Africana Librarians Council Business Meeting
Minutes
November 11, 2004
New Orleans Marriott
Lygia Ballantyne (LC), Helene Baumann (Duke U), Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), Phyllis Bischof (UC Berkeley), Simon Bockie (UC Berkeley), Jill Coelho (Harvard), Andrew de Heer (Schomburg), David Easterbrook (Northwestern), Gregory Finnegan (Harvard), Robin Fryde (Frank Thorold Booksellers), Karen Fung (Stanford), Miki Goral (UCLA), Marieta Harper (LC), Al Kagan (U of Illinois), Esmeralda Kalé (Northwestern), Deborah LaFond (U at Albany), Joe Lauer (Michigan State U), Bob Lesh (Northwestern U), Peter Limb (Michigan State U), Ken Lohrentz (U of Kansas), Peter Malanchuk (U of Florida), Gary Marquardt (U of Wisconsin), Edward Miner (Iowa), Emilie Ngo-Nguidjol (U of Wisconsin), Afeworki Paulos (U of Michigan), Lauris Olson (U of Pennsylvania), Patricia Ogedengbe (Northwestern), Laverne Page (LC), Loumona Petroff (Boston U), Kate Schroeder (Indiana U), Jason Schultz (Georgia State U), Shoshanah Seidman (Northwestern U), James T. Simon (CRL), Paul Steere (LC Nairobi), Gretchen Walsh (Boston U), David Westley (Boston U), Marion Frank-Wilson (Indiana U), Dorothy Woodson (Yale)
1. Welcome and Introductions. The meeting was called to order at 2:52pm by Chair Gretchen Walsh.
2. The minutes from the Spring 2004 meeting in Ann Arbor were approved.
3. Election of Officers. The Nomination/Election Committee, Deborah LaFond and Karen Fung presented the slate of candidates (winners marked with *):
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:
Bob Lesh
Lauris Olson*Secretary:
Margaret Hughes
Esmeralda Kalé*Member-at-Large:
Patricia Ogedengbe
Dan Reboussin*
4. Committee Reports
5. ALN. Frank-Wilson announced that issue 116 is out but not yet mailed. She is looking for a new editor (or co-editors) to take over. The budget for publishing and mailing ALN is about $3000/year. This funding is provided by the editor’s institution, so if there were co-editors, each institution would only have to contribute $1500.
6. Title VI. Frank-Wilson reported about the Area Studies Directors meeting. Although the Title VI librarians had agreed to raise the annual contribution to CAMP (?) to $2000/yr from the previous $1500, several institutions did not do so because of budget constraints. The Directors encouraged Title VI librarians to insert themselves into the Aluka Project. They also suggested that the appellation Title VI be changed to National Resource Center. Bell-Gam reported that we are already working with Aluka.
7. LC Report. Page announced that the full report would be sent out on email in the week of November 15. Staff changes at LC include Jennifer Douglas as the new head of the African Section; hiring an Amharic language cataloger; the John W. Kluge Center has two fellows working on Africana topics. The Country Studies series will be re-instated, with Sudan being the first one to be updated. The Library of Congress will host the 2004 Children's Africana Book Awards on May 1, 2004.
8. CAMP. Bell-Gam gave a preview of the meeting agenda for November 12. A major issue to be discussed is the proposal to establish a subcommittee structure to do the work of CAMP.
9. Future ALC meetings. Spring, 2005 will be at Northwestern University, May 5-7, 2005. Fall 2005 will be in Washington DC, with a possible joint program with the Middle East Librarians Association, whose meeting overlaps with ASA. Spring 2006 will be at Boston University, with the dates being decided at the Spring 2005 meeting.
10. ALC Roundtables. The Roundtable on Collection Development (held on November 11 at 9am), originally planned for various vendors, focused mainly on LC Nairobi services. The consensus was that the session was useful. The group did feel it was useful, but that it should probably be held even earlier in the day so that it would be easier for vendors to come, and have a few vendors as primary speakers responding to a question or short list of questions provided beforehand. There should also be some time for general vendor announcements.
The second was the Roundtable on Issues in Africana Librarianship, which turned into an excellent program on digital projects in partnership with African libraries. This was also deemed useful, and although the original conception had been broader, there are certainly enough digital projects out there to make it a theme of future sessions.
There was some discussion, but no decision, on whether it was better to have this roundtable be scheduled within the ALC calendar or as an ASA panel.
11. ALC relations with other organizations and projects. There will be some discussion about this at the CAMP meeting on November 12. ASA can be supportive of some ALC activities, such as bringing African librarians to the fall meetings as international visitors. ALC members must follow the guidelines and deadlines of ASA (available on the ASA web site). ALC members are encouraged to contribute to the ASA endowment fund, which is the only source of funding for established ASA programs such as International Visitors and the Book Donation Awards. Expansion of existing programs and undertaking of new initiatives depend on increasing the endowment fund. The ASA Executive Director has been invited to the Spring 2005 meeting, but her schedule has not been confirmed.
12. ASA Publications Committee. Malunchuk reported that all four ASA journals (African Studies Review, History in Africa, African Issues, ASA News) are now in JSTOR and the current issues will be in Project Muse.
13. Ogedengbe asked for contributions of books to be sent to the University
of Jos. They can be sent to
University of Jos Library
Bauchi Road
Jos, Nigeria
c/o Pastor Donnie Plemons
Grace Bible Fellowship
1535 36th Ave
Moline IL 61265
14. Announcements. Kagan reported that an ACAS resolution on the study of Africa will be presented at the ASA Business Meeting. Ngo-Nguidjol reported that the African Literature Association has compiled a list of awards for African authors, which she will email to the listserv.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:53pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Miki Goral
Secretary