Student Council Committee Runs International Information Bulletin

A new publication arrived on the Harvard scene yesterday. It won't be read by more than a dozen students here, yet thousands in other countries will see it.

The first edition of the International Student Information Bulletin, published by the Student Council's International Activities Committee, is being air-freighted to distribution points throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The dozen Harvard men who will read the Bulletin are staffers, headed by Carl M. Sapers, '53, International Activities Chairman, and Ralph H. Kennan '54, Bulletin Editor.

Planned for monthly edition, the Bulletin will be a journal of technical information on world-wide student problems such as housing, procuring supplies, purchase card systems, setting up cooperatives, and other non-political topics. The council publishes it under mandate from the Student Mutual Assistance Program, which was established at a 19-nation conference at Stockholm last December.

The second phase of the program is a mutual assistance library and bibliography, headed by Peter C. Capernaros '52. It supplies student seminars throughout the world with necessary background information and gives project technique material to any student organization that wants it.

A Special Library

Capernaros is setting up the library on the second floor of Phillips Brooks House, which can be "used" by students all over the world. At present, the ISIS with the help of the Ivy League Radio Network is preparing a pamphlet on the establishment and maintenance of a student radio station. Material for such "special projects" will sometimes be put on phonograph records for distribution abroad. The library uses both geographical areas and subject matter as the bases for its indexes.

These two projects--the Bulletin and the library--constitute two main phases of the International Student Information Service. Main emphasis of the program is on Southeast Asia and the Middle East where, according to Kennan, "student groups in these newly independent countries are faced with problems of economic development, shaky political independence, and unsettled living conditions." Students' unions in these areas also suffer from their isolation from other student groups.

ISIS is designed to assist these under-developed areas by providing communication among student organizations throughout the world via a pool of technical knowledge on student problems and their possible solutions in the ISIS Library at Harvard. For example, if a Burmese group has student health woes, they can address the ISIS library and be sent material on how this problem has been met by students elsewhere.

Material sent to the Bulletin office atop PBH is translated when necessary, processed by rewrite editors, headed by Kennan, and turned over to ISIS area experts--students who have traveled in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe--who check it for accuracy and suitability in their respective areas.

Sent to Group Leaders

Southeast Asia expert is William Ayers 8G, former Reuthers and Associated Press Correspondent in the China-Philippine area. Fred C. Thomas, Jr. '52 is Middle Eastern expert while Sapers and Council President Richard M. Sandler '52 are European advisors. Sapers and Sandler assisted in directing the second international student seminar at Seeshaput, Germany, last summer.

The Bulletin is nicknamed the "Student Leaders' Trade Journal" and rightly lives up to its name. Only the leader of a particular group will receive the pamphlet. He will then translate, if necessary (it is printed in English only), and post it for the group members to read. Although the Bulletin's total press--or mimeograph--run is only 1,000 copies each edition, the circulation will be many times that. "We hope to expand the project when response and finances have improved," Kennan said last night. "Funds have been earmarked for expansion and for a Southeastern Asian student seminar," he added. The ISIS is financed with bequests, from private benefactors and foundations, who contribute the necessary $30 a month needed to print the Bulletin.

In the first issue, there is a history of Ragoon University Student's Union and an account of the establishment of the University of California's housing project, and reports on student activities in India, Germany, France, and Sweden.

However, the editors remind contributors. "The Bulletin will not set itself up as an omniscient agency to dictate--in abstract terms--the perfect solution of problems ... it will primarily be interested in fostering an exchange of practical, technical information on student problems."