~ B & D Committee Meeting Minutes ~

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I. Call to order, introductions, brief announcements

Miranda Remnek (UIUC) opened the meeting at 8.00 a.m.

II. Transitions

There were several this year, among them retirements. Three librarians were presented with framed certificates of recognition: Mary Stevens of University of Toronto (presented by M. Remnek), Murlin Croucher of Indiana University (presented by B. Schaffner), and Hugh Olmsted of Harvard College Library (presented by J. Crayne).

III. B and D Committee Report

1. New website. B and D now has a new website at the University of Illinois (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/spx/BnD/index.htm) that will be linked to the AAASS site. It lists subcommittee memberships, and websites where available. It also lists resources like the Pre-conference Digital Resources Workshop program, and AAASS library panels, and is open to other listings.


2. New Subcommittees. B and D was able to secure approval from the AAASS Executive Board on May 31, 2005 for the conversion of our working groups on Copyright Issues and Digital Projects to permanent subcommittees.


3. Letter to Oxford. Concerning B and D’s detailed letter of May 2005 questioning the reconfiguration of the Slavic collections and libraries at Oxford: the people involved felt that our letter helped achieve a reasonable solution.


4. World Congress in Berlin. At the World Congress in Berlin (July 2005) a reception was held at the National Library for which B and D assembled extensive organizational and financial support. Attended by about 50 people, it was very useful in bringing librarians together. Hopefully there will be a preconference before the next ICCEES in Tumba, Sweden. Also in Berlin Miranda met with the editorial team of EBSEES, including the new editor, Gerame Wouters, and interest has been expressed in merging with ABSEES.

   The Pre-conference Workshop on Digital Resources, sponsored bienially by B and D, was coordinated by Miranda and held on Thursday morning of the conference in a nice facility with up-to-date equipment. There were 20 registrations and comments from attendees were complimentary. The sessions were excellent.

   The goal was to provide an introduction to faculty, and yet half of the attendees were librarians. Any suggestions about how to bring in faculty? Future workshops should have:

   • 2 coordinators including a person handling local arrangements
   • If there is no obvious local person, eliminate the hands-on instruction
   • If hands-on is available, have three sessions in one lab instead of concurrent ones in two labs…
   • Generic titles will communicate the content to people and will avoid confusion, for example, “Digital Resources for History.”
   • Timing is a problem, because a Thursday preconference requires people to stay an extra day. But a workshop during the conference conflicts with conference sessions. Perhaps the best solution is to have the workshop from 12-3, so that attendees fly in that morning, and attend the entire conference.

5. New Committee Members. B and D needs two new committee members. Interested people should talk with Miranda.

IV. Reports of B& D subcommittees

1. Subcommittee on ABSEES (Terri Miller). Terri Miller reported that the Subcommittee met on Thursday with 8 attendees (2 members). ABSEES has been transferred to EBSCO. They asked EBSCO about pricing, and were told that the increase would be nominal for next year. UIUC moved their work from Procite to MS-SQL, to make future input less labor intensive. Indexers are 4 graduate students, an editor and volunteers-EBSCO royalties pay for some of the costs of labor and technology. The editor will be leaving at the end of the academic year. The focus for the year is subject headings and gaps. Their goal is to have the entire backfile digitized; this will take a minimum of one year, but preliminary plans are already being made. UIUC data is being loaded monthly by EBSCO. The Subcommittee is considering turning into an editorial board in order to do more with the database, such as looking at thoroughness of coverage and subject headings. They are looking at increased activity and a larger number of members. EBSEES has expressed an interest in merging with ABSEES, which is in the early stages of negotiation.


2. Subcommittee on Collection Development (Michael Brewer). Michael Brewer reported that they have four members. The main activity in the last 2 years is a database of suppliers. It is now finished and at the University of Arizona website http://aquarius.library.arizona.edu/slavvend/. The Committee encourages additions and corrections. Possible future projects include:
   1. Jared’s survey on how responsibilities are divided in our libraries.
   2. They could also do a more detailed report using OCLC Software to compare collections.
   3. Establish a Listserv or other technology to provide discussion space for specific issues, such as acquisitions.
   4. He encourages the publication of reports from these proceedings.
   5. Miranda encourages putting such information up on the B and D website.
   6. He suggested that next year we should have a separate business meeting for B and D to discuss things like the future of this (Collection Development) committee.

   Miranda introduced Professor David Birnbaum from the University of Pittsburgh, who represents teaching faculty on B and D.

3. Subcommittee on Copyright Issues (Janice Pilch). Janice Pilch welcomes additional members to the committee. The Committee serves as an information resource, providing informal non-legal assistance. Activities include
   1. Development of a website. The goal is to have it up by spring, 2006 at University of Arizona.
   2. Stay on top of copyright queries and their analysis. Janice has answered 88 queries so far.
   3. Plan conference programs, for example this year they had a roundtable on copyright.
   4. Next year the panel will be more scholarly. The year after that will cover copyright in practice
   5. Other future programs could include permissions.
   6. Both Janice and Michael are on the ALA Copyright Advisory group. A copyright network will be launched at ALA Midwinter (www.librarycopyright.net). Janice handles the international questions in that group.
   7. The group is also monitoring listservs.
   8. Faculty are definitely interested in the Committee’s activities.
   9. Setting up a FAQ on the website is a goal.

4. Subcommittee on Digital Projects (Miranda Remnek, Andrew Spencer). Andy Spencer co-chairs the group with Miranda Remnek and reported that it is thinking of changing its name to describe its functions more broadly. He listed the current members and thanked former members.

   The Group now has a website at Illinois: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/spx/BnD/DigPro.htm.

   Originally the group had five areas of interest: documentation of projects (inventory), vendor relations, information sharing, training, and institutional repositories. For the time being they are focusing on the first 4.

   The inventory is already up at the Illinois site. It is keyword searchable in both English and in Cyrillic. Advanced search is not ready yet, but the browse function is already available for projects and collections by name of project, creator, digital process, goal of project, subject, chronological focus, geographic focus, language, and original format. The inventory currently contains approximately 100 projects and 240 collections. Web submission forms for additions will also be available soon; they are still being tested.

   Concerning vendor relations, Eastview sent a list of 13 potential journals as candidates for digitization. The Committee solicited and received input from 7 institutions, created a list of rankings and gave it to Eastview; it is also on the website. There was discussion of the survey and how it could have been done better if the Committee had been given more time. Andy will write up a report on it.

   On July 30 Brad met with JSTOR concerning the inclusion of Slavic publications in that database. Candidates include 19th century Russian thick journals, and East European 19th century nonCyrillic journals. JSTOR wants a wish list of titles, and seeks to work with SEES, as well as with AAASS. It is not certain that anything will come of this, but it is good to put in our own two cents. The last time that JSTOR tried to handle Cyrillic it couldn’t, but now it can.

   As regards training, the Committee has participated in the Digital Text Workshop at the Illinois Summer Lab and has sponsored panels at AAASS. Next year’s panel might focus on the academic or scholarly side of digitization.

   For information sharing they put up their website and have a FAQ. They are considering a wiki-type site, as well as a listserv devoted to digital issues regarding the practical side of digitization projects. The group also brought up the issues of vendors as listserv participants. Keeping a listserv closed to vendors would prevent both groups from benefiting from each other’s knowledge. On the other hand, some librarians feel that some discussions wouldn’t be as open as they have been.

   They also want to keep abreast of the move to establish institutional repositories: Slavic librarians must keep abreast of happenings at their own institutions. The DLF Aquifer project is an example of this.

   
   
5. Slavic and East European Microfilming Project (Janet Crayne). Janet Crayne reported that in the course of pricing out the Koha Jone film, it was discovered that SEEMP did not account for a Stanford copy. As a result more detailed proposal forms will be developed, so that librarians will be aware of copies to request and how to price them out. Reports were given on the following projects:
   1. Newspapers of the October Revolution is ongoing.
   2. Oslobodenje is ongoing.
   3. Pesti Hirlap is completed.
   4. Russian Regional Archival Guides had to stop, because Eastview is having problems establishing contracts.
   5. Russian Regional Newspapers is almost completed.
   6. Russian Right-Wing Newspapers III is ongoing.
   7. Ideas for the future include the Toronto proposals, Central Asian serial runs, newsletters and ephemera from the DP camps, microfilming of Bulgarian and other South Slavic serials, pre-revolutionary journals digital access project, early Soviet press in Ukraine.
   8. It was suggested that the SEEMP minutes be added to the B and D site in addition to the CRL site.

V. Consortial and Institutional Announcements and Issues

1. ACRL Slavic & East European Section. Brad Schaffner, Vice-Chair, reported that SEES mid-winter sessions are all scheduled for Saturday, so some subcommittees are having virtual meetings. This year organizational membership fell slightly; individual membership increased by 19%. Andy Spencer and Diane Brooking are up for election to Vice-Chair/Chair Elect of SEES.

   This year the deadlines for newsletter submissions are being moved up. They especially want reports on international conferences. For example, Harry Leich sent a report on ICCEES in Berlin.

2. East Coast Slavic Consortium. Wanda Wawro, Chair, announced that their website will soon have workspace. They are developing a memorandum of agreement with a certain vendor as well.


3. PACSLAV. They have revised their distribution slips to minimize repeated shipping of exchange items. The new chair will be Michael Biggins. They also discussed the role of PACSLAV for the future. This will include the coordination of lesser-collected areas.


4. Midwest Slavic Consortium. Miranda noted that this is not a formal group. CIC is a focus, but these projects are massive—and Slavic gets lost. The Kansas consortium has helped, particularly regarding the RAN INION database. Nina suggested that all consortia cooperate and create a superconsortium for purchasing individual items. Consortia could also link to one another’s websites. Brad pointed out that Title VI funding could be used for consortial meetings. We should consult with our centers.


5. COSEELIS (Council for Slavonic and East European Library and Information Studies). Janet Zmroczek reported that the organization now has 66 members from 46 institutions. In September of 2005 COCOREES (Collaborative Collection Management Project for Russian and East European Studies) ended. Although that formally ended, there now is an ongoing partnership among 19 different libraries. Collaborations included serial holdings, data sets, national desiderata list, etc. They have a toolkit and guidelines for others also. But the future of the project is undecided.

   Other information from Great Britain:

   1. Research Information Network, COSEELIS and the West European group had a joint conference. The Slavonic group’s ideas could be extended to others. They extended an invitation to us to attend their upcoming meeting in April 2006, with the hopes that their idea could be extended even farther. The information will be posted on SLAVLIBS.
   2. Ron Hogg retired in October, 2005. He is not being replaced, but others will still be working on Slavic in Boston Spa. Collection development will be moving to the British Library in London.
   3. There is concern about falling language enrollment in Great Britain. The British government has a new initiative to build expertise in foreign areas. Janet will serve in an advisory capacity.
   4. The COSEELIS website is moving; we’ll be kept informed.

VI. Institutional Announcements

1. The School of Slavonic and East European Studies has been relocated to a new building.
2. Hoover. A position for cataloger has been posted.
3. SEEIR. This journal is now affiliated with AAASS.
4. An abbreviated version of the Digital Text and Slavic librarians’ workshops will take place on June 15-18. They will be held in conjunction with the 2006 Fisher Forum on “Book Arts, Culture and Media in Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia: From Print to Digital.”

VII. New Business

1. Brad Schaffner announced that a collection of Baltermants photographs (62,000 negatives and 50,000 prints) is available for purchase, and he is exploring the idea of making a consortial purchase of it. The goal would certainly be to digitize the collection. There are many issues that still have to be resolved, for example, does the purchaser hold the rights?


2. IDC made a brief announcement in lieu of the spot it couldn’t accept in the vendor session.

VIII. Proposals of Program Topics for AAASS 2006 in Washington D.C.

1. The Digital and Copyright subcommittees will again be proposing panels
2. HarryLeich: Celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Yudin Collection
3. Nina Shapiro: Offsite storage
4. Michael Biggins: Marketing Slavic collections among user groups
5. Terri Miller: Using Collection Management Software to assess a collection
6. John de Santis: Significant Slavic collections in smaller institutions
7. Janet Zmroczek: International digital projects, for example, reports on Google’s and Yahoo’s involvement in digitization.

As noted by Janice Pilch (2005 Program Committee), be careful not to have too many panels!

IX. Demonstration of Access to Russian Archives (TitleVI-funded database).

For online access: http://online.eastview.com/projects/ticfia. This was a University of Kansas project, which provides open source code. The site will be moved permanently to Kansas when it is ready. There are about 70 titles from the federal archives. Has the same sort of interface that Eastview provides for its other databases, and full texts are provided. Also browsable is the table of contents in the left-hand frame. You can search part of the fond, or a putevoditel’. And the index has clickable links to portions of the putevoditel’

They want feedback. It is difficult to get archivists to participate. Pat Grimsted has brought up the possibility of merging with ArcheoBiblioBase, but her database is on a very old server, and it would take lots of work to convert. IDC has lots of guides and there is the possibility of expanding the project to include them. When completed, Rosarkhiv will have a copy of the database, and perhaps Eastview will also.

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Last updated by JAS on Tuesday, 13-Nov-2007 14:37:14 CST