Minutes
Fall Meeting
Friday, November 2, 2007
Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, UPenn, Philadelphia.
Attendees: Marisol Ramos, UConn; Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, Princeton; Miguel Valladares, Dartmouth College; Patricia Figueroa, Brown University; Lynn Shirey, Harvard University; Pamela Graham, Columbia University; César Rodríguez, Yale University; Melissa Gasparotto, NYU; Martha Kelehan, Binghamton University; Jesús Alonso Regalado, University at Albany; Edmundo Flores, Library of Congress; Martha E. Mantilla, University of Pittsburg; John M. Weeks, University of Pennsylvania; Angela Carreño; NYU; Daisy Dominguez, City College, CUNY; Joseph Holub, University of Pennsylvania; Peter Stern, UMASS; David C. Murray, Temple U.
1. Announcements and introductions:
New members and visitors :
Summary: This project is a private undertaking by García Cambeiro to harvest and storage electronic documents and web content (blogs and websites) from government, academic and/or authors’ websites in Latin America. García Cambeiro wants to offer approval plan that will provide access to these materials and in turn secure their preservation. Subscribing institutions would save and preserve these electronic materials in their respective local servers. Another options would be to find academic partners for this project that can help with the hosting of these materials in a server. The project is in the discussion stage and the presentation was intended as a way of exploring avenues to make it possible.
Questions and answers:
Will the project overlap with LARRP, LANIC and SciElo? Unclear at this point, but there may be a degree of duplication. How can the project be maintained in the long run? They would charge for the cataloguing and identification of the materials. What about journal subscriptions? What kind of search engine will allow searching these materials? Will a portal to access this info created? They haven’t thought that far ahead but are thinking about sending email reports with the links to the materials in the internet.
Issues of concern:
Cataloguing materials, storage of files, interlibrary loan access of these materials, copyright issues, migration issues. Open access policy used by LARRP and LANIC and other Open Access portals seems to conflict with the García Cambeiro model. Also in conflict with ILL agreements— copyright issues depend on the type of material. Cost and sustainability.
García Cambeiro has been studying the viability of the project and are interested in launching a pilot with interested institutions. Project would contains about 1,000 documents, and would require the participation of at least 5 universities with an annual cost of $30 per title catalogued/$30,000. Garcia Cambeiro suggested that if 10 universities get involved in the pilot, they could offer an additional discount. Patricia replied that her Library would prefer not to pay for any materials that are freely available on the Internet, so she doesn’t see Brown U. participating in such a project. Her feelings were echoed by other attendees who added that even though the idea is creative and potentially worthwhile, it may not be commercially feasible at present, and needs further study.
3. Collections of Latin American ephemera at Princeton
Fernando reported that every finding aid in the collection is in the process of being converted to EAD format, thus greatly improving searchability and visibility of the collections. Samples of the converted finding aids were shown to the group. They will become available on Princeton's website some time in 2008.
He also reported that Supplement V of the collection has been microfilmed and is available for sale. This supplement consists of a total of 204 reels, including ephemera from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Central America, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Segments, divided by country and topic, may be purchased separately.
12-2:30 PM Lunch and Tour of Museum
4. LIBER 2007 Madrid report - ( Lynn Shirley, Pamela Graham, Patricia Figueroa, Jesús Alonso Regalado, et al.)
Report on LIBER Book fair by some attendants. The goal of inviting US based librarians to the fair is to get attention of Latinos and other Spanish speaking people in the US. If you want to attend, ask Alina San Juan to put you in the ballot. She attends SALALM. It is a fair to look at books not to buy them. To make contact with publishers, etc. Excellent place to meet small publishers and autonomous regions, to collect catalogues that are hard to find. There are several interviews of librarians that attended the fair in the America Speaks Spanish TV website.
5. Newspapers, microform sets, and news sources
Question from Cesar (Yale) to Edmundo (LC): what is going on at LC about requesting purchasing libraries of microfilm to obtain copyright permissions from foreign newspapers? Edmundo never heard about this before but he conjectured that the office in charge of that job in LC didn’t get the appropriate permissions and is trying to shift the responsibility to the purchasing libraries.
Libros Andinos—is microfilming Latin American newspapers (Universo, Quito; Universal, Venezuela; El Norte, Mexico; Backfile: La Prensa, Nicaragua, La República y La Nación, Costa Rica)
Suggestion: Use list [of newspapers?] to divide responsibility to buy microfilm from Latin America. To be sent to LANE discussion list.
News: LC will cancel print subscription of La República to get microfilm subscription.
LC bought Phase II & III Cuban Exile Collection from EBSCO. Peter said that CRL submitted suggestions for Film set (it is under vote?) Also, this idea to be suggested to LAMP
Reports serial collections from LC:
150 subscriptions in print
150 subscriptions online
Score of titles exchanged
Yale: Newspapers—ProQuest Latin American Newsstand. Yale, Harvard, Princeton and UConn were planning to buy the LARRP subscription.
Questions about ISLA (Information Services in Latin America), company that carries newsclippings from the US press on Latin America.
1980-1990 ISLA issues donation at Brown University. Very expensive to buy backfile from ISLA. It is a clipping service from 1980s on. Since many newspapers are available online, some believe that usefulness of ISLA has decreased. Is the backfile valuable? Maybe. Compilation done by them without having to go to LexisNexis or Proquest. Cost: $800
Pamela mentioned that FBIC (Foreign Broadcast Information Center) backfile for 1974 is very expensive but it is possible to buy by regions.
El País: Archives available free online but not the pdf. They are following the New York Times model. Miguel suggested to cancel print of El País and to buy La Vanguardia. Entire newspaper is available in pdf. Issues started from 1885 to present. They are prepared to negotiate with libraries. Newspaper covered Spanish Civil War Period. 70 years more of content—and all of it is online. It has a good searchable database at www.vanguardia.es
Fernando noted that Steven Charno's Latin American Newspapers in United States Libraries: a Union List is available online at http://icon.crl.edu/guides.htm.
6. "Primera Revista Latinoamericana de Libros"
New books review journal. It follows the New York Book Reviews model. Available in paper and online and have institutional subscription. Issues are $25.00, $18.00 for students and $15 for pdf. It was suggested to invite their reps. to attend SALALM
7. LANE video consortium - Jesus Alonso Regalado
Issues discussed: How to remind each member’s institution to lend DVDs/VHS to LANE members. LANE members need to check with their respective ILL departments to see if they are aware of the LANE lending agreements/policies.
Send Fernando links to documents of lending policies. If possible, also send list of Latin American Films available in your institution.
Issue with some audiovisual materials: Indigenous film—vendor (Chiapa Media Project?) don’t want the library to do ILL.
8. New chair
Martha Mantilla volunteered to become the new LANE chair!
9. Institutional announcements
Yale University (Cesar): Microsoft is digitizating 100,000 English language titles (books and pamphlets). This is included Latin American materials. After scanning, Yale receives archives.
Temple University: Wants to join LANE.
SUNY-Albany and Binghamton: New collaborative collection development project between SUNY-Albany and Binghamton. The goal of this project is twofold: 1. Database consortium to subscribe to databases (the Chicano Database has been the first subscription undertaken as part of this project). 2. Puerto Rican Monograph Cooperative Collection Development Project of non-core materials.
Harvard and Yale are trying a similar collaborative project to purchase non-core materials. Harvard is interested in Southern Mexico and Yale in Northern Mexico.
Columbia U.: Columbia acquired GOBI-YBP. It was suggested in the meeting to add a GOBI-YBP demo at SALALM. Received the archive of Oscar Hijuelos as a donation.
Princeton: Purchased correspondence from Uruguayan poets Ida Vitale and Enrique Fierro. Considering the digitization of its Latin American poster collection. The posters were acquired throughout the years as part of ephemera collecting efforts.
UConn: ICON (International Coalition of Newspapers) is borrowing the whole holdings at UCONN of the Bolivian newspaper, El País (19th and early 20th century)
LC: Continues microfilming Latin American newspapers in their holdings.
Minutes taken by Marisol Ramos.
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