The public information policy was not guided by the principle of free access to information but by the principle of restricted access to information. In a totalitarian society where the information is a monopoly of the state people are not familiar with the idea that being informed is such a natural thing. People are not used to using information. Generating, compiling, sharing, disseminating, and using information was not an integral part of the culture or of everyday life and this is still the case.

When we started thinking about a Women's Information and Documentation Center (WIDC), we were not strictly focused on information. At that time, 1994 we needed a multi-functional center that could serve the community of women NGOs. We named it the Women's Center, because that is what it was. It was a center where people and women's organizations could meet to share ideas, to lobby and network. We soon realized that the lack of information was our weakness. With no information we were lost, paralyzed. The real life of women, their difficult survival, was and still is not enough to advocate for their rights. We needed information, fact and figures that could help to make visible the situation, sensitize the public opinion, policy makers, media etc. We gradually started to turn our center into an information and documentation center. Finding information, gathering it, disseminating, making it public and making the best use of it was our challenge. Our slogan became "Changing the world through information".

In a society dominated by a patriarchal mentality gender oriented information is the last kind of information people can easily access.

Women focused information does not, generally speaking, exist. And when it does exist it is far from reach of the public. In Albania the only official information available is the Statistical yearbook edited by INSTAT (National Institute of Statistics founded in 1993). No other official sources of information are available or open to the public.

Another potential source of information is the media; not reliable but still useful. Since 1995, WIDC started monitoring written media (the main Albanian newspapers and magazines). As the result of media monitoring we have been able to involve women journalists and during 1996-97, 10 journalists have been trained on how to influence media strategies from a gender perspective. To generate gender specific data and information is the only way to combat the lack of gender-oriented information. But we first had to develop a communication policy in order to have the NGO network channel the already existing information (their surveys, seminar papers, projects, etc) to the WIDC. Second and as important is the need to convert the data gathered from the outside resources into a useful and relevant information. This is such a difficult process because you have to bring all information resources into unified subject areas, into correct information so that the right decisions and the appropriate actions can be taken, and also present the information in an appropriate format. Another step was to identify what gaps existed in the information and to initiate surveys to create specific information on missing data on women's issues. We initiated surveys on domestic violence, abortion, sexual education of young women and girls, on social and economic situation of rural women, and on women entrepreneurs. The resulting information and data was and is used to influence the policy. It also helped toward building two important initiatives: the Women's Legal Group and the Women's Health Group. Due to their efforts, the first articles on sexual harassment were introduced in the new Labor Code in 1995 and the women's movement voice made its way to the parliament to support a pro-choice abortion law.

At the Center people can access:

• The book collection, a core collection on gender issues. There are about 800 titles mostly in English and Albanian. (The book collection cover topics including women's writings, feminist theory, violence against women, women's history. The collection is totally built on donations).
• The collection of women magazines, about 15 titles in English, French, Italian, Albanian.
• The database on gender statistics that includes all the official information and also the information collected from other sources. Information covers education, demography, health, and unemployment.
• The database on media monitoring, consisting of indexed articles on women's and children's issues from 10 Albania newspapers and magazines. This database is updated continually.
• The database on women's NGOs. Information on women's NGOs, their activities, projects, membership, leading bodies, etc.

The Center serves and provides information to:

• Women's NGOs
• University teachers and students
• Central and local institutions that need gender oriented information
• Parliament
• Political parties
• Foreign organization/donors present in Albania
• Mass media
• Individuals

The compiled information is gradually progressing from a gender identity and public awareness oriented- collection to one influencing policy. The existence or the presence of WIDC is making women's realities more visible. The impact of the women's movement is affecting library resources and services and hopefully even women's studies. It is also influencing the democratization of information as an important factor of support for decision making.

The Center survives through projects and donations. The main donor is Open Society Foundation for Albania (SOROS) and also EC, UNDP, ORT, SNV, USIS, various programs of international organizations, etc.

Try to imagine a country where 65% of the population live in rural areas, with a total of 37 poorly shaped public libraries located only in urban areas, with lack of infrastructure in general and lack of telecommunication infrastructure, with a lot of energy to change the reality, with lot of women activism but with also a sense of realism which unfortunately makes you think that for a long time to come there will be women who may never visit a library. Let's now come back to the urban face of the country where gradually more people gain access to computers and to information through computer networks rather than libraries. In such circumstances we have to live the dilemma of rural and urban faces. For the rural aspect you have to produce paper information identifying and considering local specifics and also distributing information in the format of fact sheets, posters, leaflets, brochures, etc. Considering the urban face the concern is how to give women's NGOs and individual women more access to the computers and train them as well. Now let put this "dilemma" picture into the European contest into which Albania belongs geographically and historically. In this contest the steps for the future are more than a challenge: centers in the region should work together and not isolated. There is urgent need for the professional training ofinformation workers. A lot of energy is being and will be spent on fundraising in order to get to the new technology. Unified and proper standards should be set in order to help and ensure sharing, exchanging information, networking, and even lobbying in the international arena.

In my opinion our work must be guided by a very well designed policy in order to respond to the real problems that omen are facing in the new world of information and in the old world of male domination. Are those problems due to our gender? Are we being trained equally to get into the rhythm of technology development? How we are going to overcome the language barriers? We have to raise the right questions and formulate answers. Valdet Sala
Tirana, July 24, 1998