RECSAM 50th Anniversary Coffee Table Book

101 The Formation of the Clearing House 9 Special Services and Information Division respectively. The Assistant Librarian was responsible for managing all the collections of the library and reports the development of its collections during the annual Governing Board Meeting while the Information Of fi cer was responsible for all of the Centre’s publications and disseminations of information. To save cost, the Centre also needed to try and publish documents on its own with minimal outsourcing. This led to the engaging of a graphic artist in July 1973. The library staff was also increased with the inclusion of a clerk and a The need to establish the Clearing House became more apparent when RECSAM prepared its fi rst Five-Year Development Programme (1970 – 1975) in its permanent phaseof development. In the subsequent years, RECSAM conducted its training programmes in a more systematic way and this had resulted for the need to have a professional staff to serve the information management and dissemination. In its fi rst Governing Board Meeting in 1970, the Board approved the posts for Assistant Librarian and Information Of fi cer. In July 1971, the two posts were fi lled and were placed under the Administration Division and library attendant in 1972. By 1975 a new audio-visual aid (AVA) of fi cer was engaged under the Training / Research & Development Division, and was also responsible to support the information and library unit in publications of books, annual reports, newsletters, journals and conference proceedings. With the establishment of the AVA unit later, the library also served as the repository centre for media collection of fi lms, fi lm loops, tapes/videotapes and records. The three units formed the backbone of the Clearing House for the Centre.