Meeting Summary 96-1

April 29, 1996
Hotel Sofitel
Rosemont, IL

The Area Studies Council (ASC) met on April 29, 1996 at 9:30 a.m. Dan Hazen (LAMP), Michael Hopper (MEMP), John Bruce Howell (CAMP, Carol Mitchell (SEAM), and Jim Nye (SAMP) represented the five projects. Bill Schenk, from the Library of Congress, was a guest. CRL staff were represented by Don Simpson, Marlys Rudeen and Susan Rabe.

• John Howell reviewed the accomplishments of the ASC. The formation of the group has provided a forum for the exchange of information and the sharing of similar concerns among the five area studies projects. A particular highlight was the publication of the joint area studies project brochure.
• Bill Schenk raised a question from the Library of Congress about the last minutes. The previous meeting had identified the need for closer collaboration with the Library of Congress. The projects had requested that LC keep them informed about who their representatives were to the projects. LC was concerned that SEAM's by-laws do not include a representative from LC as an ex-officio member of the SEAM Executive Committee. This does not affect LC's place in the committee of the whole as LC is a full member of SEAM. Jim Nye requested that LC send each project a letter identifying who their official representative is. This will help clarify the situation when more than one LC staff member attends meetings. Bill Schenk informed the group that he was substituting for Carolyn Brown, Acting Director, Area Studies Collections, who had commitments elsewhere. The Area Studies Collections Directorate have unified the African, Asian, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern Divisions at the Library. He stated that it would be appropriate for outside constituencies to contact her to help shape the direction of LC's area studies programs.
• Marlys Rudeen reviewed the chart in the docket listing the newspaper titles that CRL has resumed filming. She then reported on the titles which CRL has not been able to get subscription for the hard copy. These are La Republica from Colombia, La Prensa Libre from both Guatemala and Costa Rica, El Pais from Uruguay, and the Baghdad Observer from Iraq. She asked the projects help in determining whether these were the most important titles. She also requested help in translating some letters Michael Hopper reported that Harvard is able to get the Baghdad Observer through a dealer in Jordan. Ms. Rudeen will follow-up on this lead.
• Ms. Rudeen also stated that CRL will be able to take on a small number of new titles. She reported that CRL will be filming three new Southeast Asian titles provided by Cornell. She is currently pursuing permission to film with the publishers. She, John Howell, and Ruth Thomas of the Nairobi Field Office, discussed adding a few titles at the recent CAMP meeting in Boston. Susan Rabe reported that the South Asian Working Group will be discussing new titles at their meeting in New York at ALA. The South Asian newspaper pool will change substantially because of LC's review of newspapers. CRL might pick-up a few titles that LC is no longer willing to film.
• Staff discussed the delays in the filming program and plans for the future. Ms. Rudeen is attempting to find additional filmers to complete filming on the backlog. Some titles in the backlog will be filmed incomplete. The Foreign Newspaper Microfilming Project (FNMP) is self-sustaining for the production of the positives. The Center's members still support the cost of creating/filming a negative. CRL's costs increased with the close of the University of Chicago's Photoduplication Lab and subsequent change to Preservation Resources as primary filmer. Other initiatives include talks about marketing with Norman Ross and Preservation Resources; plans for reviewing the royalty agreements including republishing/electronic rights, and possible market expansion overseas. An experimental flyer was sent out to a small mailing list built using the World of Learning. Carol Mitchell suggested using the area studies newsletters, both for the mailing list and for announcing titles available for sale. Jim Nye suggested posting the sales list on the Web.
• Dan Hazen reported that LAMP had been mulling over the development of a list of newspaper titles that should be filmed for several years. He suggested that there is a need for a newspaper summit to get a consensus of what the problems are; why newspapers are important; where are there newspaper negatives now; which institutions are willing to film newspapers; and what should be done. The summit should include interested parties such as the ASC, CRL, LC, ARL, and faculty. Don Simpson said that CRL would be willing to co-sponser such a symposium. Suggestions were made that the fall ARL meeting in Washington, DC would be a good time for the conference. Bill Schenk, Dan Hazen, Don Simpson, Marlys Rudeen, and Jaia Barrett of ARL will work on convening this summit. A goal will be that at least one current newspaper from each country is available in North America. Carol Mitchell reported that SEAM is helping to support one member's microfilming of a retrospective newspaper collection. SEAM has done this only on a limited basis, preferring to emphasize original filming in the region. She also reported that differential pricing by some suppliers in developing countries severely hampers the building of collections in the United States. Jim Nye stated that they have also been hampered by variant charges for in-country and foreign duplication, and he reported that SAMP hopes to capitalize on the resources the project has. SAMP is investigating the possibility of offering one-to-one reel exchanges, using material that SAMP owns. SAMP can produce positive copies from their negatives more cheaply than buying these titles. SAMP also plans to focus on retrospective files and leave current newspaper collection to LC and CRL. There was also concern that commercial digitization may adversely effect the availability of microfilm for some titles. Everyone was concerned because electronic versions of newspapers are not complete nor are these electronic files and CD-ROMS a means of preservation.
• Don Simpson inquired about project home-pages as CRL has server space. The group discussed the advantages and disadvantages ofa single-server option versus a site with good links. The Council liked the idea of starting with the Area Studies Council and developing pages for each project listing their brochure, minutes, etc. Bill Schenk suggested that links be added to LC. Jim Nye urged that the Center get a search engine with CGI script inquiry forms. The home-pages were discussed as a means of publishing project and area studies newsletters. Carol Mitchell commented that CORMOSEA was reluctant to go to electronic publication because of less technologically advanced members. Susan Rabe was charged with informing the Center's Automation Committee about possible linkages of home-pages with each of the projects. John Howell (CAMP), Carol Mitchell (SEAM) and Jim Nye (SAMP) volunteered for their projects. David Block and Fawzi Khoury were suggested as possible contacts for LAMP and MEMP, respectively.
• During the discussion of possible electronic publishing via the project web-pages Don Simpson discussed the possibility of CRL storing the electronic versions of American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) journals. It was mentioned that AAS had decided to stop publishing the Bilbiography of Asian Studies and Dissertations on Asia in hard copy. Carol Mitchell mentioned that some electronic serials are announced by sending a postcard to their subscribers.
• The group then discussed LAMP's Brazilian digitization project. The project has been delayed because of difficulties with image files from varying quality microfilm, DOS to Unix difficulties, and some difficulties caused by the inexperience of the vendor. If the project began today, it might have been undertaken as a full-text conversion because of advances in OCR technology. The error rate is lower and some automated SGML tagging is possible at a lower cost with less storage space required than two years ago.
• Marlys Rudeen brought up the a topic from ASC's last meeting, compiling resources for foreign microfilming projects. She discussed gathering information about filming projects, contracts, manuals, a filming policy statement, etc. that would be available for all the area studies projects to consult. Jim Nye suggested contacting Julio Barrios at LC about his manual, Workshop on Archival Microfilming. The manual was used to train staff in India in one of SAMP's projects. SAMP (or LC) is compiling a guide to creating a microfilm storage site for tropical countries. Dan Hazen reported that the Commission on Preservation and Access is translating preservation guides into Spanish and Portuguese. Several people mentioned the importance of having on-site supervision or trouble-shooters for foreign projects. The group suggested gathering examples of quick and dirty operational guides, successful grant proposals, tips on setting up water supplies, etc. The group also discussed whether this collection should be in paper or the web. It was decided to provide on the web a list of what's available and some documents. The documents will be limited to shorter items and to documents that are not copyrighted or sensitive.
• Dan Hazen reported on a concern from LAMP that is a corollary of the concern expressed by the conference at Indiana University of the training and development of area studies librarians. Area studies organizations and the projects are run by a smaller subset of area studies librarians. How does a project recruit younger members to the management of the project. John Howell reported that CAMP practices baptism by fire. Younger members are frequently voted to the Executive Board for indoctrination to the group. Dan reported that LAMP is trying to engage younger members in work on individual projects as well as in the business of the project as a whole.
• Bill Schenk raised the question of ethnic newspapers. There is concern that publications of newer ethnic groups are not collected. It might be possible to bring a cooperative project to NEH under USNP in this area. Inquiries should be made of Jeff Field at USNP about newspapers from newer ethnic groups. Both CORMOSEA and CONSALD have expressed interests in this area but it is not a primary concern. There is also a question of diaspora world-wide. Jim Nye reported the EC is supporting a conference in Copenhagen on South Asia. Finally, Bill Schenk reported on the status of LC's Photoduplication Service. It has been moved to the Preservation Directorate. The privatization of some functions is planned. An RFP has been issued for this. The current plan is for these functions to continue within the library using non-LC staff. No further collecting cutbacks are planned for now with the exception of the cancellation of twelve Canadian ethnic newspapers. All twelve titles are collected by the National Library of Canada. Dan Hazen reported that it seems that a smaller pool of titles will be filmed on a current basis with a growing backlog.

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