Minutes
Spring Meeting – SALALM 54 (Berlin)
Saturday July 4, 2009 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Members attending: Patricia Figueroa (Brown), Pamela Graham (Columbia), Lynn Shirey (Harvard), Geoff West (British Library), Sonia Morcillo (Cambridge University), Cecilia Sercan (Cornell University), Miguel Valladares (Dartmouth University), Sarah Aponte (Dominican Studies Institute), Ricarda Musser (Iber-Amerikanisches Institut), Angela Carreno (New York University), Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez (Princeton), Melissa Gasparotto (Rutgers University), Jesus Alonso-Regalado ( SUNY, Albany), Peter Stern (University of Massachusetts), Joseph Holub ( Univ. of Pennsylvania), Cesar Rodriguez (Yale University),
Guests: Jean Dickson (Suny Buffalo), Stephanie R. Miles (Harvard), Iria Alvarez (Revista de Libros)
The participants introduced themselves. The agenda for the day and the minutes from the Spring meeting were approved. LANE members distributed the topics of the agenda among themselves in order to take notes for the minutes.
1. LANE listserv moved from Cornell (David Block) to Brown (Patricia Figueroa).
Any issues to be addressed/discussed/considered?
Patricia informed the group that the listserv was moved from Cornell University administration to Brown University. Members agreed that the listserv was working well.
2. Inviting institutions to be members of LANE. (Follow up from last meeting)
Lane Statement of purpose – Possible guidelines for inviting institutions - Joseph Holub
Joseph Holub (UPenn) had volunteered to reviewing the guidelines for LANE membership. He distributed statements of purpose and goals from LASER and MOLLAS for comparison purposes. He explained that in the past, the only explicit requirement for membership was consistent participation in SALALM. The implicit requirement was location (Northeastern US). The idea was that proximity would facilitate collaboration, particularly in terms of access. For LASER and MOLLAS, proximity was not a factor.
Holub summarized how many institutions have contributed to the various sections of the LANE website (collection’s strengths (11); literary manuscripts (4); newspapers union list (?); videos (?). And noticed that LANE is the only one of the regional groups with non-academic libraries (NYPL and Instituto Cervantes, for example). Also that Canada has been left out from the statement. He asked whether regular participation in LANE should continue to be an implicit requirement? Maybe not, he suggested, because those who don’t usually attend may also contribute useful information. European members, for example, have been attending some meetings since (?). Someone asked what is the advantage to them? Geoff West (British Library) said that observing has been helpful and that he has shared ideas with UK colleagues. Joe Holub mentioned that in the past LANE members were also part of LAMP. And noticed that even though many of the smaller libraries in LANE aren’t, they still contribute to the group in important ways. He finished by asking whether we should distinguish among membership categories.
Pamela Graham (Columbia) said that LANE can serve as a forum for discussion of developments such as Borrow Direct. Having a large, inclusive LANE is good and there is no point in making distinctions. César Rodríguez (Yale) agreed and reminded everyone that smaller partnerships had grown out of LANE relationships. Patricia Figueroa (Brown) noticed that the same had been discussed in the past, and that everyone wanted to keep it the way it is. Lynn Shirey (Harvard) said that LANE participation facilitated sending dups to Europe. Graham said that Columbia and Cornell have been discussing collaboration in the areas of (?). Angela Carreño (NYU) recommended keeping NYPL in mind because they are a major resource in the region. Jesús Alonso (SUNY-Albany) wondered about Martha Kellehan at Tufts.
So, in the end, everyone agreed to put the membership issue to rest.
3. Latin American collections - Finding Aids. Creating a LANE inventory? (Follow up from last meeting) - Update on the issue – info. collected by Marisol Ramos (presented by Martha Mantilla)
We had a discussion about the plausibility of adding finding aids for Latin American archival collections to our LANE site. Marisol Ramos (UConn) had suggested that LANIC might be the logical place to hold links to Latin American finding aids. The consensus of the group was that it would be too time consuming to maintain links or lists on the LANE site. Finding aids are added to OCLC (set to archives to search).
We discussed the usefulness of a having a list of digital projects (Latin American) at our institutions, and agreed to create one. Please send your lists to Miguel Valladares (Dartmouth).
Borrow Direct: we discussed a possible meeting of Borrow Direct members to explore collecting collaborations in the Northeast. Any discussions of collaboration should take ILL and the LARRP Distributed Resources Project into account as well. Slavic librarians are collaborating via [OCLC?].
4. Digital projects in LANE libraries. Creating a LANE inventory? (Follow up from last meeting)
- Update on the issue – Patricia Figueroa & Martha Mantilla reporting on info. from Adan Griego (CALAFIA)
5. Cooperative collection development -
Proposal for Brown and Dartmouth as members of the Borrow Direct consortium.
Miguel Valladares (Darmouth) and Patricia Figueroa (Brown) have drafted a cooperative collection development agreement as members of the Borrow Direct ILL system. The present climate of generalized cuts in collections due to the current economical crisis, plus the consolidation of the Borrow Direct service among faculty and students after five years of its implementation, mayforce Latin American Studies librarians to explore new channels of collaboration for collection development. The goal is to avoid duplication in selected geographical areas (to be decided) and yet provide research level resources to users at both institutions.
Among the Ivy League schools, Brown and Dartmouth are institutions where it is possible to implement easily a new model of bi-lateral collaboration to acquire and manageLatin American materials. Similar library budgets, cohesion among Latin American faculty from both institutions, and a shared philosophy on collection management between the librarians, make this new agreement a logic plan for cooperation.
Each institution will focus on their respective countries of specialization taking in to account the curricular needs of both institutions.
The proposal would include:
1. Division of Geographical areas for collection development during 2009-2010 fiscal year.
2. The implementation of a communication system among faculty and students from both institutions about the new acquisitions received.
3. An annual evaluation of this collaborative program.
4. A system to identify new geographic areas of possible future collaboration.
5. A plan to report this pilot program to other Ivy League institutions.
Valladares and Figueroa hope to have this new agreement in place in the fall 09 semester.
6. Library of Congress, Rio. Cooperative Acquisition Program (Brazilian Serials)
Revising cost and considering options.
Minutes for LANE Agenda Item #6: Library of Congress, Rio. Cooperative Acquisition Program (Brazilian Serials) -- Revising cost and considering options.
Martha surveyed the group to find out how many of us were members of the LC Rio CAP program and over half of those in attendance were. She was concerned about newspaper cost increases, and especially increases in overhead and shipping costs. Lynn noted that it's often cheaper to buy newspapers through a vendor rather than LC, because overhead costs (not including shipping) are so high. Pamela noted that LC's shipping costs rose considerably about 2 years ago. Lynn wondered why we should continue to support LC's program given how much less the titles cost elsewhere. It was agreed that whoever was attending the No Host Luncheon with LC Rio at SALALM would raise these questions.
7. LANE Fall 2009 meeting: OK to do it? Consider canceling it because of our institutions’ cuts on funding for travel?
Members agreed that the Fall LANE meeting should be done as usual.
8. Institutional announcements
Cambridge University Library, U.K.
- The European Collections and Cataloguing Department has suffered a very significant reduction in its purchasing power, caused by the sharp decline in value of the pound against the euro and the dollar. By February 2009, language budgets for some of the Department’s major European languages had completely run out of money. Back in April 2009, for example, sterling was worth approximately 28% less against both the dollar and the euro. This is obviously having a clear impact on what the Library can acquire for its collections.
- Mrs. Anne Jarvis was appointed to the post of University Librarian in April 2009. Mrs. Jarvis is the first female to hold the post in the Library’s 650 year history.
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