The IUFRO Secretariat wishes to be a service centre for IUFRO officers, IUFRO member organizations and their employees. IUFRO, as an organization, carries out research projects only exceptionally; similarly, the Secretariat does not implement separate communication projects, but uses the new technologies to improve the internal exchange of information. It must be taken into account in this connection that there are IUFRO members that do not have sufficient access to electronic means of communication.
The most important activity is currently the extension of our information server in Vienna, which has for some time taken from the Secretariat and from the officeholders the burden of answering routine questions about addresses, functions, subject groups, meetings, reports, and proceedings of meetings. In addition to these services, the server is meant to offer an easy way of providing access to the activities and results of the IUFRO subject groups (newsletters, abstracts, proceedings). A database of all research projects of the IUFRO member organizations is to be provided for use as a planning tool and as a means of cooperation. Furthermore, it will be possible for scientists from member organizations to enter their fields of interest into the database so that colleagues active in the same field can contact each other if necessary.
The Secretariat has provided the technical facilities to meet these objectives. It will depend on the cooperation of the member organizations and the officeholders to which degree they can be converted into fact.
For more information, contact:
http://iufro.boku.ac.at
gopher://iufro.boku.ac.at/1
Correspondence: Helmut Feichter, IUFRO Secretariat, Federal Forest Research Institute, Seckendorff-Gudent-Weg 8, A-1131 Vienna, Austria
Telefax: +43-1-8779355