Minutes
Fall Meeting
November 4, 2005
Instituto Cervantes, NYC

Present: Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez (Princeton); Lluís Agustí (Instituto Cervantes); Jesús Alonso Regalado (SUNY Albany); Julio Berrios (Library of Congress); David Block (Cornell); Angela Carreño (NYU); Daisy Domínguez (Lehman College, CUNY); Patricia Figueroa (Brown, Chair); Pamela Graham (Columbia University); Richard Heyer (Instituto Cervantes); Eduardo Lozano (University of Pittsburgh); Nélida Pérez (Center for Puerto Rican Studies Archives); César Rodríguez (Yale); Lynn Shirey (Harvard); Peter Stern (U. Mass., Amherst); Miguel Valladares (Dartmouth); Lourdes Vázquez (Rutgers).

I. Guest speaker: Nélida Pérez, Head Librarian and Archivist, Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños ( Hunter College , CUNY)

The Centro http://www.centropr.org/ was founded in 1973 at the time when Puerto Rican Studies programs were emerging. It publishes the premiere journal on Puerto Rican Studies in the U.S. , Centro . The Centro's holdings include the personal papers of activists and writers; photographs; government and 45,000 genealogical documents; posters; newspapers; recovered manuscripts; and oral histories. Although the Centro's holdings primarily reflect the Puerto Rican experience, Lourdes Vázquez noted that it is also a good source of information on other Spanish and Latin American groups, especially exiled communities during dictatorships. Nélida noted that the New York State Archives has information on creating curriculum on Puerto Ricans in the United States . The Centro also works with many documentary filmmakers and noted the upcoming documentary “Política con Sabor”. The Centro also houses a small gallery to showcase the work of artists.

The New York State Archives and the Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños at Hunter College is involved in a two-year project funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The result will be a bilingual virtual collection of Latino images from various institutions: the Centro; Cornell University; NYC Department of Records and Information Services; Dominican Studies Institute (City College, CUNY); Hofstra University; Hostos Community College (CUNY); Rochester Museum and Science Center; and Onondaga Historical Association. They are seeking to fill two archival positions for the duration of the project; one in Albany and the other in NYC.

Contact:

Prudence Backman
New York State Archives
Room 9D46, Cultural Education Center
Albany , NY 12230
Telephone: 518-474-6926
Fax: 518-473-9987
E-mail: pbackman@mail.nysed.gov

II. Library of Congress' E-journal Cooperative Acquisitions Consortium (ECAC)

Julio Berrios discussed the ECAC initiative. The Library of Congress currently works with DIRSA, a Mexican company whose subdivision, BIVIR (for “Biblioteca Virtual”) makes Latin American and Iberian journals available as PDF files. DIRSA can potentially provide access to 5,000 journals. It does not currently have all 5,000 journals in digital format; once a Consortium library expressed an interest, DIRSA would enter into negotiations with the journal publisher to obtain the digitized content. This would include linking and hosting of past and current journals as well as searching by title, country or subject. The Library of Congress currently provides on-site access to 140 of the journals via DIRSA. DIRSA would represent the Consortium in licensing with publishers. Julio provided copies of model licensing agreement for comments from LANE members. The overall purpose of ECAC would be to provide more journals “faster, cheaper and better”. Miguel Valladares suggested that DIRSA could request to have print-only journals digitized as well. Some U.S. libraries have expressed an interest: Stanford; UCLA; Notre Dame; with CRL perhaps playing a management role between DIRSA and individual institutions.

Pros:

• DIRSA provides archiving where SciELO does not.
• Advertisements are taken out.
• Consortium members would retain permanent access to retrospective content.
• Pricing model would still need to be worked out. The idea at present is to have initial interested institution pay the initial cost of digitization while other Consortium members would only pay the subscription fee. Suggestions for a buy-in or set-up price to offset this cost because other institutions might wait until initial institution paid the brunt of cost in order to save money.

Cons:

• DIRSA outsources its server.
• Currently using PDF. Working on OCR for better indexing.
• The Library of Congress is considering the use of a LOCKSS system to archive the e-journal collection.
• Cost depends on title.

III . Latin American Government Documents

Fernando reported that UT-Austin has been archiving selected web based Latin American government documents; namely Informes de Gobierno and Anuarios Estadísticos. The initiative is in its early stages and it is unclear whether or not it will continue. Permission was systematically requested from all publishers. Many agencies did not reply or said they had nothing to contribute. Some comments:

•  This is potentially anotherLOCKSS opportunity
•  CRL is developing a method for archiving political websites, but are not yet doing this.
•  We could link to LANIC's government resources webpage

The Instituto Cervantes is a governmental organization that promotes Spanish culture worldwide. Its Library includes monographs, audio-books, reference material (including encyclopedias of various Latin American countries), journals, popular magazines and films. Materials circulate to members. The Instituto also has many public programs and, especially under the new director, is very supportive of programming related to Latin America and the Caribbean . Lourdes Vázquez is helping to put together a program on Puerto Ricans in New York City on November 27-28, 2005.

V. Affiliates vs. Members

There was discussion of whether libraries that are not in the American Northeast should be considered affiliates or members, whether there should be a change in the mission statement or if a separate category should be created for them. There was not enough discussion during the meeting so a vote will be taken via e-mail.

VI. Cooperative Collection Development for Serials

David Block used the recent list of serials provided by the LC Rio office to discuss the fact that there is uneven and duplicate serials coverage among the different libraries in LANE and raised the possibility of cooperative collection development for serials and monographs. The breakdown of the current LC list is:

•  125 journals: 4 or more libraries subscribe
•  57 journals: single library subscribes
•  33 journals: no library subscribes

César provided me with a brief statement about the Harvard-Yale cooperative acquisitions project:

Harvard-Yale Library Cooperation: Latin American Acquisitions
This experiment seeks to deepen and expand Harvard's and Yale's combined
coverage of non-core materials from Latin America .  The two Latin American
bibliographers, in concert with selected vendors, will first adjust their
approval plan profiles for specific countries and topics in order to
minimize duplication of little-used, non-core materials. High-use and core
materials needed for our academic programs will continue to be acquired by
both libraries. Efficient mechanisms for bibliographic access and document
delivery will ensure easy user access to materials that are available at
only one library.  The savings that result from reduced duplication will be
redirected toward unique acquisitions that, again, will be fully accessible
to students and scholars at both universities. The project began with
Fiscal Year 2005-2006 and as an initial test, we have chosen two countries,
Mexico and Chile . Book vendors in both countries have been identified and
are currently providing both core and non-core materials.

VII . Distribution of Spanish Films

A recurring topic of discussion in LANE is the distribution of books and films from Spain . Jesus is evaluating a new and very reliable distributor of Spanish films for American libraries. The distributor offers free shipping if you buy more than 900 euros worth of material and provides good lists of films, including films about El Quixote and documentaries about Latin American communities and issues in Spain. Service has been pretty quick. It employs 4 librarians and one Spanish philology specialist. Uses FNAC as backup for synopsis of films.

“Films from Humanities” and NYU are streaming videos. Free “Digital videos” on the web.

VIII. General Notices and Announcements

•  NYPL and UConn positions are on hold for the time being.
•  El País and Le Monde

El País subscription costs 800 Euros and includes 10 free accounts to Le Monde. Angela said that El País and Le Monde are accessible via Newsbank. AMC will send pricing information. Based on site license. Newsbank is working on archive.

•  LANE meeting at SALALM LI is 2 ½ hour tops. We need to use our time effectively and do “house cleaning” (union list, website).
•  ADMYTE online Archivo Digital de Manuscitos y Textos Españoles

5 simultaneous users 6,000 Euros first year, 3,000 Euros second year

10 simultaneous users, 9,000 Euros first year, 6,000 Euros second year. There was some heated discussion about the fact that digitization of this material was funded by the NEH and produced by graduate students and is now being made available on a subscription basis. So far, one library does subscribe to this database. It was suggested that some professionals intercede to get the pricing down.

IX. Institutional Announcements

Miguel Valladares, Dartmouth College

•  New director of Library
•  Thinks in terms of collaborative development to supplement Harvard, Cornell, etc.

Jesús Alonso, SUNY Albany

•  New president of SUNY
•  proposals for 26 new faculty members
•  Mention of notable items in collection: Benito Perez Galdos materials, Mexican photographer Neugass who escaped Nazi Germany, papers of Aldo Bacalmi, specialist in Brazilian/Latin American politics (1960s-1990s).

Pamela Graham, Columbia University

•  Columbia and NYU have joined forces again via Title 6 grant applications
•  The Institute of Latin American Studies has a new associate director
•  The new Chair of the Spanish and Portuguese Department is the first Latin American specialist (i.e. not peninsular specialist) to serve as Chair.
•  Columbia is processing the archives of Human Rights Watch. Pamela will notify LANE members when any archival guides related to Latin America are available.
•  Will be getting a serials fund for the first time; at present Area Studies has only monograph funds.

Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, Princeton University

•  Head of Collection Development and Head of Public Services positions should open up in 2006.
•  Dan Hazen conducted in October an assessment of Princeton 's ephemera collections, their processing, and dissemination.

David Block, Cornell

•  Cornell president of two years has left; there is an interim president.
•  Acquisition of Native American Collection from the Huntington Free Library: <http://nac.library.cornell.edu/> Vanished Worlds, Enduring People:
Cornell University Library's Native American Collection
•  Working on a large collection of Bolivian pamphlets (1840s-1960s), which will, hopefully appear on the web sometime soon.”

Patricia Figueroa, Brown University

•  Working on Latin American materials from church collection
•  New director
•  New faculty
•  Recently joined LAMP
•  Prof. James Green, Brazilianist, New Director of the Centre for Latin American Studies

Lluis Agusti, Instituto Cervantes Borges Library

•  New director of the Instituto: Antonio Muñoz Molina

Lynn Shirey, Harvard University

•  New head of Collection development: Dan Hazen
•  Working on Latin American Women Writers Database which includes mostly Latino Literature

Peter Stern, University of Mass. at Amherst

•  29% base budget and 90% serials budget was lost; acquisitions budget now restored to precut levels.
•  University is hiring 250 new faculty over 5 years
•  New director of Center Sonia Alvarez, current president of LASA
•  Center has no external funding
•  Worked on cleaning up Pauline Collins' vertical files; found many Caribbean government and Peruvian political pamphlets.

Eduardo Lozano, University of Pittsburgh

•  Budget at bay
•  Transferring 75% collection offsite

Cesar Rodríguez, Yale University

•  Grant to preserve Cuban collection (100 reels of film and 5,000-6,000 photographs). These are being digitized; films are now on DVD and the photographs will be placed on the Yale website. Films and photos were taken by two photo-journalists, one of whom was later discovered to have had CIA connections. The Collection was acquired in the early 1970s with assistance from Yale's Antilles program. Working with Lillian Guerra, Cuban historian and specialist in Caribbean History. Antilles program at Yale funded the purchase for use by Yale scholars. A finding aid will be prepared in the first half of 2006 (we are working with an archivist in Cuba to do this) and will probably go online by 2007.

Angela Carreño, New York University

•  Processing material from the Research Institute of the Study of Man
•  Identifying duplication and processing imprints of duplicates from non-Hispanic Caribbean
•  Working on indigenous media
•  Adan Griego has been in contact with ARTSTOR on the need to include more Latin American art. Angela is also preparing to contact them

Daisy Domínguez, Herbert H. Lehman College (CUNY)

•  Collection includes the José Luis Ponce de León Collection on the Spanish Civil War and Exile. This collection includes 263 books related to the Spanish Civil War that were in the personal library of Mr. Ponce de León, a professor at the University of California . Books are cataloged in CUNY+. Future project: check availability of these at other libraries.
•  Lehman College Library Special Collections maintains sound cassettes of over 200 interviews of African Americans in the Bronx . This oral history collection contains some material on West Indians. I will include write-up on Latin American Studies and Spanish Literature web pages that I am working on.

XI. Iberian Studies in SALALM (ISIS) website

http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University_Library/ISIS/

The meeting ended with an online tour of the Iberian Studies in SALALM (ISiS) Web page developed by Patricia. The ISiS site was launched in August and serves as an Iberian gateway for librarians and researchers. It is hosted by Brown University Library. Presently all pages have been populated with links to Spanish and Portuguese resources, however a lot of work still remains to be accomplished. Most links lack descriptions and need to be organized more effectively. Furthermore, there are plans to expand the site to cover regional resources at a more comprehensive level. Miguel volunteered to collect and maintain resources pertaining to the Basque Country and Catalonia .

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