Minutes
 Fall Meeting
Friday, November 21, 2008
The City College of New York, NAC Building / City College Libraries & the DSI
Archives & Library

Attending:  Patricia Figueroa (Brown), Pamela Graham (Columbia), Lynn Shirey (Harvard), Richard Heyer (Instituto Cervantes), Angela Carreno (New York University), Fernando Acosta (Princeton), Jesus Alonso-Regalado ( SUNY, Albany), Marisol Ramos  (Univ. of Connecticut), Joseph Holub ( Univ. of Pennsylvania), Daisy Dominguez (CCNY Libraries-CUNY), Sarah Aponte (Dominican Studies Institute).

New member(s):  Alberto Hernandez (Center for Puerto Rican Studies-Hunter College), Jorge Matos (Center for Puerto Rican Studies-Hunter College).

Invited to the meeting:  Lluis Montes and Ernesto Claret (Digitalia).

Martha Mantilla began by reading a list of member institutions and their contacts by way of introducing everyone to each other. Those in attendance who were not on the list introduced themselves.   

Martha Mantilla then asked if there was anything to be added to the agenda.  No items were added.  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.           DIGITALIA presentation and demonstration (Summary notes by Patricia Figueroa)

LANE members made the following suggestions pertaining to Digitalia's platform for Spanish e-books, e-journals, and photostock:

Questions from members:

2.      DSI Archives & Library Presentation and Tour (Summary notes by  Sarah Aponte)

Head Librarian Sarah Aponte, Assistant Director Anthony Stevens- Acevedo and Chief Archivist Idilio Gracia Peña gave a presentation about the creation and development of the Dominican Studies Institute. They emphasized that thanks to the leadership and public commitment of the Council of Dominican Educators and individuals from other groups, funds were allocated by the City University of New York to begin this historic project in 1992. Since then, the Dominican Institute has contributed to the strengthening of the Dominican community of New York City, which constitutes the largest foreign-born group in the City. The Dominican Archives and Library are currently located in a new renovated space. The inauguration will take place on December 10th with a ribbon cutting ceremony and a panel discussion to celebrate this important accomplishment. The new facilities constitute a prime example of public funds translated into concrete results that will undoubtedly contribute to both higher education as well as a healthier understanding amongst New York City’s diverse communities. The presentation ended with a tour to the facilities.

3.      Inviting institutions to be members of LANE.   Do we have guidelines?   Do we want to create guidelines?(Summary notes by Daisy Dominguez)

There was a discussion on LANE membership and the possibility of tweaking member guidelines. As the senior member in the group, Angela Carreño noted that historically, the group was conceptualized as a regional group that would allow members to get a handle on what our collection strengths are give us the possibility of cooperative collection development, although that has historically been difficult in part because of different level of funding for members. The group was defined by the proximity institutions; the idea being that patrons could make a day-trip (or bus/subway ride) to another member library to use their resources. Jesus Alonso-Regalado and Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez noted that they also felt LANE's purpose to be a sharing of information, ideas and approaches. The group agreed that LANE should be composed of academic and research libraries. Pamela Graham suggested that LANE's Statement of purpose    http://www.lanelibraries.org/state.htm already includes what could be considered our guidelines. Joe Holub volunteered to take a look at statement and get back to the group regarding the guidelines question. El Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños became a member of LANE.

4.      Serial cancellations projects in LANE.  Follow up on last discussions. Are there any specific tasks to be done? (Summary notes by Angela Carreno) 

Lynn Shirey led a discussion about the LANE Unionlist which includes LANE members' combined holdings of currently received Latin American newspapers, news and business magazines.  It is a work in progress and some of the information may not be up to date. Lynn expressed strong interest in updating and verifying the accuracy of the reported microform holdings in the unionlist. She is concerned about making sure that her collection decisions related to microfilm take other institutional commitments into consideration. CRL has stopped microfilming everything. Which institutions are still filming? What commercial film is still available. The Library of Congress does do some microfilming but does not sell the microfilm. Montalvo is still selling microfilm of newspapers published in several countries. Harvard keeps filming certain newspapers in part because Yale purchases a copy. Marisol Ramos mentioned that the Univ. of Connecticut at Storrs is working with CRL to microfilm historical newspapers.

Angela Carreno reported on a meeting she attended that brought over 100 media representatives, librarians, academics and technology specialists together at the New York Public Library to talk about preserving news for future scholars on Oct. 23 - 24, 2008.  The event was sponsored by the New York Public Library (NYPL) and the Center for Research Libraries/Global Resources Network.Several speakers presented library challenges and strategies around understanding news content and structure in order to preserve it digitally and on microfilm. In conclusion Bernard Reilly, President, Center for Research Libraries made several observations: paper and microfilm are rear-guard news preservation strategies that will go away in 5-7 years; collective support for local preservation efforts is key; transparency helps in sharing information about efforts especially around collection development; systematic opportunism works-taking a comprehensive approach to collecting materials, and; common requirements for "default" news repositories such as LC, CRL, Google, News Bank, will promote interoperability and utility in managing digital news object.

Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez gave quick background information on the development of the union list and and all LANE members agreed to take a look at the reported source for microfilm and make corrections. He also recommended further updates to the union list. Lynn will coordinate this effort.

Martha Mantilla wondered if anyone had reviewed David Block's notes on the LCRio list. No one had. Everyone agreed that it was worthwhile to try to collaborate on the coverage of the list. Martha agreed to discuss the possible approaches with David.

5.      LANE video consortium.  Update on website and institutions’ policies to lend DVDs/VHS to LANE members.  Are there any comments? (Summary notes by Lynn Shirey  )

Jesús Alonso-Regalado (SUNY Albany) showed the LANE Video Consortium page that he created:   http://www.lanelibraries.org/video.htm

He commented that students and faculty find this page to be confusing. We discussed the issue of who is the intended audience for the page, and decided that it is us (librarians).

We discussed lending policies and the technicalities of implementing them. Some libraries give a list of LANE libraries to ILL staff who use it when filling borrowing requests. In some cases, the ILL lending fee is waived for LANE members. This is not feasible at all LANE libraries because of streamlined practices. We discussed the fact that video/dvd collections are special collections, and that lending the original (only) copy is risky. No library representative reported the lending of copies only (although the Judaica Division at Harvard only allows local users to view duplicate copies).

Richard Heyer from the Instituto Cervantes Library (NYC) reported that they will lend to LANE libraries but that their holdings are not in OCLC. They own more than 7,000 videos and dvds from Spain and Latin America. Their holdings can be searched in the Institute’s catalog:

http://absysnet.cervantes.es/abnetopac02/abnetcl.exe/O7048/ID066134cf?ACC=101

(choose New York location).

Streaming video:

Some companies are now offering streaming video rentals instead of purchases: Fimotech (Egeda) is a Spanish company and is very expensive; they are interested in corporate, not library audiences. The quality of the films is very good. One can bookmark clips, create e-reserves, playlists. Individual users can rent video from them for 1 euro per title. Films for the Humanities offers streaming video but the quality is currently poor. Other companies that offer this are Filmin (independent production company) and Archives USA.

6.                  Policy for Advertising in LANE website.  Do we have a policy?  Do we want to create one?  (We received a request) (Summary notes by   Fernando Acosta) 

After receiving two requests for paid advertising in the website, Martha Mantilla wondered if a policy existed for dealing with such requests or whether it was desirable to have one in place. One of the requests offered to pay for the advertisement. The other one was interested in exchanging links. Some in the group thought that the requests were suspicious (spam). Patricia Figueroa told the group that ISiS had received a similar request from ARCE last year, and that the membership rejected the offer based on a variety of reasons. Everyone at the LANE meeting agreed that LANE should not accept paid advertisements. 

7.      Latin American collections - Finding Aids.  Follow up on creating a LANE inventory? Link to SALALM we page?  Listing in LANE web site? (Summary notes taken by Jesus Alonso-Regalado)

Marisol Ramos reported that the Latin American & Caribbean Cultural Heritage Archives Roundtable (LACCHA) is exploring the possibility of creating a portal to promote information about special collections focusing on Latin America. Currently, there is no portal that includes this type of information. Fernado Acosta-Rodríguez and Lynn Shirey noted that ArchivesUSA and Worldcat are good resources to find information about special collections.

Angela Carreño, Pamela Graham and other LANE members suggested contacting LANIC in order to avoid duplication and join forces in providing information on Latin American special collections. A potential good LANIC web page section where this information could be included is: http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/library/. In this sense, Marisol agreed to explore this possibility and contact LANIC.

8.      Digital projects in LANE libraries.  Creating a LANE inventory?    Link to SALALM we page?  Listing in LANE web site? (Summary notes by Martha Kelehan)

Discussion of this item occurred during discussion of item #7 (Latin American collections - Finding Aids).  Patricia Figueroa will ask Adan Griego about the existence of a SALALM-wide registry of digital projects.

9.      Institutional announcements.  Any news from institutions related to budgetary cuts given the economic situation?  

UConn (M. Ramos): As part of Connecticut’s collaboration in ICON (International Coalition on Newspapers), the scanning of bibliographic information of its Bolivian holdings has been completed and they will move on to newspapers from Peru and Venezuela. In response to the economic situation, the university has instituted a 5% cut in the overall budget. Its impact on the library is still not clear. A reorganization of the Area Studies programs at  UConn is currently underway.

Princeton (F. Acosta): Princeton has not yet felt the effect of the crisis. The university’s endowment has not been hurt too badly and there have been respectable increases for library acquisitions. It is possible that campus construction projects will be postponed. The library has purchased the papers of Mexican writer Sergio Pitol, which are nearly cataloged. Another project is the digitization of Lorenzo Homar prints from the 1980s based on a donation from the artist. The library is also digitizing posters from the ephemera collection, about 2400 posters, mainly from the last six years or so. There is a new finding aids site for Princeton digitalia and manuscript collections (see http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead  )

Brown (P. Figueroa): Brown has imposed a hiring freeze. In the summer the library received the archive of the Argentine filmmaker Fernando Birri. Patricia also spoke about the plans for the 2010 SALALM meeting in Providence.

Harvard (L. Shirey): There have been no immediate effects of the economic crisis. Harvard did not sign a book digitization deal with Google because of concerns that Google might attempt to sell back to the lending libraries the digital versions of books contributed to the project. Lynn also mentioned some Special Collections purchases, including materials on slavery once held by Ramón Soler.

New York University (A. Carreño): There is as yet no change in the budget. Angela described her work on indigenous video, including a September trip to the IX International Festival of Indigenous Peoples Film and Video in Bolivia, where the Santa Cruz events had to be suspended because of violence.

Columbia (P. Graham): The economic crisis has forced the library to face some staffing challenges as some positions are not filled. Pamela is currently acting director of collections for both Area Studies and the Center for Human Rights. Materials budget, however, has been increased slightly and there is hope for more next year. Collecting has especially focused on Dominican materials, including reports from 30 municipalities, none of which appear to be held in the United States. The table of contents of Dominican journals has been entered into LAPTOC, and Columbia has acquired NACLA files on the Dominican Republic. Pamela is working on the SALALM program for Berlin, visiting the city and the host hotel. She noted that IHEAL will be meeting in Berlin immediately before SALALM commences, and it is likely that about 30 people from IHEAL will be able to attend SALALM.

SUNY Binghamton (M. Kelehan): The economic crisis has resulted in a plan for three years of reduced budgets. The campus is already in the middle of its first year of cuts.

SUNY Albany (J. Alonso Regalado): Budget issues are the same as at Binghamton. The Latin American Center has received large numbers of books intended for review, all of which will be given to the library. Jesús, who recently received the Dresher award, will be on leave next semester to work on Latin American videos. He has an article forthcoming in Library Resources and Technical Services that will demonstrate how in recent years librarians throughout the U.S. face the burden of increased responsibilities, thus reducing their effectiveness.

City College, CUNY (D. Dominguez): A small budget has already been spent for the year. Budget issues also require that Daisy draw up a list of “untouchable” databases.

Pittsburgh (M. Mantilla): Pitt will apply for a TICFIA grant with Texas

Hunter College, Centro for Puerto Rican Studies (A. Hernández): The Centro will share a project with the New York State Archives to digitize images that document the Latino communities of New York City. Alberto has had to spend more time fundraising to support the Centro’s archival activities, which include working with the school system and collaboration with other cities and states that are also significant in the diaspora.

 

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