About 22 such statewide organizations are active in the nation today, and the Iowa FOI Council is amond the oldest, if not the oldest.

The Iowa Council was established primarily in response to increases in the amount and the costs of litigation involving the news media. The Council's bylaws still provide that it can serve as a voluntary assessment district to finance lengthy court battles that would benefit Iowans interested in open government.

Over the years, however,the Council's work has been primarily educational in nature -- acquainting journalists with the Iowa open records and meeting laws and conducting workshops for public officials and other citizens.

In 1996 the Council will publish the seventh edition of its IOWA OPEN MEETINGS, OPEN RECORDS HANDBOOK. The first edition was published in late 1978. That was soon after the Iowa Legislature had adopted a revised open meetings law to replace on that the Iowa Supreme Court found unconstitutional because of its combination of vagueness and criminal penalties. With the seventh edition, the number of handbooks distributed over the years -- at cost or free of charge -- will exceed 70,000.

In a special project undertaken this year, the Council will provide material for First Amendment and Information-Access Resource Centers in each of some 575 public libraries in Iowa. The project will be funded in part by a grant from the National FOI Coalition.

The Council operates on an annual budget of about $17,000. Most of the funds are from sustaining members, who pay annual dues of $500, and from the Iowa Broadcasters Association, which annually contributes $4,000 to help support Expanded Media Coverage of Iowa's courts.

The Council presidency rotates each year among three representatives of the founding organizations of the Council -- the Iowa Broadcasters Association, the Iowa Newspaper Association, adn the Des Moines Register and Tribune Company. The Council's trustees come from these three groups, other sustaining members, two representatives of the working news media and from the journalism programs at Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and Drake University.

Professor Herbert Strentz of the Drake University School of Journalism and Mass Communication has served as the Council's executive secretary since its founding. Associate Professor Michael Perkins has served as an acting executive secretary and assists in the EMC program. The Council pays its operating expenses at Drake and provides stipends for graduate students who assist Strentz and Perkins.

The expenses of officers and executive committee members are paid by their employers or by themselves.