Meeting Summary 99-1

April 14, 1999, 9:30 am-12:00 pm
Hotel Sofitel
Rosemont, IL

Present:

David Easterbrook (substituting for Helene Baumann, CAMP),
David Block (LAMP),
Michael Hopper (MEMP), James Nye (SAMP),
Fe Susan T. Go (SEAM),
Michael Biggins (SEEMP),
Linda Gould (CSAP Committee),
James Simon (CRL),
Milton Wolf (CRL)

I. Call to Order

Michael Hopper, Chair, convened the meeting at 9:30 am. James Simon, Program Officer (Area Studies), introduced himself to the ASC and expressed appreciation for the work and commitment by Marlys Rudeen in previous years.

II. Approval of Meeting Summary 98-1 (M. Hopper)

The ASC reviewed the meeting summary from April 15, 1998, and the summary was accepted.

III. Report from the Library of Congress (C. Brown)

A representative from the Library of Congress was unable to attend the meeting, so this item was not covered.

IV. Report from the Council on Library and Information Resources (H. Rutimann)

Hans Rutimann was unable to attend the meeting, but submitted a written report to the ASC. The following is an excerpt of the written message:

Here are some issues that I would have brought up at tomorrow's meeting:

1) CLIR issued several reports during the past few months. Abby Smith's "Why Digitize" is one of them and I noticed it in the Board docket. Others are "Selecting Research Collections for Digitization," "Avoiding Technological Quicksand: Finding a Viable Technical Foundation for Digital Preservation," "Digitization for Scholarly Use," and "Computerization of the Archivo General de Indias: Strategies and Results." They are all available on the CLIR Web site.

2) As I mentioned on the phone, you may want to make available a small part of another report to the meeting participants, "Scholarship, Instruction, and Libraries at the Turn of the Century," the results from five task forces appointed by ACLS and CLIR. One of the task forces addressed issues in area studies and you may want to download the relevant section (perhaps pages 1-10) and discuss the recommendations. [This item was distributed to ASC members]

3) As an outcome of the work of the Task Force on Area Studies, we are in the process of forming a Task Force on the Growth and Management of Collections. The goal is to publish a position paper that will recommend strategies to research libraries and the communities that they serve for building and maintaining stable and accessible research collections in light of the explosion of information available electronically. One aim of this project is to reassess the value of artifactual collections and to propose informed, cost-effective approaches to ensure their continued accessibility. Our staff liaison for this project is Abby Smith at CLIR's Washington office asmith at clir.org.

4) Another report, available in draft form on our Web site is "Digital Imaging and Preservation Microfilm: The Future of the Hybrid Approach for the Preservation of Brittle Books." We asked for comments on the draft and, with the exception of thoughtful comments from abroad, have received few reactions from the U.S. library community. Is the issue of little interest? Is the draft so good that nothing can be added? Is the topic not important? These are among the questions I would have raised tomorrow.

5) Another initiative, indirectly linked to the ACLS/CLIR task forces is a meeting we are co-sponsoring at the Library of Congress on 29-30 April. This invitational meeting will be attended by librarians and scholars from Greece and a group of U.S. librarians and scholars interested in Greek collection. The two-day conference "Strengthening Modern Greek Collections: Building U.S.-Greek Library Partnership" has two major objectives:

• to locate partners and establish procedures for identifying, preserving, cataloging, and disseminating post-1400 collections in Greek libraries; and
• to identify ways to expand the Greek collections of American research libraries through microfilm copies or digital access to collections in Greece.

6) The international program of CLIR is alive and well. The large-scale preservation awareness initiative we coordinated in Brazil (translations, workshops, data collection) was awarded the Ministry of Culture's most prestigious award in cultural heritage (December 1998). The project is now replicated in Chile (also supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) and preparations for a similar effort are underway in Argentina. We plan to publish a report on the Brazil project (background, history, scope, and effect on libraries and archives in the country). Under "Resources for International Preservation" you list the Brazil project's Web site on page 6. The address is http://siarq02.siarq.unicamp.br/cpba/index.html

7) Next week (19-21 April) in The Hague, a conference on "Preservation Management" will take place. The list of participants is a veritable "Who's Who" on the European preservation scene. The conference is organized jointly by the European Commission on Preservation and Access, the Dutch Royal Library, and the IFLA/PAC organization. Papers will be available on the conference Web site (http://www.konbib.nl/pmc).

These are some of the things I planned to say tomorrow. I'm very sorry that I miss the discussion, but I hope that you and I can catch up soon.

With my best wishes for a successful meeting,

Hans

In response to this report, D. Easterbrook noted that previous information form CLIR regarding a Lusophone workshop resulted in good CAMP publicity and interesting follow-on correspondence.

J. Nye stated that there is interest in the ASC following the progress of the CAORC centers in Greece. Would CLIR be willing to be a bridge between the ASC and them?

V. Report on International Coalition on Newspapers (M. Wolf)

M. Wolf reviewed the history of ICON and reported that a core group of 12 is being approached to start ICON and create a global Union List of Newspapers, beginning first with their own holdings, expanding to holdings in the U.S., and finally internationally. OCLC is interested in assisting with the Union List, and discussions are underway to have them host the database. Currently, ICON is seeking a grant from NEH to fund pilot projects, and other grant opportunities are being explored. Wolf suggested that the ASC members submit titles from their warehouse that will fall under the criteria established by ICON for grant proposals.

ASC members asked about details of the criteria – currently, ICON is exploring retrospective titles (before 1950), daily (or weekly?) newspapers, international (not US ethnic papers at this point), something that US scholars (& funders) would be interested in.

S. Go suggested that ICON could pursue funding from the point of specific themes (such as "newspapers from the turn of the century") or look at papers that reflected the US influence in international affairs. Region-specific themes were also mentioned.

J. Nye suggested that a framework for title identification and prioritization would be useful. One idea would be to utilize scholarly panels to assist decision-making – SSRC was a possible candidate. CRL affirmed that this idea has already been discussed and would be implemented in future funding rounds.

ASC will play an important role in ICON, since current activities of the AMPs include newspaper filming. ASC will serve as an advisory body, representatives on the task force, sources for ideas and for potential cost-share. For example SAMP holds an important title to be preserved, Kaiser-i-Hind from Bombay, India, and Irene Joshi has developed a union list of newspapers with over 2,900 records. All these activities will be folded into or discussed by ICON.

Various AMPs have discussed ICON and are interested, though LAMP generally does not film newspapers, and CAMP is more interested in papers post-1950. Members were encouraged by the progress of ICON and hope to be able to continue exploration of themes and ICON’s role in preserving newspapers.

M. Wolf spoke briefly on obtaining filming and copying permissions for newspapers and other materials. CRL’s primary mission is preservation of these materials, but if in the process permissions to copy can be obtained, this would help boost revenue streams and cover costs such as duplication and storage. Members were encouraged to explore this possibility in future filming proposals, if appropriate.

VI. Area Studies and the International Preservation Scene (J. Simon)

J. Simon presented the results of the draft web page entitled "Resources for International Preservation," which compiles a list of links to preservation sites on the Web. The site is intended to focus on an international audience and will expand as other sites are discovered, including foreign-language sites.

The ASC found the site useful, particularly the abstracts of the sites. The site serves an important role and is a means to physically represent the work of the ASC. CRL should make this site a focal point on their Web pages and should link to this from other pages on the site.

D. Block noted that even though most of the resources were in English, more international audiences are using language-converters on the Web to view sites. CRL should make sure the site is well publicized.

J. Nye agreed and suggested that the site be registered with search engines and embedded with key words to improve access to the site.

In terms of structure, the page could be broken into thematic categories (Funding agencies, consortia, associations, etc.). This page should be the main page, with the microfilming resource as a subset of this one.

[D. Block suggested that CRL develop a site map for its Web page to make information easier to find – Ford Foundation and NEH have good examples of indexes]

Could the page be used as a resource for people to submit information on preservation activities? An interactive form on-line would allow this possibility. This would help avoid duplication of efforts. Although newspaper preservation information will eventually be undertaken by ICON, a page here for other efforts would be immensely useful.

How can the availability of these sites, or other ASC activities, be announced? ASC suggested listservs such as H-Asia, various ALA lists, and RLG DigiNews. ASC members will forward suggestions and addresses to Simon.

VII. Compiling Resources for Foreign Microfilming Projects (J. Simon)

Simon reported on a second web page, in draft form, entitled "Resources for Foreign Microfilming Projects." This page would be more substantial, containing actual resources rather than just links to other pages. This page will incorporate materials collected from other microfilm projects (technical manuals, sample contracts) as well as on-line resources. Simon requested ASC members to submit links or resources for the page.

D. Block suggested that we monitor hits for specific items to follow the trends of use.

J. Nye reminded the group that Norman Ross has agreed to provide preservation manuals translated for Eastern Europe to the page. Other recommendations included a sample contract from British Library and 2 documents on Microform storage from the Library of Congress and [???].

VIII. Models of Cooperation and Methodology Transfer

ASC members gave updates on projects and initiatives to share information and new ideas for the AMPs.

J. Nye reported on SAMP activities. First, University of Chicago will receive a duplicate copy of the Official Publications of India from Cambridge University. SAMP will assist in the preservation of these materials. Some ideas being discussed include where filming might take place, and how sales of the material might augment funding available for additional preservation. SAMP submitted a proposal to continue work on the Digital South Asia Library, which will continue work on the previous grant’s activity and will work with the British Library, Oxford, Cambridge, and CRL to support the creation of a database of international holdings of these materials.

Second, CRL has approved incorporation of a Center for South Asian Libraries, which will affiliate itself with CAORC, which supports scholarly studies with federal funding. M. Wolf encouraged that ideas and suggested that CRL is willing to assist those interested in setting up a non-profit center to gain resources.

D. Block reported that LAMP was interested in working with the Ford Foundation to preserve human rights archives in Chile, as well as in other countries. The ASC agreed that a human rights project might transcend the traditional boundaries of activity by the AMPS.

S. Go reported that SEAM was hosting a conference at IFLA (co-sponsored by LOC/Jakarta and the Ford Foundation) to report on and evaluate preservation projects in the Southeast Asia region. The conference will be held on August 29-20 in Bangkok.

IX. Other Business

On-Line Proposal Form (D. Easterbrook)

CAMP has suggested putting on their web page an on-line proposal form for preservation projects. Would the ASC be interested in sharing funds to cover the set-up and testing of a form that could be adapted or shared by all the Area Study projects?

Some questions were raised regarding the proposal:

• Is it possible to transfer scripting from the old form? Or is it machine-specific?
• Is this open to everyone, including non-members? Some mebers though it would be interesting to see what kind of proposals were submitted.
• Can the form expand to include other types of forms, rather than just preservation proposals?
• Will it be a general form for all projects, or project-specific?

It was agreed that all the projects would not object to sharing the costs. If CAMP supports a general form, each project will split the overall cost. If a project requires any unique changes or desires their own form, that project will cover the costs of the additional expense.

Procedural Change for ASC – Permanent Chair Position

Don Simpson submitted a memorandum to the ASC recommending Deborah Jakubs be appointed the permanent chair of the ASC. This would allow "cross-pollination" between the ASC and other parts of the CRL program. Jakubs would bring a unique perspective to the group, as she has Title VI experience, an area studies background, direct involvement with the ARL Global Resources Program, and insight into other important aspects such as collection development.

The members affirmed their approval of this candidate, but expressed hope that future permanent chairs also be selected with care to ensure the continued uniqueness and quality of this position.

The ASC approved this procedural change, and noted that the charge of the ASC would need minor amendments.

Updates to the ASC Web site

ASC members suggested that the ASC workplan or charge be incorporated into the Web site. Simon agreed that the site needed more information and would work to develop the site to reflect the importance of the group.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00 pm.

This summary was recorded by James Simon

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