Meeting Summary 98-1
April 15, 1998, 9:30 am-12:00
Hotel Sofitel
Rosemont, IL
Present:
Representing the six area studies projects:
David Easterbrook (substituting for Dan Britz, CAMP),
David Block (substituting for Dan Hazen, LAMP),
Michael Hopper (MEMP),
James Nye (SAMP),
Judith Henchy (SEAM),
Allan Urbanic (SEEMP).
Carolyn Brown (Library of Congress) and Hans Rutimann (Council
on Library and Information Resources) also attended.
CRL staff was represented by Patricia Finney, Susan Rabe,
Marlys Rudeen and Milton Wolf.
1. Meeting Summary.
The Meeting Summary for the previous meeting (97-1) was
accepted.
2. Report from Library of Congress.
Carolyn Brown presented the report from Library of Congress
on Area Studies activities. The Area Studies Reading Room
has opened, and a brochure of "Readings from Around
the World" was commissioned to emphasize the importance
of literature from around the world. Copies of the brochure
were distributed. The Acquisitions Directorate has been
reorganized. Formerly the organization had been built on
functional lines, but now will be arranged geographically.
It is hoped that this will link acquisitions activities
more closely to both the work of the Area Studies Division
and to Overseas Operations, improving the flow of foreign
material into the Library.
LC continues its planning process for developing electronic
resources. The website continues to grow and it is expected
that the Field Offices will have their homepages up soon.
The Library continues to work town implementation of an
Integrated Library System. The RFP is out and a decision
will be reached soon.
Planning has begun for the celebration of the Library’s
200th Anniversary in 2000.
LC and Cornell have agreed to a joint project to microfilm
Vietnamese newspapers. Cornell will help LC fill in any
holdings gaps and in some cases execute the preparatory
work; LC or its contractor will do the filming. Provision
has been made to ensure quality control. A list of titles
and years being filmed were distributed. For further information,
contact Allen Riedy (Cornell) or Helen Poe (LC). Proposals
for other joint microfilming projects are welcome.
LC and ARL will sponsor a conference on June 24, 1998,
with the theme "Access to International Research Resources".
The discussion will involve personnel from the Library of
Congress Field Offices, the Overseas Operations Office and
representatives from the academic library community. The
group will focus on finding ways to build on the current
activities in the Field Offices to improve and expand collecting
and access to materials.
3. Resources for Foreign Microfilming Projects.
Marlys Rudeen gave a progress report on the collecting
of resources for foreign microfilming projects. Permissions
have been received for the listing of some items received
previously, and possible sources for new materials have
been identified. Julio Berrios has indicated willingness
to have his Spanish-language microfilming manual mounted
on the CRL website. The Associacion para la Conservacion
del Patrimonio Cultural de las Americas (APOYO) is working
on a database of Spanish-language preservation materials
and may lead us to useful materials. The National Library
of Venezuela is translating several standard works on preservation
and conservation into Spanish. It was reported that NEDCC
had information in Russian and that some Vietnamese and
Cambodian documents were available from SEAM projects. It
was suggested that ASC should investigate or suggest to
RLG that their guide be placed on the Internet.
4. The International Preservation Scene.
The Area Studies Council has expressed interest in the
international preservation scene and wondered how best to
become knowledgeable and involved. The discussion on this
topic was wide-ranging with the following observations being
made:
Existing institutional affiliations and relationships are
important and need to be investigated. One activity that
could take place before the April 1999 meeting would be
for each ASC member to investigate current institutional
involvements and attempt to identify activities in their
area of the world by larger international organizations.
It will be necessary to come up with a working agreement
among commercial filmers, LC, CRL and universities that
do some filming to avoid duplicating efforts. The concept
that money can be made, especially from the microfilm editions
of newspapers, has proved to be a two-edged sword, both
encouraging commercial filmers to broaden their lists of
titles, but also to lock-up contracts with publishers and
then not film if there is not a viable customer base. What
structures or agreements will help all parties work together?
CRL has explored the idea of having a commercial company
market its microfilm. Council members expressed that they
would want to have clear terms before Project material was
marketed in this manner. SEEMP is trying a new model in
two of its projects, working with commercial filmers to
film newspapers. SEEMP is providing funds for the initial
filming and getting the first service copy. The commercial
filmer is locating the files, negotiating the filming rights
and doing the filming. The filmer will retain the negative.
Several Council members expressed concern about keeping
prices for film within reason.
How do we build a landscape of organizations and programs
that are active in preservation worldwide? Hans Rutimann
outlined some activities and possible contacts:
IFLA’s CORE program on preservation would be a logical
starting point. [Contact: Ralph Manning, Chair at National
Library of Canada.] The six IFLA-PAC centers around the
world will distribute revised Principals on the care
and handling of library materials. They plan to publish
it in several languages.
There is also the International Program of CLIR which is
funded by Mellon. Funding is on a three-year cycle. Examples
of publications are Preservation and archives in Vietnam
(by Judith Henchy) and Computerization of the Archivo
General de Indias: strategies and results. They are
trying to identify a network of institutions and individuals
country by country and are involved with the European Commission
on Preservation and Access (ECPA), IFLA and UNESCO, as well
as ABINIA, ICOA, Commission on European National Libraries
and the International Association for Sound Archives.
A Mellon-funded project in Brazil is supporting the translation
into Portuguese of 52 titles concerned with preservation
and conservation. These will also be distributed in Lusophone
Africa. The European Register of Microform Masters, EROMM,
is now on RLIN and the Web, representing 32 institutions
in 11 countries. A Latin American version (LAROMM) is in
process at the National Library in Venezuela, with 7 countries
are contributing so far. South Africans are now working
with EROMM.
How can we go about making ASC and Projects known to some
key players? It’s important to survey what contacts
have already been made and prepare some introductory material
listing projects that have already been done. Letters followed
by contacts to selected people would be the next step. Hans
Rutimann would be willing to help identify contacts and
provide introductions. The presence of CRL and the various
projects at conferences is also important.
UNESCO has inventory of valuable collections needing preservation.
The nomination process goes through national UNESCO committee.
This could be very useful when seeking funding.
The Gates Library Foundation is also preparing to become
active in the international library scene and it might be
wise to monitor their activities.
5. Newspaper Preservation
Since NEH is interested in newspaper preservation, what
sort of project would be appropriate?
It is vital to push international newspapers to forefront
of NEH consciousness. It is also important to do a project
that is well thought out and cohesive. Themes such as the
financial press, emigre press or regional press were discussed.
Staff agreed to pursue the discussion with the various projects.
6. Ethnic American Press
Discussion continued on the ethnic American press. There
is a growing presence of the ethnic press in the digital
world, but this does not address long term preservations
issues. All of the projects are interested in ethnic publications
but give them varying levels of priority. All agreed that
a recommendation should go to ICON to consider ethnic publications
in their planning and deliberation. Information gathering
about publication and preservation activities is important
-- perhaps the Projects could be helpful in this process.
Carolyn Brown was asked to inquire about LC activities in
this area. Staff will follow up with Jim Danky at the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin to see what sort of data
he has already gathered on ethnic publications. Michael
Hopper noted that MEMP is very concerned with ethnic publications
outside the US as well, such as: Turks in Germany; Kurds
in Sweden; Persian publications in US, etc.
The meeting was adjourned.
This summary was recorded by Susan Rabe and Marlys
Rudeen.
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