African Studies Association

Africana Librarians Council

Business Meeting

Fall Meeting 2001

Thursday, November 15, 2001

9:15 AM-12:00 PM

Houston, TX

Present:

Walter Bgoya (Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, Dar es Salaam), Phyllis Bischof (UC Berkeley), Helene Baumann (Duke), Julianne Beall (LC), Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), Simon Bockie (UC Berkeley), Jill Coelho (Harvard, Widener), Henrietta Dax (Clarke's Bookshop, Cape Town), David Easterbrook (Northwestern), Gregory Finnegan (Harvard), Marion Frank-Wilson (Indiana U.), Karen Fung (Stanford), James Gentner (LC), Miki Goral (UCLA), David Henig (U. of Wisconsin-Madison), Margaret Hughes (Stanford), Mary Jay (African Books Collective), Al Kagan (U. of Illinois), Joe Lauer (Michigan State), Robert Lesh (Northwestern), Peter Limb (Michigan State), Ken Lohrentz (U. of Kansas), Laverne Page (LC), Peter Malanchuk (U. of Florida), Loyd Mbabu (Ohio U.), Emilie Ngo-Nguidjol (U. of Wisconsin-Madison), Afeworki Paulos (U. of Michigan), Loumona Petroff (Boston U.), Lauris Olson (U. of Pennsylvania), Oleg Semikhnenko (Hogarth), Shoshanah Seidman (Northwestern), James Simon (Center for Research Libraries), Paul Steere (LC Nairobi), Natalia Taylor (Georgia State), Dorothy Woodson (Yale).

Chair Jill Coelho called the meeting to order at 9:15 and welcomed new members. She reminded the group that the Africana Librarians Council is a constituent member of the African Studies Association and its earliest member committee. She asked new members to mention their email addresses on the sign-in sheet to indicate that they wanted to be added to the ALC listserv. Jill asked the members to introduce themselves and introduced Greg Finnegan, who will take over as ALC chair following the business meeting, and Bob Lesh, the recorder.

Agenda changes were announced (item no. 2). No. 7 (ALC website) is removed from the agenda, and in no. 9, items a and b (reports from the Cataloging Committee and the Bibliography Committee) are moved to the end of that list. In addition, Gretchen Walsh's written report on cooperation will be added to the agenda as other business.

Members leaving the ALC board include Dorothy Woodson and Ruby Bell-Gam. Jill C. expressed thanks to them for their service. There are three candidates to fill these two vacating positions on the board as members at large, serving until 2003: Lauris Olson, Andrew De Heer, and Afeworki Paulos. Candidates for chair elect/deputy chair are: Al Kagan (present), Dan Reboussin (absent), and Andrew De Heer (absent). The winner will serve as deputy chair until November, 2002, and as chair until November, 2003. Other nominations were invited. The ballots were passed out, and voting took place (item no. 4).

Get-well cards were circulated for two members.

Peter Malanchuk presented his report on the ASA Publications Committee and conference papers (item no. 5). ASA has signed on with Project MUSE to present two of its journals online, and Peter M. will aid in this effort. He is helping to push for the ASA publications and will serve as liaison. ASA is interested in deriving as much revenue as possible from the publications and is very happy with the prospect of an online publication. It is very likely to occur, but Peter M. is not sure what revenue will be derived from this move. We could recommend the top ten Africana journals for online availability as well. Peter M. asserted that the Journal of African History must be improved. Peter M. will continue negotiations with African journals to proceed with Project MUSE. Michigan State University is in a position to represent these journals, and there is an interest in having online access for both current and back issues. Questions were raised about terms and arrangements for JSTOR, and Afeworki Paulos offered to check with the journal's publishers about this. Lauris Olson mentioned that the Population Studies Association, in an effort to improve subscriptions, also wants to move in this direction. There remains the issue of improving access to these publications in Africa. Joe Lauer mentioned that online access to journals often heralded the move of print copy to remote locations in many libraries. Peter Limb indicated that there would be complex negotiations ahead to handle African journals.

Peter M. stated that the ASA Publications Committee will ask ALC to make the ASA conference papers available on the web for the previous two years. Loree Jones mentioned that funding would be needed for this web mounting, and she said that the issue did not appear in the minutes of their meeting by error of omission. The problems at ASA are apparent. The ASA board would like ALC to collect the papers. Jill C. stated that is was necessary for ASA to REQUIRE paper collection. ALC is not an organ to enforce the collection of papers. Peter M. mentioned that ASA has a more laid-back, less disciplined attitude toward paper collection. The issue will be presented to Loree J. in Albany. Jill agreed that we should let Loree know of our abiding interest in collecting papers. Ruby Bell-Gam thought that there was more of a problem in papers collection than Loree herself. The problem lay with the faculty members, who do not have the same perspective as ALC regarding the collection of papers. This change in attitude reflects a change of environment with the advent of the internet. Scholars are reluctant to let go of their research and thereby relinquish control. Perhaps future conferences could raise the contribution of papers as an issue. Greg Finnegan stated that different attitudes prevail in other disciplines. Anthropologists do not now and have never published their conference papers. Political scientists do publish papers. Each disciplinary association reflects a different perspective. An important part of our interest is to share information with Africa. Many of the offerings at ASA are not truly papers but presentations, and no one has yet determined the role of the internet in the control of intellectual property. Jill C. said that ASA does not place much importance on the collection of papers. Miki Goral noted that the American Sociological Association only publishes abstracts. An individual may email the author of a paper to get the full text. This is an alternative to collecting and publishing conference papers. Peter Limb mentioned that other conferences required the contribution of papers, with mounting of the papers on a website. James Simon said that we can only make a recommendation, but ASA will make the determination. Joe Lauer admitted to doubts about pushing the issue too far, especially considering our reliance upon volunteer labor. Miki G. mentioned the possibility of creating a database for the conference, with author, title, and contact information as a means of diffusing information on the ASA conference papers. Jill C. asked for volunteers to accomplish this task. Peter M. wondered if we should wait until spring. David Easterbrook noted that we have made these recommendations before; we can raise them again in Albany but should then let go of the issue. David E. mentioned that there are still problems with the transfer of ASA Archives to Northwestern. Jill C. averred that "stuff isn't happening", and it would be an excellent idea to bring up the issue in Albany. Peter L. said that MSU was behind in its receipt of ASA publications. The 2001 issue should be out, but MSU still does not have all of the 2000 issues. Greg F. offered to relate this message; he has heard from other members about problems with ASA subscriptions. Peter M. mentioned that Joe Caruso wanted to know how many of us provided gift subscriptions of journals to institutions in Africa.

Phyllis Bischof announced the election results. The new board members at large are: Lauris Olson and Afeworki Paulos. The new deputy chair/chair elect is: Al Kagan.

Jill C. raised the issue (item no. 6) of the statement of concern about the suppression of online materials and other information from government sources and read the text of the statement. Phyllis B. suggested sending the statement to all members of Congress, but Miki G. felt that there would be a logistics problem in sending over 500 email messages. Phyllis raised the issue of newly restricted access to Presidential papers, but Miki G. felt that this was another issue entirely. The membership approved the statement by vote, and the document will be referred to the ALC business meeting for action.

Vendor reports are included in the agenda at this point (following item no. 6).

David Hogarth announced his semi-retirement and introduced his associate, Oleg Semikhnenko, who will be handling many of the day-to-day operations of the business. Nigeria will continue to be covered by an associated Nigerian vendor, and Oleg S. will assume responsibility for the remainder of Africa. An information sheet was distributed detailing this information. No new catalogs will be issued at present, but website catalogs are available, as well as specialized catalogs. The website was designed so as to avoid interfering with existing approval and blanket order plans. If orders are placed through the website, there will be no risk of duplication with existing order plans. David H. discussed the design of the website and the modalities of ordering titles through it.

MEABOOKS (Middle Eastern/Asian Books) has broadened its scope to include Africa. It is possible that books listed on its website are not included in blanket/approval deliveries.

Mary Jay of the African Books Collective asked the members to refer individual issues with book orders to the ABC vendor stand. ABC carries titles from 61 publishers but does not necessarily stock the publisher's entire list. ABC is owned by the publishers and is their official means of distributing books. The entire list of some publishers is given; with others there is a selection of their list. ABC is happy to entertain feedback. The ABC website has been re-established and features full online ordering capacities. The website has given rise to a huge rise in demand for materials. ABC is classed as a non-governmental organization and is funded by a bank of international donors. One of the donors commissioned an evaluation of the operation, which is complete. Following consultations and a consultancy report on the North American market, a draft five-year plan has been prepared for 2002 onwards. Meetings on the plan have taken place with donor organizations, and it is hoped to finalize the plan shortly.

Henrietta Dax reported that Clarke's has 2,200 titles available in three catalogs, which were currently in a Delta baggage search limbo. The members were asked to retrieve copies of the catalogs at the Clarke's stand when they are available.

Thorold's has nothing special to report, aside from travel problems, and sends greetings to all.

Concerning future meetings (item no. 8), Deborah LaFond has invited us to Albany for the spring 2002 meeting. The May 1-4 meeting will be hosted by the SUNY-Albany library as well as the African Studies Dept. The events will include a talk on AIDS and a cruise on the Hudson, possibly even a cruise meeting. Deborah mentioned the options of meeting on campus with transportation or at the hotel. The campus meeting site was preferred by the membership. Deborah took the count of members who plan to attend and asked them to refer to her any special needs. The hotel site mentioned is the Best Western closest to campus. Arrival is advised for May 1, with meetings taking place on May 2-3.

As for the spring 2003 meeting, Afeworki Paulos offered the University of Michigan, and Dorothy Woodson offered Yale as possible meetings sites. Since the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana has been suggested as a meeting place, Al Kagan said that he could look into it.

Committee, task force and liaison reports follow (item no. 9).

Deborah LaFond met with the Book Donation Committee, where funds were recommended for various locations in Africa. The ASA Development Committee is making an effort to create an endowment to support these donations, and there is a move to gather up personal collections of scholars to send abroad, emphasizing the partnership aspect of the undertaking. At present, $3,000 has been allocated for purposes of book donations. An increase in funding was denied last year. David Easterbrook mentioned that the Carnegie Endowment has funding to support donations to English-speaking countries. Joe Caruso noted that the ASA Development Committee likes the idea of establishing special endowed funds in individuals' names for book donation.

Greg F., Jill C., and Ruby B.-G. are on the Conover-Porter Committee, and they are calling for nominations of bibliographies and other reference works for this award. Ken Lohrentz encouraged members to submit nominations even with insufficient information. Supporting information, such as reviews, can be added subsequently.

Marion F.-W. stated that the new ALC newsletter was out. An effort will be make to clean up the mailing list, including the mailing of a card to addressees to find out if they preferred the online version of the newsletter or continued mailings of the print version. Joe C. led the members in giving thanks to Marion for her editorship of the newsletter.

Karen F. mentioned that occasional problems of bounced email occur on the ALC listserv when the member makes a mailing from a different email address. Jill C. expressed the members' thanks for all of Karen's work on the listserv.

Raising the issue of ABPR bibliography submissions, Jill C. said that suggestions of new reference titles are welcome.

Reporting on the Cataloging Committee, Joe L. said that the catalogers offered many suggestions for the upcoming Dewey 22 schedules. Joe ran through problems, procedures, and activities of the Africana funnel for proposed subject headings. Progress reports on Africana cataloging at various institutions were received.

Concerning the Bibliography Committee, Ken L. reported that no further meeting was planned for the Conover-Porter Committee until additional nominations are received. Online reference and Title VI issues were raised. Concern was expressed about newly restricted access to government information, resulting in a resolution on freedom of information. There was additional discussion about the collection and distribution of website information.

Jill C. presented Gretchen Walsh's report entitled Opportunities and Challenges in Africana Library Service: a Framework for Cooperation and Development at: http://people.bu.edu/gwalsh/alc-coop.html. This draft was presented for discussion and approval by the membership. It was agreed to include cooperative projects in the text. Much information in Africa remains loosely controlled, and this requires greater emphasis in the report. AFRINUL also requires more emphasis. The updated report will appear on the web, but the membership present in the room was not able to approve the revised document. A call was made for approval, and Phyllis ask for the approval of the latest online version. Peter L. pointed to the value of the document but mentioned the need to correct some repetition of information . There is a need to update this document and to provide an additional document to complement it. There is a need to look at the challenges of Africana librarianship, and further ideas were encouraged. Joe L. cited a need to come to grips with the challenges of Africana librarianship. Greg F. mentioned other elaborations, such as using the ALC website as a forum for discussion, where others are encouraged to add new points of view. Joe C. Said that the document could be entitled a "discussion document" or a "working document", and it could be posted as revised on the website, and this suggestion was approved by the membership. Following discussion and editing, the document will be presented to the Title VI directors.

Beginning the Library of Congress reports (item no. 10), Laverne Page related Beverly Gray's regards and mentioned that Joanne Zellers was recovering from surgery. There was much activity on digitization and on online reference services. The publication Online News relates to this. In the African Section, the ANED homepage has been very active, and Joanne Z. has been involved in this. The CDRS initiative is being actively worked on at the LC Africa Section. Involved with this is much scholarly outreach, lectures and many exhibits, including the ongoing World Treasures exhibit. The publication World of Books includes reviews of books relevant to Africana. Joanne Z. recently hosted a seminar on Malagasy traditions. Recent acquisitions include a nineteenth century inscribed Islamic flag. Recent publications include an illustrated guide in three volumes. Mention was made of the Children's African Book Award. There is a concern about security at the Library of Congress reading room after the recent week-long closing of LC due to an anthrax scare. Jim Armstrong, field director of the LC Islamabad office, will replace Valery Mwalilino as head of Africana Acquisitions on an interim basis while the vacancy is advertised.

Continuing the LC reports, Paul Steere, field director of the Nairobi office, who has been in place for one year, reported a smooth transition. The Nairobi staff is continuing its good work, with an increase of 13% in monographic acquisitions and a decline of 13.4% percent in serials acquisitions due to an unfortunate decrease in serials titles. Productivity on cataloging has increased 22% over the previous year, eliminating the backlog. Paul S. mentioned that he could give further information about individual monographs. The Nairobi office completed 14 acquisition trips to various countries, which involved the collection of 140 kilograms of materials shipped. Paul S. himself has personally made three acquisitions trips. Phyllis B. asked about the Index of Southern and Eastern African Periodicals issued by the Nairobi office. Due to software and server problems, there is a delay in issuing this publication. The Index will be mounted on the LC website, following corrections. Most of the website use is coming from the U.S. Lauris O. brought up the subject of videotape products coming out of Nairobi. Due to a lack of proper video templates in Nairobi, there is a backlog of around 100 videos. Al K. queried about the West Africa operations. Since the Nairobi staff visits the region sporadically, due to problems of travel connections within Africa, the acquisition of West African material has been on a feast or famine basis. Mary Jay questioned Paul S. about the acquisition of books from African publishers with established distribution channels (such as African Books Collective). The purpose of the LC Nairobi office is to provide titles without distribution channels, not to compete with established distribution networks. The LC Nairobi office is established primarily to serve the needs of the Library of Congress, and it also serves a small number of other institutions, 12-14 in number. Phyllis B. again raised the issue of the quarterly Periodical Index. She wondered how the ALC group could help in this effort, perhaps with a letter of support and concern. LC's Judy McDermott expressed understanding for the importance of the Index. It is temporarily offline while operations are transferred from Nairobi to the States for website display. Ruby B.-G. touched upon the subject of participant programs. She does not see any duplication of services in the distribution of materials by LC Nairobi.

James Gentner reported that Valerie M. went on to another job at the Library of Congress, and LC human resources has not yet filled her position. The position will be posted soon, and it will be open to all applicants. The cataloging of newspapers is performed at the LC Nairobi office, a new Voyager user, and there are records in the database for all items acquired, approximately 1,000 newspaper records. There has been no report of any anthrax threat related to the LC Nairobi office. LC Nairobi does not route mailings through the affected Brentwood postal facility. Likewise, there is no indication of anthrax contamination related to the New Delhi office. Due to the disruption of mail deliveries, participants' payments have for the most part not been received by LC. Members should contact James G. and their own payments offices to assure payments. There is the possibility of having one single rate for all programs. There are also problems of vendor contact with LC during the anthrax scare. Joe C. mentioned that sky-rocketing shipping costs also constitute an element in acquisitions from East Africa. Paul S. added that foreign mail rates are already high, but they are not expected to rise much further.

Institutional reports and announcements (item 11).

New Africana librarians were appointed at U. of Michigan and Ohio State

Yale celebrated its 300th anniversary.

Michigan State reported progress on the African Digital Library Repatriation of Historical Documents Project and also on the cataloging of materials in Amharic.

At Stanford, the Hoover Institution has merged its library operations with the Stanford University Libraries system, transferring most of its library staff to Stanford. The digitization project of antique African maps is now in progress.

Georgia State is expanding its African studies program and reports study ties to South Africa, Egypt, and Côte d'Ivoire.

The UCLA library has a new director, Al Roberts. The library is also expanding its online usage through a collection management initiative based on the usage of materials. This initiative will involve the temporary removal of materials.

The U. of Florida and the U. of Botswana have increased their cooperation through a linked association agreement.

U. of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana reported that Yvette Scheven and Tom Bassett have brought out an inventory of books and journals with maps entitled: Maps of Africa to 1900: a Checklist of Maps in Atlases and Geographical Journals in the Collections of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Indiana U. is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its Program of African Studies.

At Cornell, local immigrant groups have been encouraged to fill out census forms.

LC reported a good conclusion to its recent audit.

At Northwestern, Pat Ogedengbe has resumed her work.

Work has begun to establish a California Consortium among University of California and Stanford libraries. Members hope to extend membership to other California college and university libraries.

The U. of Wisconsin-Madison has resumed publications on Africa.

At Widener-Harvard, there has been increased contact with African studies faculty through a visit and a resumption of the study of African languages, necessitating new materials to support the curriculum.

Joe Caruso reported that the ASA board was awarded a $42,000 grant for a project/workshop in African higher education. ASA will explore how it can play a greater role in African education and in exchanges with Africa. They are looking for omeone to plan the colloquium.

Ruby B.-G. called for someone to run for the ALC position on the ASA board. Joe C. mentioned that the nominations committee is accepting names. Any board member may accept nominations.

Ruby B.-G. mentioned the theme for the next ASA meeting: Information Age and African Studies. ALC must organize a pannel discussion. There is sufficient time to plan. Greg F. said that ALC is entitled to two pannels. He suggested: Representation of Africa in GIS Data for next year. Lauris ask how ALC could raise the money for travel and registration fees for the invitees.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00.