Africana Librarians Council
Business Meeting Minutes – Draft
Thursday October 30, 2003, Boston

(Draft: not yet approved by membership)

Helene Baumann (Duke U), Julianne Beale (LC), Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), Phyllis Bischof (UC Berkeley), Simon Bockie (UC Berkeley), Karen Bruns (Human Sciences Research Council), Joe Caruso (Columbia), Jill Coelho (Harvard), Miriam Conteh-Morgan (Ohio State U), John Daniel (Human Sciences Research Council), Henrietta Dax (Clarke’s Bookshop), David Easterbrook (Northwestern), Vickie Evalds, Greg Finnegan (Harvard), Karen Fung (Stanford), Miki Goral (UCLA), Marieta Harper (LC), Bassey Irele (Harvard), Al Kagan (U of Illinois), Esmeralda Kale (Northwestern), Peter Kargbo (NYU), Deborah LaFond (U at Albany), Joe Lauer (Michigan State U), Bob Lesh (Northwestern U), Nancy Pressman Levy (Princeton), Peter Limb (Michigan State U), Ken Lohrentz (U of Kansas), Peter Malanchuk (U of Florida), Edward Miner (U of Iowa), Wonkie Nam (Central State U), Emily Ngo-Nguidjol (U of Wisconsin), Akilah Nosakhere (Atlanta U Center), Patricia Ogedengbe (Northwestern), Benedict Oladele (UCLA), Lauris Olson (U of Pennsylvania), Laverne Page (LC), Afeworki Paulos (U of Michigan), Loumona Petroff (Boston U), Chuck Riley (Yale), Jason Schultz (Northwestern U), Shoshanah Seidman (Northwestern U), Paul Steere (LC Nairobi), Gretchen Walsh (Boston U), David Westley (Boston U), Marion Frank-Wilson (Indiana U), Dorothy Woodson (Yale), Hans Zell

The meeting was called to order at 11:15am by Chair Kagan.

1. 1. Introduction of attendees.
   2. Agenda approved with no changes.
   3. Minutes of April 25, 2003 approved.
   4. Elections. Bell-Gam presented the candidates for office:
   Chair-elect: Marieta Harper (elected)
   Member at Large: Joe Caruso, Karen Fung (elected), Deborah LaFond (elected), Dan Reboussin
   5. ALC Directory. Goral has put the file into an Access Database and will update the information as provided. The updated directory will be loaded to the ALC website.
   6. Memorial volume for Dan Britz. Evalds asked people to turn in their chapters as soon as possible. Scarecrow Press wants the copy by the end of February, 2004.
   7. ASA Publications Committee. Malanchuk reported that History in Africa 2003 issue should be out in November. HIA should be added to JSTOR. Suggestions for new titles to be included in JSTOR should be sent via email to Malanchuk or Caruso. The Chair will write a letter to ASA about the high priority of getting HIA into JSTOR.
   8. Spring meeting locations.
   2004, May 6-8 will be hosted by University of Michigan.
   2005 will be hosted by Northwestern. Possible dates were voted upon: May 5-7 (26 votes), May 12-14 (1 vote)
   2006 will be hosted by Boston.
   2007 possibly at University of Florida
   9. Africana Libraries Newsletter. Frank-Wilson announced that issue #112 will be out in November and the deadline for #113 will be in mid-December.
   10. Bibliography Committee report. Limb reported no action items. One issue to follow is the implications of Africana journals being purchased by large publishers.
   11. Cataloging Committee report. No action items.
   12. Book Donations Committee. Nosakhere is the new chair of the committee; they are looking for a co-chair. They are investigating how to match donors and requestors—possibly electronically. Five projects were recommended to the ASA Development Board. They are working on their webpage.
   13. Conover-Porter Committee report. Finnegan asked for more nominations for the Conover-Porter award. There was discussion about whether websites can be nominated. This issue was referred back to the Committee. Comments should be sent to the listserv.
   14. AFRINUL Report was deferred to the CAMP meeting.
   15. African Book Publishing Record. Coelho asked that reference titles be sent to her. There was discussion of cumulating past issues and publishing the resulting list electronically. There are now 2700+ records in electronic format.
   16. Children’s Africana Book Award. Harper announced that the award luncheon will be held at the Library of Congress on May 1, coordinated by the Library of Congress, African & Middle East Section and the Center for the Book and by African Access.
   17. Archival Holdings Guide. Bischof reported that Introspect software is being used and that Berkeley has put it up [this needs clarification.]
   18. Institutional Reports [please send additions, corrections to this list.]
   • Harvard has a new collection development librarian.
   • Columbia has a new African Studies Reading Room as part of its renovation. There is currently no Africana cataloger.
   • U of Iowa is implementing a grant for a shared digitization project with Balme Library at the University of Ghana.
   • U of Pennsylvania bought AIDS set from California Newsreel that is heavily used.
   • UCLA has a visiting Fulbright Scholar, Benedict Oladele.
   • Clark Atlanta thanked people for signing the petition to save the Clark Atlanta Library School.
   • Indiana has a digitization project for Nuer linguistic materials.
   • LC has a Timbuktu exhibit curated by Marieta Harper.
   • Stanford participated in a Mellon grant pilot project with the Center for Research Libraries to investigate the archiving of political web sites. A directory on African political parties was created as part of the project http://library.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/political-parties-africa.html A directory on the Nigeria 2003 Election was also created. http://library.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/nigeria/nigeriaelection.html
   • Boston U is acquiring “odd” gifts such as ethnographic films.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Miki Goral
Secretary