AFRICAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION

AFRICANA LIBRARIANS COUNCIL

Business Meeting

Chicago, Illinois

Thursday October 29, 1998

1:30-4:00 pm

Minutes: (Final Version)

Present:

Dawn Bastian (Northwestern U), Helene Baumann (Duke U), Julianne Beall (LC), Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), Phyllis Bischof (UC Berkeley), Simon Bockie (UC Berkeley), Dan Britz (Northwestern U), Joe Caruso (Columbia U), Jill Coelho (Harvard), Dan Cook (UW Milwaukee), Henrietta Dax (Clarkes Bookshop), Elli De Rijk (African Studies Centre, Leiden), David Easterbrook (Northwestern U), Greg Finnegan (Harvard), Robin Fryde (Thorold's Bookshop), Karen Fung (Stanford), Miki Goral (UCLA), David Hogarth (Hogarth Books), Mary Jay (African Books Collective), Al Kagan (U. of Illinois, Urbana), Deborah LaFond (SUNY Albany), Joe Lauer (Michigan State U), Louise Leonard (U. of Florida), Bob Lesh (Northwestern U), Lisbeth Levey (PIAC), Margaret Ling (ZIBF), Ken Lohrentz (U of Kansas), Peter Malanchuk, (U. of Florida), Razia Nanji (U. of Florida), Patricia Ogedengbe (Northwestern U), Lauris Olson (U. of Pennsylvania), Hans Panofsky, Afeworki Paulos (University of Iowa), Loumona Petroff (Boston U), Elizabeth Plantz (Northwestern U), Katrien Polman (African Studies Centre, Leiden), Marlys Rudeen (CRL), Mette Shayne (Northwestern U), Ros Sherwin (African Books Collective), Elisabeth Sinnott (NYU), Alan Solomon (Yale University), Andrea Stamm (Northwestern U), Natalia Taylor (Indiana University), Ruth Thomas (LC Nairobi), Catherine Thuku, (LC Nairobi), David Tuffs, (Michigan State U), Lourdes Vasquez (Rutgers U), Gretchen Walsh (Boston U), David Westley (Boston U), Marion Frank Wilson (Indiana University), Milton Wolf (CRL), Joanne Zellers (LC).

1. Welcome, introductions and brief announcements

David Easterbrook, ALC Chair, opened the meeting at 1:30 pm. David introduced new Africana librarians and visitors: Catherine Thuku, Library of Congress Nairobi; Katrien Polman and Elli De Rijk, African Studies Centre, Leiden; Lauris Olson, University of Pennsylvania; Alan Solomon, Yale University; Lourdes Vasquez, Rutgers University; Marion Frank Wilson, Indiana University; Afeworki Paulos, University of Iowa; Dan Cook, UW Milwaukee.

2. Comments on logistics for this meeting

D. Easterbrook explained to the group that despite numerous e-mails to the Secretariat of ASA, ALC was not granted room space for the meeting. The ALC Executive decided to keep the originally planned ALC schedule. ASA reasons for why ASA did not honor room requests for ALC meeting space at the ASA conference site were that there was insufficient space and ALC is not permitted to meet during ASA panels. D. Easterbrook reported this to Sandra Greene who was unaware of any such policy with regard to the ALC. All of this required Easterbrook to find alternative space at Northwestern's Chicago campus. D. Easterbrook will meet with the ASA Board Saturday. He will raise the question, Why was ALC not permitted meeting space? He will also request a formal statement from ASA regarding the support for ALC meeting space.

The ALC membership congratulated and thanked D. Easterbrook on handling an especially difficult situation and for finding alternative accommodations for the ALC meeting.

D. Easterbrook asked for additions to the agenda.

Pat Ogedengbe will add a brief statement.

3. Approval of ALC Business Meeting in Gainesville, Florida

D. Easterbrook requested that the Secretary's questions noted in the Gainesville minutes be addressed by appropriate parties at this meeting and a revised copy be circulated over the listserv within the week. Corrections should be submitted to the Secretary.

4. Future Meetings

*Spring 1999 Library of Congress (29 April- 1 May)

J. Zellers, Chairperson for local arrangements committee, has on hold at the Holiday Inn Capitol 25 hotel rooms. Accommodation options for single and double rooms will be available. This information will go up on the ALC Web page. There are several meeting rooms available. The official ALC meeting is on Friday, April 30th. There is meeting space available on Thursday for task force meetings as well. CAMP is currently scheduled for Saturday. Each committee chairperson is responsible for informing J. Zellers on meeting preferences by Dec. 1st, 1998.

M. Shayne suggested that 1.5 hours is not adequate for meetings and suggested that we ought to plan for longer meeting periods.

*Fall 1999 Philadelphia (11-14 November) Annual ASA meeting

*Spring 2000- UCLA (6-8 April)

R. Bell-Gam and M. Goral, Chairs for local arrangement committee, reported on hotel options for approximately 30 people. Accommodations options include Double Tree Inn, $112.00 per night and the University Guest House near the campus. Members asked if Ruby and Miki could reserve both Wednesday and Thursday nights to accommodate east coast schedules.

5. 1998 nominations committee report and election

A. Kagan and G. Finnegan announced nominations and asked for nominations from the floor for Vice-Chair/ Chair-Elect and Member at-Large. Nominees for Vice-Chair and Chair-Elect are Ruby Bell-Gam and Peter Malanchuk. Nominees for Member at-Large are Miki Goral and Dorothy Woodson.

G. Finnegan announced that those eligible to vote in ALC elections are those with both an expressed interest in being a member of ALC and those who hold current membership in ASA. (Expressed interest can be attendance at the meeting.) The ballot was delivered and collected. A. Kagan and G. Finnegan counted the ballots. Ruby Bell-Gam, UCLA was voted incoming Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect. Miki Goral, UCLA was voted incoming Member at-Large.

6. Brief Reports

* ALC Cataloguing Committee

Liz Plantz reported on the discussion of the Subject Funnel Project. African American librarian groups approached ALC members to see if they could join the project to increase the contribution of African American subject headings. The committee will offer to serve in an advisory role to these groups and encourage them to begin their own project collaborating with the variety of African American librarian groups which exist. It was noted that while there are several ALC members who focus on the African diaspora in their work, region specific research for the current project is labor intensive and demands distinct subject expertise.

* ALC Bibliography Committee

M. Shayne reported that she was pleased that Ken Lohrentz agreed to be the new Chair of the Bibliography Committee. M. Shayne acknowledged visitors from Holland and LC Nairobi and looks forward to future collaboration. M. Shayne reported briefly on a possible proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) "International Digital Libraries Collaborative Research" grant. The deadline for submitting a proposal is January 1999. M. Shayne invited interested persons to work on updating Africana bibliographies and indexes and asked people to contact her.

* ALN Report

J. Lauer reported that hopefully there will be an issue out in November. J. Lauer invited members to come forward to become a new editor for ALN. He suggested that it would be helpful if the person were a Title VI member. Alternative models of maintaining the ALN were discussed including the possibility of creating an editorial board. Reports from this meeting will be in the January issue. D. Easterbrook encouraged new members to survey their institutions and asked members to put out a call for volunteers.

*1998 Conover-Porter Award

J. Caruso announced that the committee met last spring and nominated 10 titles for the Conover Porter Award. J. Caruso distributed the press release describing the awardees and their works. He also announced nominations which received honorable mentions. The two awardees are Amelia Neves de Souto, Guia Bibliografico para o estudante de historia de Mocambique (200/300-1930) and John Mcllwaine, Writings on African Archives. Authors who received honorable mention are John Middleton et al., Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara, Gretchen Walsh, The Media in Africa and Africa in the Media: an annotated bibliography, and Muhammed Haron, Muslims in South Africa: an annotated bibliography. Awardees names were published in the ASA program before the awards were given. J. Caruso will be announcing the winners at 6:00 pm at the ASA Awards Ceremony.

G. Walsh suggested that a statement of appreciation for Hans Zell and his work be stated at the honors ceremony along with a statement of dismay that Bowker Saur has eliminated the publication of Hans Zell monographs. G. Walsh raised the significant issue that this is the 9th Hans Zell reference work selected and honored by Conover-Porter award committee.

Following on the suggestion of G. Walsh, P. Bischof moved that 2 letters from the ALC be drafted and sent. One letter should go to Bowker-Saur expressing dismay over the current situation and reminding Bowker-Saur how many books authored or edited by Hans Zell have been honored by the Conover-Porter awards. A second letter should be addressed directly to Hans Zell acknowledging his work. ALC membership unanimously agreed. It was decided that the Awards Committee will draft letter and forward to D. Easterbrook to approve and send.

M. Goral suggested that another letter be sent to ASA. R. Bell-Gam suggested that an article be drafted for ASA Newsletter to bring this situation to the attention of the scholarly community. G. Walsh seconded Bell-Gam's suggestion to draft a letter to ASA and said she had begun to write a statement to appear in ASR. ALC membership unanimously agreed to send this letter to ASA.

* ASA Publications Committee

Peter Malanchuk, University of Florida, ALC representative to the ASA Publications committee reported on the meeting held on October 28th, 1998. He stated that the ASA publication, African Studies Review Vol 41(1), Volume 41(2) should be out in November.

ASA discussion included the outsourcing of journals, problem areas in terms of publishing and discussion of possible outsourcing publishers. It was reported that getting copy-editing help has been difficult. ASR could go up on a Web site. There could be an increase of $5.00 to our ASA fee in order to promote major conferences. P. Malanchuk requested clarification from the membership regarding what the ALC felt to be his role on that committee.

J. Coelho recommended that another letter be sent from ALC to argue for keeping ASA publishing within an academic, not-for profit organization. J. Caruso will forward to D. Easterbrook his previous letter to Sandra Greene on the matter. D. Easterbrook will raise this issue at the ASA meeting on sponsored organizations as well as at the ASA Business meeting.

* CAMP

Helene Baumann reported that everyone is welcome to attend the 9-1lam CAMP meeting on Friday, October 30^th.

*Book Donations Task Force

G. Walsh reported that there is a newly constituted committee with A. Kagan as Chair. Friday's 7:00am committee meeting will review the book donation procedures and discuss revision of the handbook.

* Title VI

G. Walsh reported on the Senegal filming project. The dissertation project will be reported on at the CAMP meeting.

7. Library of Congress Reports

J. Zellers reported that Mark Sweeny, Head of Newspaper Section, hopes to have the inventory of newspapers posted to the LC Web site by the end of December. LC is planning to migrate to a new online catalog using the "Voyager" Integrated Library Systems software. J. Zellers distributed handouts and discussed changes to the ALC Web site.

Ruth Thomas, LC Nairobi expressed her and her colleagues' gratitude to ALC members for their messages of concern during the time of the Nairobi bombing.

8. ARL Global Resources Project

Union List of African Newspapers

H. Baumann reported that the ULAN grant was submitted and accepted. ALC group thanked H. Baumann, J. Zellers, M. Shayne for their collaborative work and success on obtaining the grant.

AAU/ARL Global Resources Program: Library of Congress Meeting, 24 June 1998

D. Easterbrook was invited to attend the meeting at the Library of Congress. D. Easterbrook referred to his previously submitted report to the listserv and distributed an official report at the meeting. He discussed possible collaboration between ARL Global Resources Project and LC field offices. D. Easterbrook would be happy to answer any questions on the materials he distributed.

9. Zimbabwe International Book Fair Report

M. Ling reported that the ZIBF 99 book fair theme is "Women's Voices - Gender: Books and Development." The Book Fair mission is to support the growth of scholarly publishing in Africa. Upwards of 300 exhibitors plan to attend, 30 more than the previous year. Twenty exhibitors will come from Kenya. The Feminist Press has contributed towards building the momentum for the Book Fair. Books on sale will include African children's books. There will be a buyers and sellers meeting, a seminar at the University of Zimbabwe entitled "Women and the Environment", and many workshops. M. Ling discussed the ALA delegation and encouraged U.S. librarians to help keep the international bridge-building momentum up by encouraging and arranging for U.S. librarian travel incentive programs.

10. African Theses/dissertations feasibility study

L. Levey reported on the Database of African Theses and Dissertations (DATAD) planning meeting in January 1998 also attended by J. Lauer and R. Thomas. Mary Materu-Behista has been assisting on the project.. They are working on a feasibility study for African dissertations. L. Levey has traveled to 16 African universities and is going to Cairo. She hopes to have a final report by the end of December. Originally the project planners envisioned 1500 dissertations to be included in the project but has grown to 3000 dissertations and includes Masters theses. At the rate of 150-250 dissertations generated per year, per university, the project envisions that 20-30,000 records could be developed including retrospective coverage.

D. Britz asked to what extent are the dissertations available and also commented that accessibility is crucial. He asked, "How can it be sustainable without being accessible?"

L. Levey noted that individual theses and dissertations don't necessarily reach the librarians in the particular university where a student may write the dissertation. Also noted was that only 3 of the 140 universities visited have copyright policies. L. Levey is investigating how to make dissertations available. L. Levey will meet with Center Directors and discuss copyright protection issues. She has encountered a good deal of reluctance to release full-text sources and hopes to ensure copyright protection for authors. The 3 year pilot project to include English, French, and Arabic has been deferred. Project planners are considering a CD-ROM project.

R. Bell-Gam asked if the proposal for a CD-ROM product would be full-text or whether it would be a citation and abstracting source? L. Levey responded that complete abstract and citation fields are envisioned. L. Levey indicated that they may consider scanning in the table of contents and bibliographies and that there have been preliminary conversations with UMI. It is possible that some or all of the database may be made available on the Web. L. Levey's report recommends that 3 of the universities must provide full-text on demand.

J. Zellers and K. Lohrentz raised the possibility of including other groups such as CODESRIA, the African Economic Research Consortium and Organization of Social Science Research in East Africa, (OSSREA). L. Levey has discussed the project with all other groups but hadn't thought of CRL because it is not an African University. Levey said she would be interested in the pilot project and that it would be worth considering. J. Caruso commented that he thought this type of building trust between institutions is very productive.

11. Area Handbooks country study update

D. Easterbrook spoke with Robert Worden, Library of Congress, regarding ALC concerns over possible cessation of Area Handbooks. R. Worden told David that funding has ceased for the program. J. Zellers shared information on those handbooks in preparation that were nearing completion. They include Cameroon, Rwanda, Burundi. Robert Worden suggested that if the ALC wanted to write it should do so to Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and member of the Joint Committee on the Library. J. Caruso said we must do something. D. Easterbrook said he would put info out to the list on contacting Senator Stevens and committee.

P. Malanchuk suggested a group of letters with copies going to the Secretary of Defense would be effective.

12. Announcements, brief reports and other business

* African Books Collective Ltd. (ABC) is launching a commercial Web site.

* Henrietta Dax has 2 catalogues at the Clarkes Bookshop exhibit booth. It includes approximately 1000 new books on South Africa and Mozambique. The paper copy of the South African "Truth and Reconciliation Report" is now available for purchase through Clarkes Bookshop.

Pat Ogedengbe conveyed expressed delight from the Librarian at the University of Jos who received books as a result of the ASA Book Donation program.

The ALC membership expressed its gratitude to D. Easterbrook for his successful handling of all the problems which arose in organizing this meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 4:00 pm.

Respectfully submitted by Deborah M. LaFond