Friday, April 27, 2001
Indiana Memorial Union, Walnut Room

Present: Dorothy Ansart (Indiana), Helene Baumann (Duke U), Phyllis Bischof (UC Berkeley), Simon Bockie (UC Berkeley), Joe Caruso (Columbia), Jill Coelho Harvard), Andrew DeHeer (Schomburg Center), David Easterbrook (Northwestern), Greg Finnegan (Harvard), Karen Fung (Stanford), Miki Goral (UCLA), Marieta Harper (LC), Patricia Kuntz (U of Wisconsin-SLIS), Deborah LaFond (SUNY Albany), Joe Lauer (Michigan State U), Bob Lesh (Northwestern U), Peter Limb (Michigan State U), Peter Malanchuk (U of Florida), Judy McDermott (LC), Edward Minor (U of Indiana), Valentine Muyumba (Indiana State U), Akilah Nosakhere (Georgia State U), Lauris Olson (U of Pennsylvania), Loumona Petroff (Boston U), Dan Reboussin (U of Florida), James T. Simon (CRL), Paul Steere (LC Nairobi), Margie Struthers (U of Cape Town), 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 by Phyllis Bischof, who chaired the meeting in the absence of Ken Lohrentz, who was unable to attend.

2. Approval of minutes of the fall meeting, Nashville. Minutes were approved with minor revisions.

3. No additions to the Agenda.

4. Announcements

• a. Conover-Porter Award. Dissemination of the request for nominations are to go out by July 1 for the 12th biennial award for publications issued in 1999-2001. It was suggested to send the announcement for nominations to International Leads, ASA News, ALC Listserv, AFLib-list, H-Africa, AAMES (ALA section).
• b. ALC Web update. Two sources have been submitted to Joanne for mounting on the Web, in accordance with the fall report. Karen Fung has volunteered to serve as liaison for electronic info. sources. ALA payment requirement (item ubmitted to ALC Exec for discussion)

5. Union list of Africana Microforms (Bischof & Simon) James Simon has entered into an Access database a substantial number [507] of entries culled from CAMP holdings, merged with David Henige's list, lists from the University of Illinois, UC Berkeley, Stanford, the Graduate Theological Union Library, and others. James brought a laptop to Bloomington to demonstrate progress of the database, seeking discussion and input. At present we think of the union list as a guide to primary source archives, e.g. special collections in microform, these large --and sometimes small --collections which are hard to find in online catalogs or any catalogs, but so useful for historical research on many topics. We collectively know about them but don't know who has them and often can't remember exact citations in order to find them. Since our patrons do not have our collective knowledge, this online bibliography is intended to help them identify these tough-to-identify, often massive collections.

6. ABPR Update. Coelho is editing the 2001 version of "Africana Reference Works: An Annotated List of 2000 Titles," to appear in the African Book Publishing Record. At present the group of ALC co-compilers includes Bischof, Bockie, Coelho, Lesh, and Malanchuk. Please send citations to Coelho, or to any member of the group, for inclusion in this annual bibliography.

7. Africana Librarianship and African Émigré Communities in the U.S. There are several aspects to this topic. First was a discussion about how to include librarians from émigré communities in ALC activities. One pro-active action we can take is to nvite those in the area of the ALC and ASA meetings to join us. The second issue was collecting material published by the émigré communities. Easterbrook spoke of a concern in Chicago (both in the public library and in schools) about acquiring reading material in African languages for the émigré communities. Although collecting the locally published newspapers and other publications is difficult, there is discussion with the Chicago Historical Association about this. Kuntz reported that Jim Danky (State Historical Society of Wisconsin) is collecting African Diaspora newspapers. Olson suggested sending names of these publications to Ethnic NewsWatch for possible inclusion in that product. A third issue is how to respond to questions for assistance from attorneys working on political asylum/immigration cases. Walsh suggested partnering with the Political Asylum Research and Documentation Service in Princeton http://www.pards.org/phome.html. Walsh and Finnegan will work on a guide for responding to these questions.

8. Unprocessed U.S. State Dept. lot files at NARA. Olson distributed information about these files which may be found on the web at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/lotfiles/

9. Bibliographies completed, in progress, or contemplated.

• Books In African Languages In The Melville J. Herskovits Library Of African Studies, Northwestern University; A Catalog. Compiled By David W. Bade. Evanston: Northwestern University Program Of African Studies, 2000. 1045 pages. PAS Working Paper, No. 8. Lists 10,600 publications includes short title, name, language and country indexes. Available for $65 ($60 for the publication, $5 for shipping) from:

Publications
Program of African Studies
Northwestern University
620 Library Place
Evanston, IL 60208-4110

• Marion Frank-Wilson is working on a book on travel writing by Africans. This will be an anthology that will also result in a bibliography.
• Deborah LaFond is working on a bibliography on gender and AIDS.
• Greg Finnegan is contemplating a bibliography of translations in HRAF (Human Relations Area Files).
• Lauris Olson mentioned ERIC as a source for guides to "uncommonly taught languages" (ERIC descriptor).
• Joe Lauer announced that he will continue producing the Dissertation List, although it was dropped from the latest issue of ASA News. There was discussion on how to disseminate it. Caruso (member of ASA Board) and Malanchuk (member of ASA Publications Committee) both reported that the list is highly regarded by ASA members. Lauer will continue to submit it to ASA for inclusion in ASA News.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:15pm

Respectfully submitted,
Miki Goral