October 30, 2003
2:15 – 4:15PM
African Studies Association Annual Conference
Dalton Room, Sheraton Boston Hotel
Boston, MA

Present: Executive Committee, Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), chair; David Easterbrook (NWU), past-chair; James Simon (CRL); Dorothy Woodson (Yale), secretary; Peter Malanchuk (U. Fla.), chair-elect; Peter Limb (MSU); Al Kagan (U.Ill); Ned Alpers (UCLA), fac. rep.; Bruce Haight (W.Mich), fac. rep.; Harvey Feinberg (SCSU), fac. rep-elect.
Members and guests: Helene Baumann (Duke), Phyllis Bischof (UC-Berkeley), Simon Bockie (UC-Berkeley), Joseph Caruso (Columbia), Jill Coelho (Harvard), Marion Frank-Wilson (IndianaU), Karen Fung (Stanford), Beverly Gray (LC), Miki Goral (UCLA), Marieta Harper (LC), Esmeralda Kale (Northwestern), Peter Kargbo (NYU), Patricia Kuntz (Madison, Wis.), Deborah LaFond (SUNY/Albany), Joe Lauer (MSU), Nancy Pressman Levy (Princeton), Ken Lorentz (Kansas), Edward Miner (Iowa), Miriam Conteh Morgan (Ohio State), Emilie Ngo-Nguidjol (U.Wis.), Joyce Noble (LC), Patricia Ogedengbe (Northwestern), Lauris Olson (UPenn), Laverne Page (LC), Afeworki Paulos (U.Michigan), Loumona Petroff (Boston U), Charles Riley (Yale), Jason Schultz (NWU), Paul Steere (LC-Nairobi), Joel Tembe (Archivo N. Mozambique), Titia Van Der Werf (Leiden U), Gretchen Walsh (BostonU), David Westley (BostonU), Sherilynn Young (UCLA).

1. Introductions

2. Announcements and Amendments to the Agenda
CAMP election results were announced and the following were elected: Harvey Feinberg (SCSU) faculty representative; Edward Miner (Iowa), secretary; Dorothy Woodson (Yale) at-large.

3. Approval of the minutes of the 26 April 2003 Business Meeting at Yale.
Minutes approved. Recommendation to purchase the Monitor (Kampala) was entered as item 22.

4. Indiana University’s Liberian Materials
Frank-Wilson introduced Verlon Stone, Coordinator of the Liberian Advisory Board at Indiana University who spoke about preservation filming possibilities in Liberia and making IU the repository for the films. The core of the collection is early 20th century government documents which were originally at the Liberian National Archives but which are now at IU. He also discussed physical and logistical issues related to the project and asked CAMP for advice, endorsement, and financial assistance. Three collections were specifically mentioned: Liberian Presidential Archives in Monrovia; The Tubman Papers (30,000 items); and the remaining materials in the Liberian National Archives.

5. Arquivo Historico Mozambique
Sherilynn Young (UCLA) introduced Joel Tembe, Director of the Archivo Historico Mocambique and current President of ESARBICA. Eleven countries of ESARBICA recently met in Mozambique at the Archives, which are the major library in the country and which is wildly under-funded. Ms. Young circulated a report regarding the state of the Archives and this report will appear on the Archives website. They reported that the Portuguese are contributing 2.5 million to refurbish the building, but that there are training needs in the region for future preservation/filming projects. Laverne Page mentioned that LC is in discussion with the Archives regarding the filming of a particular collection. Everyone agreed on the importance of having the work done in situ.

6. Aluka Project
Alpers discussed a Mellon funded project to identify and digitize all sources relating to the southern African liberation movements. As part of the project, Alan Isacman and Tom Nygren traveled to Mozambique to assess available material. Easterbrook commented that CAMP has already done a lot of liberation movement filming. Alpers will circulate material from the organizational meeting.

7. Nyerere Foundation Proposal
Paul Bjerk from the University of Wisconsin passed out background material relating to a proposal for CAMP support to equip the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation in Dar es Salaam with some recording equipment to save recordings of speeches by Julius Nyerere. These recordings, which are approximately 600 hours, are rapidly deteriorating at Radio Tanzania. He is asking for $6,000 in equipment. In addition, it would help to have a full-time librarian there. Support would be needed for this—perhaps another $5,000. Feinberg asked about ownership issues. Limb raised the possibility of a Title VI collaborative grant. Bjerk clarified that he had not asked Radio Tanzania for copyright clearance.

8. CRL Collaborative Software/Intraspect
Simon briefly discussed its uses and benefits, saying it is layered for various levels of access, but only CAMP members can use it. Bell-Gam asked how others can access it. Simon said that anyone can post to the list. Simon then assigned homework to CAMP members. He asked the group to review and markup, and also add holdings to the African Archives Database he has created. Bell-Gam cautioned that one must lock items before editing.

9. CRL Report
Simon reported a big development relating to DATAD. The Association of African Universities has received funding for the project and a few Nigerian universities have been added. CRL will work with the AAU, providing them with information regarding copyright and developing a long-term sustainable business plan. CRL will be hosting a workshop in Accra, Ghana on intellectual property issues for DATAD participants.

The political communications Web archiving project is well underway. The project is using a testbed of politically-oriented Web sites (including a selection of African sites provided by Fung) to test curatorial and technical models of selection, harvesting, and access to archived versions of Web sites. The teams have been testing various Web-harvesting tools, but stated that extracting metadata from these sites has been somewhat tricky. A plenary conference will be held in November 2003, and the Chair of CAMP will be invited to attend.

Simon said that CRL will be taking on a much larger role in the ARL and Association of American Universities Global Resources Program. (AFRINUL is a part of this.) As part of the continuing cooperative effort, the program has changed its name to the Global Resources Network and will be seeking new opportunities for participation. Veteran projects may find an administrative home at CRL (including the German Resources program and the Latin American Research Resources Project). He also mentioned that CRL is working on its advanced search capabilities in the CRL OPAC, which may enable us to isolate CAMP holdings. This would allow us to create lists of CAMP materials (useful for dissemination, as CAMP’s holdings are too numerous for a printed holdings list).

10. CAMP Budget Report
Simon presented the CAMP Budget Report. For the FY 2003, which ended in June, total general revenues were $27,771.00. Expenses were $18,342.07 and the ending fund balance was $38,327.26. This last figure represents the beginning balance for the present FY, 2004. Revenues thus far have been $24,300.00 and general expenses thus far have totaled $1,692.91, with additional commitments being $30,759.98. As of 9/30/03 available funds equal $30,184.37.

11. Update on Current Newspaper Preservation Projects
Simon distributed an extensive list of materials received by CAMP from April through September 2003.

12. IDC list of South African Newspapers
Simon will place the list on the Intraspect worksite and asks that members examine the list against their institutional holdings. A smaller group may assess the results and make recommendations on any acquisitions.

13. South African Newspapers
Limb reported he will consult with the Johannesburg Public Library rather than with UMI/Proquest regarding filming.

Bell-Gam will invite a Proquest representative to the Spring meeting in Ann Arbor.

14. Update on ICON and AfriNUL
Simon has submitted a proposal for the ICON newspaper project to NEH and would like to potentially include guides to newspapers as well. IFLA has asked to know a bit more about what we’re doing regarding preservation of African newspapers. Woodson said that she had attended the IFLA Newspaper Section meeting and would get in touch with them. Caruso asked if it would be possible to put Mette’s list up until AfriNUL can be accessed. Simon will do this.

15. Timbuktu Manuscripts
Simon reported there has been no progress on this initiative since the last meeting.

16. Senegal Project
Caruso has posted the current report.

17. Archives Task Force
No report. Caruso will contact CRL President Bernard Reilly regarding potential funding opportunities.

18. Onitsha Market Literature
Lohrentz reported that the University of Kansas has digitized 21 of the 101 pamphlets and they are available on the following web site: www.ku.edu/~onitsha/index.html

19. Hans Cory Collection
Malanchuk reported no progress on this progress because the head librarian at the University of Dar es Salaam has left and is being replaced.

20. Nigerian states-government documents preservation
Bischof stated that the materials have been sent to CAMP. They are available on the Intraspect site, and Easterbrook will add Northwestern’s holdings to the list.

21. Theses/Dissertations (African and other foreign)
Frank-Wilson said that she is looking at various organizational efforts to monitor theses and dissertations. She will provide citations for these organizations. Bell-Gam said CAMP should work out a system to acquire more African dissertations. Bischof said that Ruth Thomas had produced a CD of dissertations from Kenya. Limb commented that we need a mechanism for CAMP to receive purchase requests from us for specific titles. This has been discussed at CRL, and a possible mechanism for recommending titles will be explored further.

22. Purchase proposals
Malanchuk noted that the University of Florida will continue to film the Monitor (Kampala) and that he will look for older issues. CAMP members approved the proposal to acquire existing film from Florida. Simon will pursue.

Bell-Gam has received a detailed email from Angela Wooton of the Imperial War Museum regarding costs for filming a complete set of the Mombasa Times. The committee approved the project in principle, and Ruby will forward the information to the group.

A discussion ensued regarding where and when to discuss proposals that involve both CAMP money and Title VI money. Simon will coordinate this by establishing a joint CAMP/Title discussion section in Intraspect.

Simon moved to purchase Government Publications Related to Basutoland and Lesotho. Approved.

Woodson will get pricing information for filming the Namibian, which is held by the Nordic African Institute. There was a question whether LC would continue to film this title.

UCLA will film its holding of Noticias (Maputo).

Woodson was asked to inquire about Yale/SOAS dissertations.

Gray asked if anyone had attended the digital library meeting held earlier in the day. The meeting was convened to discuss shared objectives and common challenges among projects, and to discuss potential cooperation, or at least better communication. Alpers and Simon reported that the Europeans are working on a number of projects and that there is a need to define who is doing what, where (especially in Africa). The group stated the need for an information sharing network, especially for issues such as technical capacity and best practices.

Other issues discussed were the challenges of access to electronic material from Africa (poor infrastructure, costs), the need for capacity building in the region, the need to better educate scholars working on individual projects, and the need to work with current scholars in helping them document their private collections to facilitate future deposit of material (field notes, books, other material).

The meeting ended at 5:00PM.

Submitted by Dorothy Woodson and Edward Miner