Collection Development Working Group
ALA Midwinter Meeting
14 January 2000
San Antonio, TX

PRESENT

Anderson, Boerner, Garrett, Kilton (Chair), Niessen

ABSENT

Griebel, Olson, Rosenstock, Rutledge, Walden

Report on portions of the GRP Steering Committee meeting

This meeting immediately followed the meeting of the GRP Steering Committee. Kilton and Garrett first reported on actions taken at that meeting which will effect how we proceed with work on the proposed "DFG-GRP Partnerships" project. The Steering Committee agreed that the implication of the contact relationships extends beyond collection development, and it proposed that Duane Webster of ARL write to directors of German DFG libraries to propose these relationships and to request that a librarian ("subject liaison") from each of the DFG Sondersammelgebietsbibliotheken responsible for collecting in each of the fifteen "pilot" subject areas be identified as a point person for the contact partnership. A second letter will be prepared by ARL for transmission to the directors of GRP member libraries requesting their participation in order to identify GRP corresponding libraries and subject liaisons.

Items from the CD-Working Group meeting

A. Kilton and Garrett reported on the decisions of the Steering Committee, and it was decided that Kilton, Garrett, and Anderson would draft the letters for Duane Webster to send to the directors of the DFG and GRP libraries. Everyone agreed that these letters should effectively introduce the concept of the partnerships and address qualities desired in the liaisons, such as responsiveness, good p.r. skills, and enthusiasm. It was also decided that a major part of the work of the liaisons will be to identify and become familiar with at least the highlights of other principal collections in their respective countries. (For instance, column "F" in the proposed contact partnerships document lists the principal US "Equivalent Collections," and thus the North American partner would be responsible for developing this list.) This and other work envisioned for the liaisons will be also included in the draft letter we submit to Webster. Two additional subject areas suggested at the Steering Committee meeting for addition to the present fifteen pilot project areas are Latin America and Southeast Asia.

B. The seven examples of activities which the partnership might facilitate (p. 2 of the proposed contact partnerships document) were discussed. Kilton asked that CD Working Group members try to think of additional work areas which might be appropriate and report them to him by e-mail.

C. The exchange program proposed in New Orleans by Lou Pitschmann under which unwanted GDR materials from the Padagogische Hochschule, Erfurt could be distributed to North American Libraries was dicsussed. Jim Niessen agreed to contact Lou concerning the details of this and to report back on it to the CD-Working Group.

D. North American Title Count. The NATC website which was created by Roger from the CD-ROM is currently on the Library of Congress server. The production site which is to be posted to the GRP German library members by the beginning of February will soon be mounted on a server at ARL. There, Dru Mogge has agreed to set up the site with login and password access. This will be available to all GRP members, both in North America and in Germany.

E. Issue of Harvard University Library and the Library of Congress. This issue (the degree to which these libraries might want to participate in the contact partnerships) which had recently been discussed by CD-Working Group members by e-mail should be resolved by these institutions' answers to the letter which Duane Webster will send out to the directors of GRP member libraries.

F. GRP German member libraries. Although technically there are only four libraries on the German side which are members of the GRP, we on the American side are now extending our initiatives to DFG-SSG libraries, to the GBV, particularly with respect to GBV-Direkt/North America, and also to any new members of GRP on the German side. For the purposes of contact partnerships these various groupings on the German side were discussed. Although the CD-Working Group is concerned primarily with the DFG-SSG libraries for its current partnership project, all three groups of German libraries should be kept in mind for any future work. According to statements by German GRP members in Gttingen and Leipzig last March, a significant number of other German libraries have expressed interest in becoming GRP members.

Thomas Kilton
<t-kilton@uiuc.edu>
Modern Languages and Linguistics Librarian
University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign
Ph: (217) 333-2654; FAX: (217) 333-2214