Boca Raton, Florida
Saturday, September 26, 1998, 10:15am-12:15pm

The annual SEEMP meeting took place in conjunction with the 30th Annual Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Boca Raton, Florida, September 24-27, 1998.

Members of the Executive Committee present:

Michael Biggins, Member-at-Large and Chair (University of Washington)
Murlin Croucher, Member-at-Large (Indiana University)
Marlys Rudeen, CRL Microform Projects and Preservation Coordinator (ex officio)
Karen Rondestvedt, Secretary (University of Pittsburgh)
Bradley Schaffner, AAASS Bibliography & Documentation Committee (University of Kansas; ex officio)
Wojciech Zalewski, Member-at-Large (Stanford University)

Members of the Executive Committee absent:

John Van Oudenaren, Library of Congress (ex officio)
Tatiana Barr, Chair SEES-ACRL/ALA (Columbia University; ex officio)

A list of current SEEMP member institutions and their representatives can be found on the SEEMP Web site . A number of representatives were absent due to the early date of the AAASS Annual Meeting and to the hurricane which threatened to hit during the meeting. Some absent representatives designated colleagues to represent their institutions at the meeting.

As was agreed in last year's meeting, the first half of this meeting was open. Attending the first half, in addition to members, were Norman Ross from Norman Ross Publications and Olga Tabolina from East View Publications.

1. The meeting was brought to order by Michael Biggins. He welcomed the new member, Indiana University, represented by Murlin Croucher. He also acknowledged the contributions of last year's Executive Committee, the Nominating Committee, CRL and sponsors of projects.

2. Financial report, presented by Marlys Rudeen. As of September 1998, the fund balance (=unexpended funds) was $30,465.43. $7,966.57 had been expended for acquisitions and travel. An additional $35,377.50 was committed for approved projects, CRL cataloging and travel by the CRL representative to the 1999 annual meeting. Available funds (not expended, not committed) were $10,487.93. The full report is available from the Secretary.

Marlys explained that CRL has billed for this fiscal year, and her report counts current dues as paid. Bills are usually sent to the institution's representative; if the rep would prefer the bill to be sent elsewhere, he/she should contact Marlys [or her successor].

3. SEEMP publicity. Concern was expressed at last year's meeting that SEEMP was not widely known among teaching faculty. As a result, publicity was placed in the March 1998 issue of the AAASS NewsNet. Marlys reported that there was not much response. Indiana University joined, but that was probably not the result of the NewsNet item. Do we need more publicity? An e-mail message was suggested that reps could forward to their faculty. Such a message could result in impossible proposals, but reps who are afraid of that sort of response would be free either to forward the message or not. It was also suggested that current projects could be discussed in wider forums, for example, at the Bibliography & Documentation Committee (B & D) meeting.

4. Reports from current projects:

a) John Luczkiw Collection: Publications by Ukrainian "Displaced Persons" and Political Refugees, 1945-1954. (Reported by Marlys Rudeen and Sofija Skoric for Mary Stevens)

The collection is a unique record of a major ethnic emigration at a particularly transitional period in the emigration after World War II when few records were preserved. Of special interest are the literary efforts of some major Ukrainian authors.

The collection is very brittle and acidic due to the poor quality paper used at the time. Given its fragility, it will be filmed in Toronto. The filming will take place over a three-year period with a cost of $12,130.

Mary Stevens, who took over the project when Luba Pendzey retired, reports that there has been a delay in preparing the materials of this collection for filming. She hopes to resume the necessary processing this fall. She anticipates that the money will still be paid out over a three-year period, beginning in FY99 instead of FY98.

b) Regional Russian Newspapers (Alan Pollard & Karen Rondestvedt)

Alan and Karen met in Minneapolis with Olga Tabolina, who is managing this project for East View. Instead of working on half the newspapers this year and half next, she is working on all of them at once. She has contracts signed with all 16 publishers; she had them on her desk.

As of August 14, 1998, the following had been filmed and delivered to East View:

Kabardino-Balkarskaia pravda (1991-1992; 1994-1995)
Respublika Tatarstan/Sovetskaia Tatariia (1991-1992)
Severnaia Osetiia (1993-1994)
Severnyi Kur'er (1991, part of 1992, 1993)
Nizhegorodskie novosti (1992, 1993, part of 1994, 1995)
Sovetskaia Sibir' (1991-1995)
Tikhookeanskaia zvezda (1991, 1993-1995)

The others were in various states of in-process. In some cases, they simply hadn't gotten to filming the material; in others they were working on filling gaps.

East View has tried repeatedly to work with Galina Kislovskaia of the Foreign Literature Library in Moscow on this project and in general. They are still interested in working with her, but she appears to be more interested in competing with East View than in cooperating with them.

Alan and Karen met with Galia in Washington in June in an attempt to get her involved in a possible Soros proposal involving additional Russian regional newspapers. Her consortium was too far from being ready with anything at that time to write a proposal or even to say when she might be ready. She made it very clear that she felt that American companies should not film Russian newspapers, but should leave that work to Russian companies.

c) South Slavic microfilming Project (Janet Crayne)

In the course of this project the participants discovered that no one institution held entire serial runs of most titles. Since the donors were supposed to receive a free set of reels, the entire contribution/distribution scheme had to be reassessed. A majority of the members of the SEEMP Board agreed via e-mail to this:

• If one library contributes, it receives a free set.
• If two libraries contribute, they will pay $40 per reel (instead of $75)
• If three libraries contribute, they will pay $50 per reel.

Norman Ross had received all the issues for the first four titles. The only issues that were requested returned were issues of Oslobodjenje (U. of Michigan) and one issue of Hrvatsko slovo (Yale U.). The final costs of the filming and costs per reel will determine the future filming prospects for Vreme. Obviously the fewer reels created, the better the chances of including all of Vreme. The total amount requested for the filming project was $12,522.

These are the films to be made:

Nasa borba. Still had lacunae as of report date.
Contributors: U. of Washington, U. of Pittsburgh, U. of Michigan. Cost per reel: $50.
Hrvatsko slovo. Yale U., Harvard College Library, U. of Michigan.
Vijenac. Harvard alone is supplying, and receives a free set.
Oslobodjenje (weekly, published in Ljubljana but in Serbo-Croatian). U. of Michigan is contributing and receives a free set.
Vreme. Will be filmed last, if funding permits. Since U. of Washington committed to this project, with the understanding that it would supply this serial, we should prioritize the UW contribution (within the years 1993-1996) for filming if funding permits, and treat UW as a sole contributor, receiving a free set of reels. Only then, if funding permits, should we arrange with Hoover to film the remaining issues (within the years 1990-1993). Norman Ross has agreed to waive exclusive filming rights, so that UW can have a complete free set.

d) Newspapers of the October Revolution (John Van Oudenaren, LC).
Mr. Van Oudenaren was not at the meeting, so we had only his written report.

Progress has been slow until very recently. The material is very fragile and requires special handling. LC has recently (in the last two months before report was submitted) appointed a staff member to pull the materials together and prepare them for filming. The project is now underway and should be completed by December 1998.

e) Oslobodjenje (daily, published in Sarajevo) (John Van Oudenaren, LC).
Again, we had only his written report.

This project has been problematic, due to circumstances beyond LC's control. LC's South Slavic specialist, Predrag Pajic, had concluded an agreement with the publisher of Oslobodjenje for filming, but the publisher subsequently withdrew from the agreement, seeking a higher price. Mr. Pajic and Don Panzera (Head of LC's European and Latin American Acquisitions Division) will be traveling to the Balkans in late 1998 or early 1999 to improve LC coverage of publications from Kosovo and Albania, and they will make one more attempt to seal an agreement for Oslobodjenje.

Janet Crayne reported that U. of Michigan has a stash of Oslobodjenje in Sarajevo, which could be filmed if this project falls through.

5. Timeline for 98/99 SEEMP activities.

The issue of the appropriateness of the current timeline, with its deadline of March 1, was brought up for discussion. There was very little discussion, and the membership voted to keep the timeline as it is.

Timeline from last year's minutes, updated for 1999:
March 1, 1999: Proposals due. They will then be reviewed by the Excecutive Committee and any needed requests for clarification, additional information, etc. will be made.

March 15, 1999: Submitted proposals will be distributed to the SEEMP membership.

April 2, 1999: Ballots will be sent to out.

April 16, 1999: Completed ballots due.

After this discussion ended, non-SEEMP members were asked to leave, as previously agreed.

6. Building SEEMP's agenda for 1999 and beyond.

In the form of a structured exercise, Mike and Marlys called for project ideas that members have been thinking about. Ideas were then read, sorted into categories and posted on the wall. Members

were asked to participate in a straw vote on the proposals and also to indicate which projects they would be willing and able to work on (recorded in the list of projects as "sponsor"). A statement during this exercise of willingness to sponsor a project does not commit any institution to anything.

A complete list of possible project ideas formulated by SEEMP members at the meeting is provided in an appendix to these minutes. The list of projects was also sent to the membership in a separate e-mail in December.

In conjunction with the project ideas, it was pointed out that CRL doesn't have facilities for video.

A discussion ensued concerning whether commercial vendors were the only possible source of microfilm, or whether exchange partners could supply them, too.

7. Other business (agenda items requested by SEEMP membership)

a. Coordination of SEEMP activities with existing national-level foreign newspaper projects, including ARL's Global Resources Project and LC's International Coalition on Newspapers (Karen Rondestvedt). Karen decided it would be better to bring this issue up to the wider audience of the B & D meeting. (At the B & D meeting, it was decided that SEEMP is, indeed, the appropriate body to coordinate these activities.) Information on ICON can be found on the CRL Web site.

b.  Development of more explicit guidelines for SEEMP proposals (for Executive Committee to draft). During SEEMP's first year, sent out tentative guidelines. People who adhered to them had their proposals sent out for vote. There were other proposals that did not contain enough data to be considered. Marlys said she would look for guidelines from other microform projects and send them to Executive Committee. The object of new guidelines should be to help people who have not written proposals before. Guidelines should not be too rigid.

If a member would like to have Executive Committee critique his or her proposal and return it, this can be done. Send draft proposals to Mike well before deadline.

c. Development in greater detail of SEEMP's statement of mission and goals (for Executive Committee to draft). There was no discussion of this, due to lack of time. Mike suggested that we could discuss the issue over the SEEMPLIST during the course of the year, if there is interest.

Respectfully submitted,
Karen Rondestvedt
Secretary

Go to Appendix of 1998 Meeting