July 2006
On January 1, administrative responsibility for the Global Resources Network (GRN) was formally transferred to the Center for Research Libraries. The GRN transition plan called for a year for planning, refinement, and articulation of the GRN program. Accordingly our efforts during the first six months of this year have focused on planning and program development.
Significant GRN activities during this time period included:
- Continuing to promote cross-fertilization, good governance, and economies among GRN projects through enhanced communications;
- Exploring the interests of potential GRN funders and partner organizations;
- Identifying the needs of the researchers, libraries, universities, and producers of knowledge that will shape and focus the next generation of Global Resources projects.
1. Promoting cross-fertilization, good governance, and economies among GRN projects
The Center assumed administrative coordination of the GRN projects, integrating the various project web sites and listservs. (The new GRN Web site is at: http://www.crl.edu/grn/index.asp). A draft GRN prospectus describes broadly the kinds of activities that GRN will support in the coming years.
Vis a vis GRN governance, a meeting of the GRN advisory committee will be scheduled to coincide with the next Global Resources conference. The conference is being planned by Eudora Loh, and is expected to be held in Fall, 2006 at UCLA.
Peter Lange, provost at Duke University and member of the CRL Board
of Directors, has agreed to chair the Board Committee on Global Resources.
The Board committee will sevre as the steering committee for GRN beginning
in 2007.
The Spring 2006 issue of the Global Resources newsletter highlighted recent activities of the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (LARRP), providing information on the success of the distributed resources program and a new cooperative initiative to capture Latin American government publications from the Web. For more details, see: http://www.crl.edu/grn/newsletter/GRN_6.pdf. Based on the LANIC project and a CRL harvest of Middle Eastern web sites, CRL completed and published an analysis of the Internet Archive’s “Archive-it” program for harvesting and preserving web content. (See http://www.crl.edu/grn/MEWebarchive-CRL-LC.pdf).
The German-North American Resources Partnership (GNARP) will host a two-day conference this fall in Frankfurt, Germany: “The World According to GNARP: Prospects for Transatlantic Library Partnership in the Digital Age.” Sessions at this meeting will explore the wealth of library resources—archival, print, and digital—available to students and researchers in Germany and the United States in five selected subject areas: North American Studies, German Studies, Judaica, Africana, and South Asia/India, highlighting both existing avenues (and obstacles) for transatlantic resource sharing along with future prospects. Other topics to be highlighted through individual presentations and panel discussions are: existing and planned electronic journal archives in Germany and the U.S.; print and digital repositories; and a special panel on "comparative cataloging cultures" on both sides of the Atlantic. (Registration, program, and hotel information is available on the GNARP site at http://www.crl.edu/grn/gnarp/index.asp.)
The German-North American Resources Partnership continues to facilitate access to German- language scholarly databases and recently concluded licensing negotiations for the DigiZeitschriften, the "German JSTOR." More than 15 institutions now have access to this electronic resource on favorable GRN subscription terms.
2. Exploring the interests of potential GRN funders and partner organizations
CRL initiated discussions regarding Global Resources with the following organizations: the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, John and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Ithaka Harbours Inc., Carnegie Corporation of New York, Christensen Fund, Hewlett Foundation, the World Bank Foundation, National Science Foundation, and Institute of Museum and Library Services. Also initiated were discussions with a number of electronic publishers about systematic conversion and electronic delivery of source materials for international studies. These discussions are intended to help CRL identify areas in which potential partner organizations are most likely to support GRN activities.
3. Identifying the needs of the researchers, libraries, universities, and producers of knowledge
In February, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Library of Congress, CRL convened a two-day international collections development workshop. The workshop brought together the chairs of the Area Studies and Global Resources projects based at the Center, and division directors and senior Area Studies acquisition specialists at the Library of Congress to focus attention on the current and evolving models for acquiring, preserving, and disseminating source materials from emerging regions of the world. Presentations featured a variety of perspectives and innovative approaches undertaken by the Library of Congress, CRL and its sponsored projects, and affiliated efforts such as Aluka and the Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) at the University of Texas.
The intent of the workshop was to identify a set of recommendations for improvements and enhancements to the international resources programs of CRL and its partners, and to create linkages between and among those programs where appropriate and expedient. The thoughtful and provocative discussion created consensus around approaches to dealing with current challenges, and identified desirable characteristics for the next generation of GRN projects. Conference presentations are posted at: http://www.crl.edu/grn/workshop.asp. A report on the workshop outcomes is appended to this document.
Global Resources was also the subject of the CRL Council of Voting Members Annual Meeting on April 27–28, where Kathleen Morrison, Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago, spoke about her research needs in South Asian studies. Bernard Reilly, President of the Center, and James Simon, Director for International Resources, outlined and received feedback on activities and future strategies of the GRN.
