May 2005
The AAU/ARL Global Resources Network (GRN) is a joint initiative of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). GRN seeks to expand access to international resources not currently available to North American students and scholars through a series of discrete projects that focus on significantly expanding the depth, breadth, quantity, range of formats, and variety of international information resources. A parallel effort is aimed at making our dispersed collections more interdependent and complementary through coordinated acquisitions that are combined with effective discovery, access, presentation, and delivery systems.
GRN continues to be supported by modest ARL dues support, supplemented by voluntary contributions. As of May 15th, 68 member representatives have agreed to make voluntary contributions to support GRN program activities in 2005. The amount of the contribution is $1,500. The contributors are listed at the end of this update.
GRN and the Center for Research Libraries (CRL)
In a letter from Bernie Reilly, CRL President, to Ann Wolpert, ARL President, the CRL Board of Directors has proposed to provide ongoing coordination and leadership for the AAU/ARL Global Resources Network. CRL currently administers four of the six GRN projects. CRL also manages a number of areas studies and international cooperative collections programs. By assuming overall responsibility for the Global Resources Network, CRL is in a position to further GRN goals, build additional synergies between GRN and existing CRL activities, and provide enhanced access to international and foreign language materials. .
The ARL Board supported the concept of CRL's proposal and asked the GRN Steering Committee to identify the issues and develop a process for assessing the implications of such a transfer. The ARL Board will discuss these recommendations at its July 2005 meeting.
GRN Forum Hosted By Yale University
The Yale University Library and Yale's Center for International and Area Studies hosted "The Global Record: Ensuring its Future for Scholarship." Held March 24-25th, the first GRN Forum explored emerging scholarly uses of international resources, how these uses may be changing, the consequences in terms of collection gaps and resources needed, and the ways in which GRN might respond. Jonathan Spence, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, gave the keynote address. David Stam, Librarian Emeritus of Syracuse University, contributed delightful remarks after a dinner, comparing scholarly resources to an iceberg, where only a small percentage of which is visible at any one time. Closing remarks by Donald Waters, Program Officer for Scholarly Communications of The Mellon Foundation, placed the issue of access to international resources in the broader context of the changing environment of global scholarship.
In panel discussions, scholars shared their emerging and innovative uses of traditional and electronic resources and librarians commented on how they are responding to those demands by building stronger collections or providing access to remote resources. Small group discussions permitted the 60+ participants to reflect on these issues from their own perspectives. Yale Library will publish the conference proceedings on their web site, and an article on the Forum by Yale's Ann Okerson, will be published in ARL: A Bimonthly Report. A summary appears in Eudora Loh's Director's Message in the spring 2005 GRN newsletter, Global Resources.
A second GRN Forum, to be hosted by UCLA, is being planned for fall.
AAU/ARL GRN Advisory Committee Annual Meeting
The annual meeting of the GRN Advisory Committee followed the Yale Forum. The Advisory Committee, chaired by Barbara Allen, Committee on Institutional Cooperation, reviewed the outcomes of the forum and identified additional approaches to engage scholars in their uses of international resources. The committee discussed CRL's proposal to assume overall coordination and leadership for GRN, and the committee approved the new French-North American Resources Partnership proposal. Lynn Connaway, OCLC Office of Research, demonstrated a prototype of the OCLC WorldMap, a visual representation of collection overlap, by country and region, within North American libraries, which OCLC hopes to make available to ARL member libraries shortly.
GRN Advisory Committee members include:
Barbara Allen*, CIC, Chair; Carolyn Brown, Library of Congress; Jean-Pierre
Cóté, Université de Montréal; Richard Herring,
University of Pennsylvania; John Hudzik, Michigan State University;
Stan Katz, Princeton University; Paula Kaufman, University of Illinois
at Urbana Champaign; Peter Lange, Duke University; James Nye, University
of Chicago; Louis Pitschmann, University of Alabama; Alice Prochaska,
Yale University; Bernard Reilly*, Center for Research Libraries; Betsy
Wilson, University of Washington; Pauline Yu, American Council of Learned
Societies. Liaisons include Eudora Loh*, University of California, Los
Angeles; Mary Jackson*, ARL; John Vaughn*, AAU; and Duane Webster*,
ARL.
GRN Steering Committee members are asterisked.
