This is a historic occasion for astronomical librarians because, in many cases, this is your first opportunity to meet each other in person and to discuss mutual problems. Astronomical librarians have always been more internationally minded than most librarians and people, because you are used to exchanging literature with even the most distant observatories and countries, independent of political and transportation barriers. However, some of the problems that you now face cannot be solved alone, so we meet partly to cooperate in finding solutions. This meeting was also planned to learn what is being done in new technologies and information retrieval so that we will become aware of current and coming opportunities and changes.