MOLLAS Meeting Minutes

SALALM 52

April 27, 2007

*********Draft*******

Attendance: José Almeida (visitor), Paloma Celis-Carbajal, Marsha Forys, Luis González, Nelly González, Marne Grinolds, Jana Krentz, Nerea LLamas (Recorder), Rafael Tarragó, Scott Van Jacob, Mary Jo Zeter (Convener),

The Minutes from our previous meeting at SALALM in Santo Domingo (2006) were reviewed. Scott had changes to suggest, but opted to send them later via email.

Action: Scott will send changes via email.

Agenda:

Website

Mary Jo sent an update about MSU’s lending policy to Emily at Kansas. Rafael has updated information from New Mexico State University.

Action: Rafael will send Emily the NMSU updates.

Minimal Level Expectations

This topic was carried over from the Santo Domingo meeting. Members again agreed that there is a reasonable expectation of participation from group members.

Action: Mary Jo will draft a letter to be sent to non-participating MOLLAS representatives.

Membership

The conversation turned to whether or not Cathy Marsicek (UNM) would begin a new regional group. Cathy was not present and there was no other information available. The question arose as to whether or not Cathy had the authority to remove UNM from MOLLAS or if the decision should be made by Library Administration. NMSU & UNM will continue as members of MOLLAS until further notice.

Multi-media

Paloma asked about interlibrary loan of videos and wondered how others deal with the issue of archival copies. Discussion ensued about copyright. Kansas makes copies of Dvds and circulates the copies, keeping the originals as archival copies.

Consortial Agreements

Bibliografia de la Literatura Española : Mary Jo successfully arranged for a consortial offer for this product. MSU & Iowa subscribed.

EcoAmericas: Mary Jo put this title on the agenda, but later decided it was not a good candidate for consortial purchase. The group agreed. Nelly commented that it wasn’t very scholarly and wondered about its use. This led to further discussion about content. Mary Jo is still considering a purchase for MSU.

El País: Mary Jo sent a letter to Prisacom requesting consortial pricing for El País Online. There was no response.

Action: No further action will be taken.

Rafael suggested we negotiate for Latinobarometro, but the consensus was that it would be better for LARRP to negotiate.

Nelly suggested the Hispanic Experience, which is part of the larger American Experience.

Action: Rafael will take the lead in contacting the publisher.

OCLC Collection Analysis Tool

Luis has worked with the tool and shared his experience and some of database’s limitations. Luis provided copies of his collection report as well as a graph. This was part of a library-wide project to define Indiana’s collection strengths. Luis compared holdings for Latin American & Iberia to the rest of Indiana’s collection as well as to collections in peer institutions.

Scott asked Luis to circulate the Social Science divisions he used in defining his search to help others create reports.

It was suggested that the Collection Analysis Tool could be used cooperatively.

Action: We should continue to discuss this in future meetings.

Annual Meeting

Wisconsin has offered to host the meeting, but participants would have to pay for their own travel.

Scott proposed meeting around an issue/project like the Collection Analysis Tool. Nelly suggested populism [??]. Mary Jo suggested a theme like popular culture or film as a cooperative collection development project. Paloma suggested creating a database of film titles held in our libraries. The database would have to have unique search parameters that do not duplicate our OPACs.

Action: We will continue discussing a theme to present to potential host institutions on the mailing list.

Marsha asked why we need to meet face-to-face and suggested we find alternative forms of meeting. The group then discussed results of past meetings that would not be possible in another forum.

CLACSO Online Archive Cataloging

Scott suggests looking into this project and making recommendations. Luis has already approached his technical services department about cataloging e-resources. He learned that Serial Solutions may expand into cataloging records for e-books.

Action: Nerea will follow up with the cataloging department at UM about their progress on cataloging these materials.

Institutional Reports…

Iowa – Marsha Forys

UI Libraries (general)

• Received a 5% increase for the acquisitions budget. The cumulative effect of inflation for existing commitments and demand for new resources resulted in the decision to cut journal subscriptions by approximately $225,000.

• Storage (Archival) facility planning. Working groups have been set up. Architect has been chosen and they’re looking for a site.

Latin American Studies-Related Activities and Happenings

• Undertook a journal cancellation project for funds. Also, an attempt is being made to move some subscriptions from print + electronic to electronic only. My target cancellation figures were $350 (spanport) and $700 (latamst).

• Because we moved our US/UK approval plan from Blackwell to YBP, set up profiles for my funds. Began using YBP in January ‘07.

• 1 new Latin American Studies faculty member in fall 2006. Met with and gave a tour to three candidates for a faculty position in the Dept of Spanish & Portuguese. The search was successful and the faculty member will begin working at Iowa in fall 2007.

• Purchased Pedro Lastra’s collection of letters from Latin American authors to strengthen our Latin American special collections. http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC850/MsC844/MsC_844pedrolastra.htm

• Became a “point person” for Latino/a collections

• Set up trials of some expensive sources. Added two of them to the collection Bibliografía de la literature española desde 1980 and Life & Times of Jorge Luis Borges.

• Participated in the Main Library’s weeding of duplicates project by looking at possible discards to determine if they should be kept.

• As I learned of free, open-access journals in my subject areas, requested that they be put into InfoHawk and the E-journals page. Examples include Anthurium, A Caribbean Studies Journal.

• Located and had sources added to these Resources by Subject pages on the Libraries’ website: Latin American Studies, Spanish Literature,

· Suggested that the Libraries be involved in some way in the April ’07 Borges symposium. To that end, arranged a meeting between faculty and Special Collections librarians. The result of the meeting will be a book exhibit and a reception, both to be in Special Collections.

Instructional Services Provided

• Prepared for and taught a total of 35 course-related instruction sessions reaching 594 undergraduate and 13 graduate students. 11 of the 35 were new class preparations. The department breakdown was: Spanish & Portuguese, 23 sessions, of which I conducted 11 in the Spanish language; Health & Sport Studies, 1; History, 5; Journalism/Mass Communication, 5; Communication Studies, 1.

• Gave 1 one-hour workshop for 18 new Dept. of Spanish & Portuguese TAs.

Miscellaneous

· Am a HAPI (Hispanic American Periodicals Index) indexer, responsible for reading and indexing 6 journals.

Campus environment

· Failed presidential search in the fall that led to a vote of no confidence in the Board of Regents by the Faculty Senate and other groups. A new search committee was formed and is working right now.

Indiana – Luis González

Indiana has a new President. The Library has filled numerous positions and there has been a noticeable turnover of library staff.

Indiana received a $500,000 increase to its collection budget, which does not cover inflation. Humanities and Social Sciences have taken a 6% cut in monographs and the Sciences have cut 6% in journals.

Luis received Title VI funding for library materials, $15,000 for the first year and $10,000 for the following 3 years. Funds will be spent on programs outlined on the handout Luis passed around in the meeting.

IU Scholar Works, IU’s institutional repository, launched a year and a half ago. Copyright remains an issue. Some selectors are contacting publishers to inquire about rights and permissions policies. Luis will compile data to share with faculty to encourage them to contribute to the repository.

Ohio – Marne Grinolds

Ohio subscribed to PRISMA and Fuente Académica (through OhioLINK) and purchased the Guatemala New Archive and Info Bureau on microfilm.

Marne is working on a project to enhance the Portuguese literature and Brazilian collections since there are new emphases on campus in these areas.

Other library activities include building renovation; a work redesign; search for a new dean; and a redesign of the collection allocation formula. The library also is expecting a $12,000,000 budget deficit next year.

Marne also has a couple of new roles. She is now selector for linguistics and in charge of distance education.

Kansas – Jana Krentz

Kansas has a new Provost and new Dean of Libraries, who was formerly at Bowling Green University. The previous Dean had been unpopular with the faculty and library staff. Jana welcomed the new Dean with a portfolio that discussed the Area Studies collections. As a result, Area Studies will move to a new space on the 5^th floor and was elevated to a branch library with Jana serving as the head. The 5^th floor space will be renovated and will include a seminar room for film viewing.

Kansas has a new Africana librarian.

In budget news, Jana has a $5,000 grant to buy films this year. She has had to cut serials by 12% over the last 2 years.

The Latin American Studies Center lost Title VI funding this year, but they are looking at this in a positive light. Given the restriction of Title VI funding, they expect to have more freedom without it.

Jana received a teaching award. She is the first librarian to do so.

Notre Dame – Scott Van Jacob

Scott has put together an exhibit of literary manuscripts.

They have purchased 310 Manuel Puig letters and 30 official documents from Uruguay.

Scott plans to create a Latin American Independence web site for the 200^th anniversary in 2010.

Scott is using the WorldCat analysis tool to purchase $100,000 of history materials for the collection.

University of Wisconsin – Paloma Celis-Carbajal

Wisconsin joined the Google project. Documents will the first collection to be digitzed as will anything pre-1923 held by the Wisconsin Historical Society. In terms of Latin American materials, they may work with University of Texas to create a complimentary collection.

Wisconsin has changed English language vendors from Yankee to Blackwell.

In librarian news, the English Language & Literature selector and the Campus Coordinator for Library Instruction are retiring. Wisconsin has a new Social Studies Librarian as well as a new African Studies position.

There will be a cancellation project over the summer.

The Library acquired Library Press Display (ProQuest), which they will try for 2 years before reevaluating it.

Paloma is working on a project to digitize Eloisa Cartonera covers and titles pages to provide better/ expanded access to the collection. Metadata will be created according to Dublin Core and the project will include an introductory essay. It should be available by the end of 2007.

Paloma is also organizing a digitization project between UW and the University of Lisbon, which will probably include 16^th century materials. They are looking for grants to fund the project, so the scope is not yet defined

Minnesota – Rafael Taragó.

Minnesota’s collection budget was increased. Rafael has begun new approval plans.

New faculty at Minnesota are interested in film. Rafael has received $5,000- $10,000 to build the Latin American film collection.

A 16^th century document, which contains minutes of a 1582 meeting to discuss the encomiendos was added to the Ibero-American Digitization Project.

Rafael published an annotated bibliography, titled Los kurakas : una bibliografía anotada (1609-2005) de fuentes impresas sobre los señores andinos en Perú y Alto Perú entre 1533 y 1825 and sent copies to MOLLAS members. (Thank you, Rafael !)

University of New Mexico – José Almeida

Our guest from UNM talked about his project to develop a harvester that would mine data from Latin American repositories in Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil.

Michigan State University – Mary Jo Zeter

Mary Jo received a 12% increase to her budget for Latin American materials. Special purchases this year include Brazilian chap books, La Licorne and the Códice Murúa. MSU’s library has also subscribed to Newspaper Direct and Library Press Display (ProQuest).

MSU has a new Brazilian Portuguese faculty member and a second position has been approved for next year.

Mary Jo is working on an exhibit of pre-hispanic meso-american cultures.

University of Illinois – Nelly González

The Illinois Library is going through a process of consolidation.

There is an emphasis on campus to prioritize global studies.

Nelly’s budget has remained the same.

Nelly is working on the "Black experience in the Caribbean and Latin America" database. It will be freely available online by the end of 2007.

The Center for Latin American Studies developed a travelling exhibit that went to small public libraries in Illinois. It was meant to address concerns that small towns in Illinois knew little about Latin American.

There will be a Caribbean exhibit at the Spurlock Museum beginning in January 2008.

Nelly is continuing her work on the Gabrial García Márquez database.