Present: Executive Committee, Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), chair; James Simon (CRL); Edward Miner (U. Iowa), secretary; Peter Malanchuk (U. Fla.), vice-chair and chair-elect; Laverne Page (LC); Gretchen Walsh (Boston U).
Guests: Marieta Harper (LC); Al Kagan (U of Ill.); Esmeralda Kale (Northwestern).

Bell-Gam stated that she would like a description of the German Resources project of which CRL is taking over administration for the Global Resources Network. She is interested in possible collaborations around Africana materials in Germany. Helene Baumann and Marion Frank-Wilson could be very helpful with contacts at German Africana research centers.

Simon reported that AFRINUL is back online. Easterbrook’s assistant will be testing the input tool, after which it will be released. Rather than institutions manually inputting records, they might send MARC records to CRL for processing by ICON. There was some discussion as to whether bibliographers should initiate this process, or whether technical services departments should be contacted directly. Some institutional holdings records can also probably be obtained from CONSER.

Simon will complete the billing and payment process for the Mombasa Times so that work at the British National Archives can begin.

Bell-Gam will put together a purchase proposal for the Government Publications Relating to the Cape of Good Hope, 1821-1910, and encourage CAMP members who belong to CRL to submit and vote for it. CAMP members have not generally been submitting CRL proposals. Simon reminded that group that purchase proposals can be submitted for titles in print, not only in microform.

It was agreed that the progress of the Timbuktu Manuscripts indexing project will be left to Easterbrook.

Simon and Reilly are going to the meeting of the Standing Committee of Eastern, Central and Southern African Library Associations (SCECSAL) in July 2004 in Kampala to talk about DATAD. Miner will be also be attending SCECSAL to talk about the WiderNet Project at the University of Iowa.

Bell-Gam requested that the minutes should reflect that any CAMP member should feel empowered to explore collaborative projects when they are traveling in Africa or elsewhere. Walsh suggested, and it was agreed, that a message about this should also go out to CAMP on Intraspect.

Bell-Gam will gather comments and concerns about the Nyerere Foundation Proposal on Intraspect and send them to Paul Bjerk to convey to the director of the Nyerere Foundation.

Bell-Gam will continue talking with Marta Lee-Perriard about the possibility of ProQuest undertaking a microfilming partnership around African dissertations and other materials, and will send her contact information to the membership. Page again mentioned the prospect of ProQuest working with the commercial microfilm publisher in Maputo as a possible solution to the funding problems of the Arquivo Historico de Mocambique. Joel Tembe was not impressed with the quality of the local company’s work, but perhaps with training from ProQuest the quality could improve. Page will see about having the latest issues of Noticias at the Arquivo Historico de Mocambique sent to LC-New Delhi for microfilming. If so, CRL can resume filming with 2004 issues; Bell-Gam will supply some holdings.

Bell-Gam envisions the creation of committees to look into newspapers, digitization, microform sets, etc., to take some of the workload off Simon. Perhaps a committee structure could make CAMP more efficient. The Executive Committee could work up a proposed structure to put before the membership on Intraspect ahead of the Fall 2004 meetings. Walsh supported the idea and opined that any committees should only conduct their business via e-mail, and not at the Fall and Spring meetings, where they will simply give their reports.

Malanchuk asked when the slate of new officers is needed. Bell-Gam indicated by mid July.

Meeting was adjourned at 12 noon.

Respectfully submitted,

Edward Miner

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