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Cooperative Africana Microform Project (CAMP)

Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

Pre-Business Minutes
Director 2 Room, Renaissance Hotel, Nashville, Tennessee
Thursday, 16 November 2000
1:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Present: Helene Baumann (Duke University), chair; Lauris Olson (University of Pennsylvania), secretary; Phyllis Bischof (University of California, Berkeley), at large; David Easterbrook (Northwestern University), at large; David Owusu-Ansah (James Madison University), faculty representative elect; Ruby Bell-Gam (University of California, Los Angeles), ALC chair, ex officio; Beverly Gray (Library of Congress), ex officio; James Simon (Center for Research Libraries), ex officio.

The meeting was called to order at 1:30 PM by the Chair.

1. The Business Meeting agenda.

The agenda was modified to include an update on the Liberian newspapers project.

2. Senegal project proposal.

The Chair decided to provide extended discussion time for this topic during the Business Meeting. Simon reported on the 15 November 2000 Cooperative Projects Meeting discussion of Joe Caruso's proposal: all participants were supportive of the proposal's first part, "Administration centrale ..., sous-serie 10D", perhaps in excess of the $1500 per National Resource Center provided through Title VI funds for cooperative activity; no funding was moved and voted, but funds would be drawn from this year's round of CRL's Title VI solicitation. Simon reported attendees' concern that funding both the Timbuktu MSS Digitization project and the "Administration centrale" proposal could be difficult. Simon also reported that participants agreed that outside funding should be sought to accomplish the proposal's second part, "Administration territoriale ..., sous-serie 11D". Bischof reported that a group was charged with developing a proposal to solicit outside funding, with Joe Caruso as chair and including Bischof and Olson among others. Simon added that this group would develop the work of the original Archives Task Force. To Bell-Gam's question about the relationship between CAMP and this group, the Chair noted that this effort would be undertaken by the Title VI Centers, but Olson cautioned that the informal group of Centers lacks the standing that CAMP and CRL possess for grantwriting and that therefore CAMP should be sponsoring the proposal regardless of who did the work. The Chair concluded that this proposal, although supported by the Title VI Centers, will be "done under the CAMP flag".

3. Review of Archives Task Force. The Chair described the Task Force. Bell-Gam expressed concern that the charge of the Task Force had become confused with the Senegal Project and suggested that the incoming Chair should provide a new charge articulating its responsibilities. Olson commented that the Cooperative Projects meeting articulated tasks that were not clear when members of the Task Force met informally in Philadelphia and that were not only useful for future project development but also necessary before proceeding with the "Administration territoriale" part of the new Senegal proposal: a final report on the original Senegal project; a review of African Archives Central for needs expressed by the archives themselves; a list of other stakeholders in preservation work; a list of potential financial supporters. He added that this divides the work into two separate stages, which could be performed by two groups: gathering project development information and pursuing outside funding for the "Administration territoriale" proposal. Bischof recommended that Caruso be asked to coordinate proposal writing, as he has the most experience. She added that, before developing the original Senegal project, she had surveyed several archives for needs and projects, from which the Task Force could build.

In discussion, Olson asked Easterbrook to share information on Northwestern's CIC-NEH proposal as an exemplar. Bell-Gam added that Joanne Zellers has had contact with an archive in Mauritius.

The Chair asked if Caruso is working on a guidelines manual, to which Simon answered that he understood that Caruso was writing a "lessons learned" report for the completed Senegal Project. Bell-Gam concluded that the Executive Committee should review the activities of CAMP committees periodically, following the lead of the Africana Librarians Council.

4. CAMP Cataloging Backlog.

Simon reported that three Executive Committee members responded to his survey (2 June 2000) prioritizing the CAMP backlog. Bell-Gam asked Simon to recirculate the survey, which he agreed to do. Bischof asked Simon if CAMP members should be polled; Simon replied that too many responses might obscure results. Easterbrook asked Simon to report on progress at the Business Meeting.

5. CAMP Budget Analysis.

Olson did nothing since the Spring meeting in attempting to summarize CAMP's past work.

6. ASA Papers.

Easterbrook reported that CAMP needs to provide ASA with multiple suggestions for presenting, archiving, and preserving the ASA papers. He added that the Northwestern ASA archive is used, citing one British scholar recently researching African studies as a discipline. Olson suggested using the short-term online retention model of the American Political Science Association's PROceedings project as an exemplar for the ASA Conference Papers.

7. Digital Projects.

Simon noted that SAMP has an ongoing Digital South Asia Library Project and he will share the collection development and site maintenance statements (both available on the CRL website) for the project. The Chair asked Easterbrook to contact Marion Frank-Wilson about arranging a presentation on Indiana University Library's digital projects office, recently described in American Libraries and C&RL News, for the Spring 2001 Meeting in Bloomington.

8. Microfilm Union List.

Simon summarized last night's dinner meeting, attended by Bell-Gam, Bischof, Karen Fung, Miki Goral, Gray, Joe Lauer, Olson, Hans Panofsky, Afeworki Paulos, and Simon, to discuss the development of a union list of Africa-related microform sets. An update of David Henige's list of microform sets was proposed, as well as developing a list of sets and their analytics, with an option for individual libraries to identify their holdings. Simon expects to have CAMP's portion of this list by the Spring 2001 meeting.

9. The Pre- and Post-Business Meeting Executive Committee Minutes for 8 April 2000.

The minutes were moved for approval by Easterbrook, seconded by Simon, and approved by the Executive Committee.

10. Al Ahram proposal.

Simon reported that MEMP probably will not consider a joint purchase of microfilm for the early years, as some institutions hold it. The Chair concluded that the Al Ahram proposal should be dropped.

Upon a motion by Olson and second by Simon, the meeting adjourned at 2:12 PM.


CAMP Post-Business Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
Director 2 Room, Renaissance Hotel, Nashville, Tennessee
Thursday, 16 November 2000
4:30 PM to 5:00 PM

Present: David Easterbrook (Northwestern University), chair; Ruby Bell-Gam (University of California, Los Angeles), vice-chair; Lauris Olson (University of Pennsylvania), secretary; Phyllis Bischof (University of California, Berkeley), at large; David Owusu-Ansah (James Madison University), faculty representative; Helene Baumann (Duke University), past chair, ex officio; Jill Coelho (Harvard University), ALC chair, ex officio; Beverly Gray (Library of Congress), ex officio; James Simon (Center for Research Libraries), ex officio.

The meeting was called to order at 4:30 PM by the Chair.

1. Archives Subcommittee.

The Chair will ask Joe Caruso to report back on activities and then consider ways to reconfigure the subcommittee.

2. CAMP Cataloging Backlog.

Simon will send the survey to the new Executive Committee. Baumann, Bischof, and Olson responded during the summer.

3. Spring 2001 Meeting Program.

The Chair asked Marion Frank-Wilson to arrange a presentation on Indiana University Library's digital projects office as a separate event. CAMP will meet on Saturday morning, 28 April 2001.

4. CRL's Active Periodical Subscription Support.

Simon will report CAMP's interest to CRL and then report back.

5. ASA Papers.

The Executive Committee agreed to endorse Bell-Gam when she meets as ALC Chair with the ASA Board on Sunday, 19 November, and to follow up by writing letters to the ASA President, Executive Director, and Chair of the Publications Committee. The Executive Committee also agreed to consider funding a proposal to microfilm from CD-ROM. Simon will ask Preservation Resources about feasibility and their capacity to perform PDF-to-microfilm conversion. The Chair will investigate the ASA Conference Papers CD-ROM's very restrictive copyright statement.

In discussion, Owusu-Ansah expressed concern that conference papers, being "in progress" reports, may be overvalued. The Chair responded that, in the past, ASA had requested that collected papers must be in a form suitable for citing as a conference paper. Olson added that libraries have held paper runs of the ASA conference papers for decades with no concerns raised by scholars. Bell-Gam suggested that communications with the ASA Board should state that the ASA papers are worthy of archiving both as valid research products and as documentation of ASA activities. The Chair noted that ASA received twelve papers last year, where certainly more than twelve presenters were on tenure track; that this suggests a breakdown in ASA's communication with presenters. Bischof suggested that the breakdown may merely be a result of the transition in ASA management.

6. Foreign Official Gazettes.

Simon wants CAMP to participate in the 2001 FOG Task Force Meeting in Minneapolis. He noted that CRL provides no funds for attendance and that most members are also attending the AALL meeting. The Chair will ask Karen Beavers, University of Minnesota CAMP representative, to attend, and Bell-Gam suggested that Olson attend.

Simon will ask Pat Finney, CRL's FOG Task Force coordinator, to add multiple locations for the holdings from CAMP and the other area studies projects.

In discussion on foreign official gazettes among the CAMP cataloging backlog (all of which are microfilm copies), Simon pointed out that CAMP would have access to microfilm copies of CRL-held gazettes only if CAMP paid for the copies.

7. South African Newspapers.

Baumann will work with Dorothy Woodson and report back.

8. CAMP Brochure.

Bell-Gam will work with Coelho on this, and report back. Bell-Gam and the translator will determine whether to translate directly from the English-language brochure or to follow the French-language brochure, to decide whether the Portuguese-language brochure should be translated literally or idiomatically. She hopes that this procedure will serve as a model for future translation activities. Coelho asked for copies of the English and French brochures for stylistic exemplars. Bell-Gam will also provide the URL for the Brazilian National Archives web site, which may provide appropriate wording.

The Chair noted that the Council for Library and Information Resources conducted a lusophone archival training program several years ago, for which Mellon funds were used to translate the standard archival training documentation into Portuguese. Bell-Gam and Simon added that these texts are available through the World Wide Web.

9. Overseas Participation.

The Chair lamented that Marion Frank-Wilson was not able to present during the Business Meeting on European contacts in CAMP. Olson asked if others had met with a group of Nigerian vice chancellors who visited recently. Discussion focussed on the dearth of African members, and the Chair and Simon will investigate whether the tradition of North American members contributing funds for African members should be a formal policy.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:54 PM by the Chair.

Return to CAMP meeting summary page

 

Last updated 12/01/2004
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