Minutes
Fall Meeting
November 3, 2006
Harvard, Cambridge, MA

Present: Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez (Princeton); Lluís Agustí (Instituto Cervantes); Jesús Alonso Regalado (SUNY Albany); Sara Aponte (Dominican Studies Institute, CUNY); Angela Carreño (NYU); Daisy Domínguez (City College, CUNY); Patricia Figueroa (Brown, Chair); Pamela Graham (Columbia University);  Dan Hazen (Harvard); Joseph Holub (Univ. Pennsyvlania); Martha Mantilla (University of Pittsburgh); César Rodríguez (Yale); Lynn Shirey (Harvard); Peter Stern (U. Mass., Amherst); Miguel Valladares (Dartmouth).

1.   Eduardo Lozano Prize at Pittsburg University (Marta Mantilla)
The University of Pittsburgh is creating a Lozano prize in Eduardo’s memory, which will be awarded annually for the best doctoral dissertation in the Latin American area written by a Pitt student. Pitt’s Center for Latin American Studies and the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures will make annual contributions to the fund, and the prize committee is raising funds to set up an additional endowment. Eduardo’s colleagues and friends are invited to make tax-deductible contributions. Checks should be made out to the University of Pittsburgh indicating the Eduardo Lozano Prize Fund in the note section and mailed to Office of Institutional Advancement, 500 Craig Hall, 200 South Craig Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.

2. The collection of the late Maury Bromsen collection is being sold to benefit the John Carter Brown Library. Bromsen was a member of the Brown board of governors. Items from the collection predating 1830 were added to the Hay Library at Brown. The sale items are primarily books printed between 1830 and 1980, many published in South America and long out of print. They will be auctioned by Swann Galleries, but the list can be obtained by emailing JCBL_latinbooksale@brown.edu.

3. Digital projects in LANE libraries
At Brown Patricia is managing faculty projects in house. These are interactive and informative, focused on providing material for individual courses. Brown has limited staff for digitizing entire volumes. Pamela will be posting information about Columbia’s activity online. Dan spoke about the Harvard-Google Project, which is digitizing out of copyright books owned by Harvard for free Internet access. The final total could approach one million volumes. Yale, as part of its project on the Cuban Revolution, is digitizing photos.

Patricia suggested that the LANE web pages, which include the union list of periodical publications, could also include basic information about each library’s digital projects, not necessarily a list of individual titles. Miguel and Pamela agreed that they do not want to make the LANE site overly complicated. Miguel noted that he found out about the Harvard project through Google and is happy to report that he found an 1802 imprint there that is fully searchable. Dan noted that the Google books are being cataloged. He also mentioned Harvard’s Open Collections Program, which covers primarily U.S. materials, but includes some Latin American related titles.

4. Special Collections in LANE libraries: creating an inventory of our strengths for Iberia and Latin America
In the discussion of creating a LANE page for special collections, Patricia emphasized that it need only be an easy-to-maintain page to which members can add information incrementally. It can be developed along with a listing of digital projects. Pamela added that key was providing information about the strengths of each institution’s special collections. Dan suggested that, when OCLC analytical tools are developed, it will be easier to determine such strengths, though it should be kept in mind that the OCLC catalogue can be unrepresentative: in the case of Harvard, there are over one million records missing. Angela brought up the desirability of making available online internal finding aids that could help students interested in incorporating primary sources in their research. Cesar noted that Yale has already begun adding such aids, starting with its Andean collection, though Miguel mentioned that, having difficulty finding these through Yale’s website, he needed to use Google.

5. Newspaper microfilming projects in LANE -- any news?
The group discussed the union list and online newspapers. Cesar and Joe noted that the availability of complete pdf newspapers through PressDisplay (or NewspaperDirect) has allowed them to cancel subscriptions to paper versions. PressDisplay, however, does not provide a significant backfile, and both Lynn and Marta decried the slow arrival of microform and the cost or unavailability of many titles. Dan talked of CRL’s launching ICON (International Coalition on Newspapers) in the 1990s and its collaboration with IFLA on an African project. CRL is now thinking about using digital means for preservation, working with third parties in individual countries. Cesar asked if CRL would sell film to individual institutions. In response to a question from Fernando, Dan said that LAMP and LARRP could play a role in developing CRL projects. Dan also mentioned the University of Maryland’s proposal to buy film for the Biblioteca Nacional in Rio. Miguel brought up the Paper of Record, a Canadian digitizing project that covers primarily North American newspapers (mainly Canadian, but including some Mexican), and described the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) newspaper digitization project. He would like to encourage the Biblioteca Nacional to see these as compact discs.

6. Latino Studies subject research guides -- should we compile our guides and add them to the LANE Web page?
The group is willing to add information on Latino Studies, although only three of the member institutions represented have responsibility in that area.

7. Brown/JCB libraries potential conference and digital project to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the independence of various Latin American countries. Patricia explained that she came up with this idea, hoping to involve various SALALM libraries in this project, which could include hosting SALALM in 2010. Each library might contribute a digital document for one country. National libraries could also be involved.

8. Serial cancellations projects in LANE
SUNY-Albany had a large cancellation effort, saving $200,000, but Latin America and Iberia were not affected. Brown is involved in an ongoing project, saving 10% by dropping paper subscriptions for journals already online. The major journals in JSTOR were dropped and the older issues sent to storage. Cesar recommended the strategy of submitting ceased publications, of which there are always some, as cancellations. Harvard Law asked whether LANE has considered one paper archive version of journals now retrospectively online. Dan Hazen noted, however, that JSTOR retains multiple archive copies of its journals. Fernando and Cesar both noted their procedure of checking to see who already has a journal title before taking a subscription.

9. Update on CD collaborative efforts targeting Brazilian journals distributed by LC Rio (any news? We may have to postpone this item since David Block will not be attending the meeting). David had found that no LANE libraries were subscribing to many of the Brazilian journals available through LC-Rio. This will be discussed in Albuquerque. It was also mentioned that Yale and Harvard are now coordinating on subscriptions to new Mexican journals. Lynn noted that Arce shared their list of journals from Spain, and Pamela showed that a WorldCat search of the Arce journals indicated a number of journals not held by any institution. Patricia indicated that many CINDOC (the Spanish index) journals are not held by any U.S. libraries, adding that CSIC is another source for Spanish journals. Lluís said that the Instituto Cervantes can supply copies of articles from CINDOC and CSIC journals. Miguel added that many journals are free and he would be willing to review such titles, though not in all fields, for one or two countries.

Though not on the agenda, Patricia felt it worth mentioning that she attended the meeting of the Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA) in Nashville and encourages LANE  and SALALM member to attend. One can contact BRASA at brasa@vanderbilt.edu

10. Newly released digital products: Thomson Gale databases, NACLA Digital Archive, Latino and Latin American Women Writers.
Harvard and Columbia have acquired the Borges and Sur databases, though Pamela is critical of the functionality of both and Cesar noted that the Borges is missing some key materials. Dartmouth has Contemporary Life in Argentina. Yale now has Latin American Women Writers and NACLA Digital Archive. Cesar has found the latter very useful, particularly in its presentation of English-language primary sources so important to undergraduate researchers. Since the NACLA costs about $12K/year, some recommended that Scott Van Jacob talk to NACLA about consortial pricing. Peter was critical of Alexander Street, publisher of Latin American Women Writers, for a high price (in the range of $20-40K/yr.), maintenance fee, and failure to attempt comprehensiveness in their selection. Princeton and Columbia both have subscriptions to EcoAméricas at $300/yr. Peter described Sandbox, a JSTOR/ARTstor collaboration that will allow simultaneous searching of both files for both text and images. Lluís noted the great utility of Photoaisa, which can find photos from anywhere in the world without charge, and sells films (none are region 1).  Fernando, speaking about ProQuest products, observed that Prisma is intended for smaller institutions and that Newsstand adds very few titles to those already offered by Factiva. Someone else also talked about SCOLA, the site that receives and re-transmits television programming from around the world in native languages. He noted that the broadcasts can be taped live.       

11. Brazilian Collections in U.S. academic libraries -- Patricia Figueroa is surveying size of Brazilian collections in US; difficult to get data on size of collections. Use of OCLC Collection Tool to evaluate these? None of us have experience with this as of yet.

12. The LIBER Bookfair : the presence of America Reads Spanish (ARS); meetings with distributors (Marcial Pons, Iberoamericana, Servilibros); and small publishers and cultural magazines to keep in mind. Librarians invited by ICEX (Instituto de Comercio Exterior) and America Reads Spanish. SALALM members involved in panel discussing digital journal publishing possibilities. Distributors at LIBER (some new to us): Iberbook, Puvill, Celesa (Centro Español de …), Servilibros (Barcelona: contacts with small pubs.), Marcial Pons (has bookstores, distributes mostly social sciences to Latin America, interested in expanding to US, can do humanities also), ENCICLO (Barcelona, with new office in NYC).

Jesús mentioned that some librarians are buying directly from publishers such as Planeta, Anaya and Santillana. Anaya offers a 50% discount if one buys directly from them. CSIC offers 30% discount for their series if we purchase (many) from them directly.

13. Portuguese approval plans. Brown University staring a Portuguese approval plan with Casalini Libri.

14. Requesting feedback on two projects by Jesús Alonso Regalado and
Sean Knowlton. They are researching article on job descriptions of Latin American/Iberian bibliographers and how they vary/have evolved. Request for input from LANE members; discussion of sources of information: Internet Archive for pdfs of descriptions?

15. Positions openings in LANE:

Pittsburgh: open bibliographer position; Martha Mantilla is Acting Librarian.
NYPL: LA bibliographer position on hold
UConn: LA position open
FIU: LA position open
JC Brown: curator, colonial collections

16. More on electronic resources
Discussion of current offer for NACLA digital archives offer; Angela Carreño will inform us of NERL offer/deal. Latinobarometro: database of public opinion poll across Latin America, 20 questions. Has new website that displays search results, 1500 euros/yr; or, purchase and download data through 2004 for 100 euros/yr. In past, the producers have not agreed to special arrangements re: pricing for academic institutions. African/European/Asian barometros are free, only LA needs cost recovery. Should LANE/SALALM try again to negotiate access? Should LAARP contact them? Produced in Chile; since there have been recent structural changes in database, it may be a good time to approach them again. At present, individual researchers and corporations can look at questions but not results. Yearly reports that analyze results are available free each year, and are sometimes sufficient for research. Related resources: Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt; Latin American political polls by Instituto Elcano, Madrid (realinstitutoelcano.org)

Database demos (Pamela Graham): SUR online, Life and Works of Jorge Luis Borges. We discussed navigation problems with both databases and the need to create a (shared?) finding aid for the Borges database.

17. Institutional announcements

Brown (P. Figueroa): Awarded Title VI for first time for Brazilian collections; is collecting Caribbean creole languages.

Yale (C. Rodríguez): just completed Cuban Revolution photograph project, finding aid; and 60 Cuban films on dvds, by Cuban photojournalist. Purchased NACLA digital archive, 10 years for $8,000; also Latin American Women Writers; film of Revolutionary Mexico in Newspapers (Texas)

Harvard (L. Shirey): purchased Borges database; COMINTERN Archives for Mexico, film. Title VI renewed.

Columbia (P. Graham): received a bequest of Spanish humanities titles; conducting a trial of “Latinsource”, a political analysis digital resource. Pilot project for “selector-driven digitalization”, 650 p./mo.; mostly books out of copyright (check Google book). Received Title VI funding, shared with NYU, for 3 years.

Princeton (F. Acosta): open positions for Head of Collection Development, Head of Public Services, Head of Cataloging and Metadata, Head of Marquand Library (Art & Architecture). Purchases: Mss of Sergio Ramírez (personal, literary, governmental, Sandinista Revolution); Rosario Ferré (correspondence); Antonio Benítez Rojo (correspondence). Also graphic arts: artists book, Luis Pales Matos by Raquel Quijano. Digitized collection of Taller de Gráfica Popular, Mexico; Purchased Braga Brothers microfilm collection; acquired pamphlets (300 pieces) of the Partido Democrático Cristiano de Chile. New ephemera: Argentina, Bolivia: indigenous materials. Will be filming and creating finding aids. Colloquium in March ’07 on ephemera collections, with Program in Latin American Studies: how to read, use; to increase visibility of collections

Dartmouth (M. Valladares): 8% budget increase; have cataloged journals Spain 19th century; implemented “Search 360” federated search.

NYU (A. Carreño): collection of non Hispanic Caribbean on film from the Research Center for the Study of Man; purchased Sabin and Making of Modern Economy collections

Instituto Cervantes (L. Agusti): the IC consists of 42 small libraries; they have a new union catalog; records will be added to WorldCat end of 2006. Cervantes NYC: collections of Spanish and Latin American comics and graphic novels. Eduardo Lago is new director.

UMass (P. Stern): adding very little; digitizing microfilm of the Archivo Nacional (Mexico); some dvds. Have new learning commons: café, outposts, advisers; 24/5 service.

City College, CUNY (D. Dominguez): discussed CUNY Libraries Inter Campus Services (CLICS), a loan system similar to Borrow Direct.

City College, Dominican Institute (S. Aponte): ongoing digital project with Center of PR Studies. Carnaval (DR) traveling exhibit available; let her know if interested.

U. of Penn (J. Holub): acquired a Blasco Ibáñez collection through a gift.

Harvard Law (T. Ma): no faculty teaching LA law; no collection development LA for past 5 years, but his is about to take this on.

Minutes taken by Joseph Holub and Lynn Shirey.

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