
which means that they are able to use the IASI Listserv to exchange
ideas, to receive information on IASI and to raise issues in
relation to sports information. In view of this the IASI meeting in
Hong Kong decided that in each issue of the Newsletter that it
would publish details on how to join the listserv so these
instructions are listed below.
THE IASI LISTSERV
HOW TO JOIN & CONTRIBUTE
The International Association for Sports Information
(IASI) aims to encourage and support the documentation and
information activities for physical education and sport in all
countries, and to develop cooperation between the documentation
centers of the various members countries.
If you share these interests with us, you will probably find the
IASI listserv on the Internet very useful, and you are welcome to
join it.
If you are not a list member and wish to become one,
please send an email to:
If you are a list member and wish to write a letter to
the list, all you have to do is send an email to the following
address:
IASI-L@VM.TAU.AC.IL
If you know of any problem or change concerning your address or
your mail server, PLEASE let me know about it as soon as possible.
Problems (permanent or temporary) and changes can cause
difficulties to the list maintenance.
Ayala Maharik
Wingate Institute Israel
List Owner
willib@post.tau.ac.il
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of:
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Contact the Editor of the Newsletter if you wish to place an
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