As a first step towards clarifying the range of defects to which collective memory may be vulnerable, it is appropriate to consider those of individual memory (81). In each case below these are described in such a way as to point to the nature of the possible equivalent in the case of collective memory. The order is not significant.

(a) Transient global amnesia

The description below seems to provide a perfect, if tragic, summary of the condition of world society -- particularly in terms of the condition of collective memory. It is in fact Ronald Laing's description of a patient suffering from chronic schizophrenia. Readers can replace "Julie" in the text by "world society" or "international community" bearing in mind their relationship to collective memory.

1. Theodore Dimitrov and Luciana Marulli-Koenig (Eds.). Proceedings of the International Symposium on Documentation of the United Nations and other Intergovernmental Organizations, Geneva, 1972. The Hague, International Federation for Documentation, 1974, 586 p. (FID Publ. 506]

2. Union of International Associations. Yearbook of World Problems and Human Potential. Brussels, Union of International Associations and Mankind 2000, 1976, 1136 p.[Currently titled: Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential]

This paper has deliberately stressed the need for a new international documentation perspective sensitive to the urgent needs of the world problematique. Documentalists in this field have an obligation to render these needs more comprehensible as a whole and to stimulate and support innovative user learning -- especially collective learning. It is they who have a traditional responsibility to ensure the visibility of the "big picture". They cannot afford to adopt a passive, self-satisfied posture.

This section will not discuss the continuing problems listed in the previous section but rather the underlying problems relating to utilisation in terms of individual and collective user needs in conditions requiring innovative societal learning. Given the financial and other handicaps of the international community, it will be assumed that the continuing problems will continue and that any recommendations must recognise the constraint they represent and look for ways to bypass them if any breakthrough is to be achieved.

1. Continuing problems

Given the purpose of this report, as described in the introduction, continuing problems should be recognised but should not obscure the more fundamental challenge to international documentation systems. It is important to be realistic in that such issues will continue to exist despite debates and recommendations, such as those of 1972 (1), especially when "too few of the recommendations have been implemented" (71, p. 4 and 20).

1. Maintenance versus innovation

The previous sections have emphasised the new problems which individual and collective users face in benefitting from internationally available information. The basic assumption of this paper has been that the "international documentation system" could respond to these user problems and gear itself to a participative approach to innovative societal learning. The question is whether it should do so.

1. Nature of collective memory

Learning implies memory, whether in the case of the individual or of society.

1. Specialized user

1. User specialisation