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:
- 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:
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:
- 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:
- 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 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:
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.
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:
- Leave the "subject" line empty.
- Write "subscribe iasi-l" at the message area.
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:
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
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