Bibliography Committee of the Africana Librarians Council

Minutes

Philadelphia, November 10, 1999.

Present:Helene Baumann (Duke U), Julianne Beall (LC), Ruby Bell-Gam (UCLA), Phyllis Bischof (UC Berkeley), Simon Bockie (UC Berkeley), Joe Caruso (Columbia U), Moore Crossey (Yale), Andrew de Heer (NYPL), David Easterbrook (Northwestern), Greg Finnegan (Harvard), Karen Fung (Stanford), Miki Goral (UCLA), Beverly Gray (LC), Marieta Harper (LC), Al Kagan (U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Patricia Kuntz (Indiana U), Deborah LaFond (SUNY Albany), Joe Lauer (Michigan State U), Bob Lesh (Northwestern U), Ken Lohrentz (U of Kansas), Peter Malanchuk (U. of Florida), Wonki Nam (Central State Univ), Razia Nanji (U of Florida), Afeworki Paulos (Iowa), Lauris Olson (U. of Pennsylvania), Loumona Petroff (Boston U), Elizabeth Plantz (Northwestern), James T. Simon (CRL), Elisabeth Sinnott (NYU), Janet Stanley (Smithsonian), Ruth Thomas (LC Nairobi), Gretchen Walsh (Boston U), David Westley (Boston U), Marion Frank Wilson (Indiana U), Dorothy Woodson (SUNY/Buffalo), Joanne Zellers (LC)

I. Welcome

The meeting was called to order at 4:00pm by Chair Ken Lohrentz. Introductions were made.

II. Minutes of the April 30, 1999 meeting held at Washington, D.C. were accepted as corrected. They will be sent to the Webmaster at LC.

III. Announcements

P. Malanchuk, ALC Liaison to the ASA Publications Committee, asked for input in preparation for the committee meeting.

K. Lohrentz announced that the 2000 Conover-Porter Award for Africana Bibliography or Reference Work will be presented at the ASA meeting in Nashville. He asked people to submit nominations for the award. The Award Committee comprises the ALC Chair and the two ALC Immediate Past Chairs. They will make a report to the Spring ALC meeting and the award will be announced at the Fall meeting. J. Zellers, as ALC Chair, has been invited to the ASA Awards meeting. The Conover Porter guidelines are on the ALC website.

G. Walsh reported that Hans Zell has an agreement with James Currey to market his last few publications by Saur.

IV. ALC Web page As of November 1, 1999, J. Zellers will become the webmaster.

a. Bibliography Committee minutes will be kept online for foreseeable future to provide access for new members and officers.

b. Changes will be submitted to the ALC page webmaster through the Committee Chair.

c. K. Lohrentz suggested contacting Bowker to see if we can get the chapter on Africa from the 10th edition of Bill Katz's Magazines for Libraries to be included on the ALC Web page. Katz has agreed to serve as advocate and provided the name of Judith Salk as contact person at Bowker.

d. J. Zellers suggested contacting Saur about mounting the African Book Publishing Record section "Africana Reference Works: An Annotated List of ...Titles , always in the 2d issue

e. L. Olson suggested sending notices to H-Africa when we add new resources to the ALC Web page. P. Malanchuk amended this to include sending notice to ALC also.

f. A. Kagan suggested that the publishers might be more amenable to giving us the text of the next to current edition for mounting on our Web site.

g. G. Finnegan suggested including articles that discuss standards of good bibliography and reference works, such as those written by D. Henige, for the Web site.

ACTION: ALC will send inquiries to Bowker, Saur and ALA (Guide to Reference Works, 11th ed. Robert Balay, ed.)

V. Bibliography Projects

a. G. Walsh reported that the Title VI position paper prepared last spring for the Title VI directors has been revised to a more generic document which can be used as an ALC working document -- Opportunities and Challenges in Africana Library Service: A Framework for Cooperation and Development. It will be posted on the internal web at BU for comment and will be updated with a few more suggestions. The distribution of the final version will be on the ALC Web site with a notice sent to ASA News.

b. African Database Connection --- Discussion about the project, a culmination of many discussions on indexing new titles, consolidating existing databases, and making the information available to scholars and students. There will be a meeting to discuss ADC on November 12 at 7:45am.

c. J. Lauer asked for opinions about whether he should contact NISC about his thesis database. He still plans to also put it on his web site.

d. D. Easterbrook announced that Bibliography of African Language Books in the Herskovitz collection will be published in 2000. These 11,000 items are not currently accessible except in a card catalog.

e. A. Kagan announced that Yvette Scheven just finished a bibliography of maps of Africa in books at the University of Illinois library.

f. D. Wiley is almost finished with a bibliography of films by and about Africa, with reviews, which will be put on the web.

g. K. Lohrentz reported on an idea for a new project. Bill Katz has invited someone from ALC to edit or co-edit an issue of Reference Librarian or Acquisitions Librarian (both from Haworth). These issues also get published as monographs.

h. A. Paulos announced that the Electronic Journal of African Bibliography has two new bibliographies online.

i. The new edition of African newspapers currently received by American libraries was distributed. A related work, African newspapers no longer received at Northwestern University, and selected other institutions, was also distributed. Both lists were compiled by Mette Shayne.

VI. ASA Publications Committee

P. Malunchuk will present the position of ALC that the ASA Press should be sustained.

VII. Institution Report

D. Easterbrook reported that 77 of 400 digitized posters are now on the web. Northwestern is looking for foundation support to digitize 3000 posters. Mette Shayne's position was abolished upon her retirement. Bob Lesh will be assuming responsibility for Francophone acquisitions.

The meeting adjourned at 5:45 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Miki Goral