PACSLAV Meeting Minutes, February, 1999
Pacific Coast Slavic & East European Library Consortium
Meeting: February 18, 1999, Stanford University Library, 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.
Executive Summary
The one-day meeting was attended by Slavic & East European bibliographers representing nine of the Consortium's ten participating and affiliate members; by Slavic catalog librarians representing three participating institutions; and by Assunta Pisani (PacSlav Coordinating Collection Development Officer) of Stanford.
Highlights of the meeting:
1. Wojciech Zalewski (Stanford) delivered a review of the Consortium's considerable accomplishments in the course of its first four years.
2. Allan Urbanic (University of California, Berkeley) was elected new Chair of the Consortium, for a term to run through spring 2004.
3. The Consortium agreed to assume responsibility for continuation and further development of Wojciech Zalewski's WWW-based Slavic reference guide (presently focused on Russia).
4. The Consortium agreed to continue its highly successful exchange of Slavic duplicate materials with slight modifications in procedure.
5. The Consortium agreed to create a union list of current (post-1945) newspaper-on-microfilm holdings, both for internal consultation and as a tool to assist the Slavic & East European Microfilm Project at the Center for Research Libraries.
6. The Consortium agreed to expand its WWW pages to include: fuller documentation of its meetings and working decisions; Stanford's (henceforth the Consortium's) Slavic reference guide; an annual update and archive of past versions of our union list of hard copy newspaper subscriptions; individual member libraries' Slavic WWW content, to be determined over time.
7. The Consortium's Slavic catalogers agreed to do a scan of cataloging needs and resources within the group and to update Memorandum of Agreement appendixes 2 and 3 concerning cataloging. The updated information would serve as the basis for a problem-based approach to cooperative efforts.
8. Patricia Polansky and Joseph Dwyer will apply for IREX support to make an assessment trip to the Russian Far East this year. The Consortium will request permission to post the Gorky Library's (Vladivostok) quarterly bibliography of Russian Far East regional studies as a feature of the PacSlav WWW pages.
9. The Coordinating CDO agreed to moderate a new e-mail listserv for CDOs of the Consortium's participating and affiliate libraries. The listserv would be used to more effectively coordinate and support group activities.
10. The Consortium agreed to place highest priority on completion of the Union List of Serials, provided each participating library lends adequate support to the project.
11. The Consortium agreed to submit a request to participating CDOs to provide additional budgetary support for joint acquisitions projects.
Minutes
Present: Assunta Pisani, Wojciech Zalewski, Malgorzata Schaefer (minutes, items 1-3), Joanna Dyla, Inna Gudanets (Stanford); Joseph Dwyer (Hoover Institution); Allan Urbanic (UC Berkeley); Leon Ferder, Beth Feinberg (UCLA); Patricia Polansky (U. of Hawaii); Michael Biggins (minutes, items 4-18), Diana Brooking (U. of Washington); Ruth Wallach (U of Southern California); Mieczyslaw Buczkowski (U. of Oregon); Michael Markiw (U. of Arizona, Arizona State U.);
Absent: Jack McIntosh (U. of British Columbia)
1. Welcome by Wojciech Zalewski; introductions around the table; welcome and opening remarks by Assunta Pisani, Assistant University Librarian for Collections and Services. Assunta announced that Wojciech would be Emeritus Curator of Slavic Studies. She also commented on the fact that the group is respected and has a seriousness of purpose. Assunta said Stanford will continue to support it if it has a realistic and profitable purpose and the dedication of its members. Patricia Polansky asked if Wojciech's position would be replaced and Assunta confirmed that Stanford is committed to replace the Slavic Collections Curator but perhaps with a new emphasis, if needed. He then gave a synopsis of the day's agenda. The morning would include reporting and the election of a new Chair, followed by an informal lunch during which Michael Keller, University Librarian, would be present and some issues (see agenda) might be addressed. The afternoon would be devoted to the future and setting priorities, but Wojciech stressed that the agenda was flexible.
2. Chair's Report:
Wojciech responded to the Memorandum of Agreement's requirement that the Chair give a report after three years, namely in Spring 1999, addressing: "is there a reason to continue?" Wojciech suggested that all of the Appendices should be looked at and rewritten as needed. Wojciech then referred to Appendix 5 and stated that, in general, all tasks Priority 1 and 2 had been fulfilled with the exception of cataloging issues, not that these had been left untouched. Wojciech then reported on regularly held meetings, with minutes distributed to all members as well as CDOs in each institution. Most meetings were held in conjunction with AAASS, with the first organizational meeting held in Seattle (summer 1995) and the first working meeting at Stanford in September 1996. PacSlav also met with the East Coast Slavic Library Consortium but determined that we appear to be considerably more active as a group. The idea of routing dups to them failed and there was no more contact. A copy of their goals and objectives was received, which is comparable to ours, but we're doing much more. Thanks to Allan we have an active listserv and can communicate effectively. Not all catalogers are included on the listserv. At the beginning they were purposefully excluded since the group's focus to date has been on collections, but that issue should now be up for review. We have a Web page and on it is the Union list of Serials (in the process of being built up) and the Union List of Newspapers (finished). A big thanks to Jim Coleman and Vitus Tang from Stanford for building it. Since Jim Coleman is no longer at Stanford we may have problems with technical issues. Creating this Union List was one of our priorities and we are close to achieving it. An issue to discuss is how to keep up Wojciech's bibliographic guide. Conferences: thanks to Pat's and Michael's organizational efforts and IREX's support we had an interesting and successful one focused on Russian Far Eastern libraries in conjunction with the 1997 AAASS annual meeting Seattle. We face challenges cooperating with the Far East librarians due to their financial problems, poor internet and e-mail connections; we are stretching out our hands to them as we can. We are looking at IREX for a follow up grant to maintain contacts. PACSLAV sponsored an open letter in support of exchanges to Prime Minister Primakov, signed by 29 Slavic librarians representing major institutions in North America and Europe, with copies to major Russian libraries and the Russian Ministry of Culture. The Ministry of Culture's Deputy Director for Libraries informs us that the Ministry has proposed new legislation in support of library exchanges and submitted this to the Parliament; Michael Biggins has requested a copy of the draft legislation. Our action publicized the issue widely and may lead to tangible results. A copy of the open letter is on the PacSlav WWW site.
On the Web we have an extensive list of materials on microfilm and CD-ROM which we acquire in consultation with each other to avoid duplication of efforts. We consult with each other regarding special and expensive acquisitions and we inform each other about new products, especially electronic ones. The exchange of duplicates is very valuable. We exchange information about book dealers, acquisition trips, exhibits, etc. We compiled a survey of acquisition profiles and distributed it to everyone. This reporting is according to the Memorandum of Agreement We should try to contribute to SEEMP projects - most of our libraries are members and we need to discuss this further .Cataloging concerns - in progress; discussed who would catalog what, outsourcing, the need for a Hungarian cataloger, ATC acquisition of Central Asian materials with records. Stanford started to negotiate with the Library of Foreign Literature (LFL, Moscow) for provision of MARC records via ftp for materials Stanford receives, which are all Russian materials except academic (RPS supplies those); LFL is Stanford's largest supplier. We have not discussed: archiving of electronic information sources or grants - we need to make a greater effort to fulfill Memorandum of Agreement's preservation priority (aside from SEEMP contributions).
3. Review of new academic programs / collecting focuses
Wojciech - Stanford: Slavic Dept - focus on 20th C Russian lit, some beginning of 19th C, also Russian emigre literature; History Dept - East European history, faculty includes one interested in Ukraine, especially 20th C, one medievalist, one in sociology, a little music, one interested in 20th C Russian film. Hoover supports political science while the Institute for International Studies some economic aspects. Archival materials - strong focus at Hoover. In principle, the focus of Stanford's program is moving toward the 20th C.
Allan - UCB: Disciplines and areas of research are all over the map at UCB.In the early 90's, early retirement programs reduced the number of arearelated faculty but these retirees are still active on campus. New faculty research has moved into different directions. Paradigm shifts: emphasis on 20th C and things that are not as mainstream, e.g. one sociologist shifted from studying the working class to studying Russian entrepreneurs. There is pressure to collect economic material for which Berkeley previously relied on Hoover - electronic data sources have helped in this area. New faculty: sociologist interested in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and an anthropologist researching youth in Russia from Soviet to post-Soviet times. In the History Dept. new faculty emphasize 20C history, after WWII, not revolutionary or imperial period though the latter is not de-emphasized. In language and literature, there is an interest in alternative areas of literature such as women's or children's lit, while the classics are still studied as the core. Heavy emphasis on cross-cultural issues such as film and literature, art and film, therefore dense cultural theory - "the how-to's and methodology". Strong interest
remains in East European areas: Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian, etc. Interest in the non-Russian areas of the FSU is growing, especially Caucasus and Central Asia..
Ruth - USC: We have a small department which concentrates on literature, 18th C to mid 20th C, mainly at the turn of the 19th/20th C. We also have an art historian and the library has given money to help retain this professor's interests. USC houses an Institute for Modern Russian Culture. We will be hiring a linguist; central Asia is of interest in the History Dept., some East European history though not strong.
Mike - Arizona State and Univ. of Arizona. We have mostly traditional Russian literature courses, all centuries; all of Russian history; Arizona State has Russian religious studies and Univ of Arizona south Slavic linguistics. The newest interest is a Romanian studies program which started last summer at Arizona State. The core collection, however, is at Univ of Arizona so we'll need to combine.
Leon - UCLA. Language and literature has a number of vacant faculty positions. Besides linguistics, the literary emphasis is on the Silver Age and symbolists and Medieval; some later Soviet interest. Few advanced courses in East European lang and lit. Lower division Polish, Romanian, Czech, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, mostly in alternating years. In the History Dept. still recruiting a Soviet historian, one imperial Russia historian, no one in East European history, one emeritus in medieval Balkan history, which is a good collection. In Sociology - nationalities studies (Romania and Hungary), a fledgling Romanian studies program (language, lit, social sci) but not yet a well coordinated program. With no Title VI funding, it has proven difficult to establish new programs.
Mischa - Oregon. Two departments - Russian and Russian and East European Center merged last summer. Trying to make Balkan studies stronger, especially Bulgarian - music, folklore, linguistics will be especially developed. Strong 20th C Russian history, some 19th C. Also, Russian film. In literature Dostoevsky, Pushkin with Pushkin especially strong.
Patricia - Hawaii. The state in Hawaii is worse than in Russia. One Imperial Russia historian and 2 faculty in lang and lit - enrollment dropping. Hardly any money for Russian books in the last five years.
Michael - UW: focus is shifting to 20th C in all areas. Slavic languages/literatures faculty include specialists in: Russian folklore and 18th century Russian lit; 19th-century Russian lit; Silver Age and mid-20th century Russian literature; Slavic linguistics; South and West Slavic literatures; Russian and East European film. UW non-lang/lit faculty include for Russia: an economist, geographers, historians (including a Russian Jewish studies historian), political scientists, an ecologist/urban planner, and assorted other, more peripherally associated specialists in art, marine affairs, business, and foresty. On the East European side there are a historian (specializing in Czech/Slovakia but teaching the entire region), political scientist (Balkans), economist, and some others. Geography is sponsoring creation of a digital map of Russia (on the WWW on UW's page) which will support interdisciplinary research and is open to contributions. Retirements have removed intensive demand from areas such as Hungary and Balkan history; however, there is some possiblity of new endowments for Ukrainian and Hungarian studies. The Baltic studies endowment drive has reached 80% of its target, with success assured; the Baltic program is already burgeoning, with instruction in all 3 languages, literature, folklore, and social sciences. The Central Asian lang/lit program remains active but collecting is not intensive. Interest remains in building stronger collections on the Russian Far East; efforts to develop an active book/serial exchange with Vladivostok are showing results, but the challenges to RFE partners remain enormous.
4. Officers:
Allan Urbanic was designated new Chair by general acclaim, provisionally until Stanford fills its Slavic librarian position, at which point Allan and the group will revisit the issue. It was viewed not essential for both Chair and sponsoring CDO to be from the same institution.
5. Future of Stanford Slavic reference guide (Russian social sciences and humanities):
Wojciech has been doing this over the years as an organic outgrowth of his teaching. Wojciech's experience is that the guide grows by about 50 titles per year (minor reference works are excluded). What are the options: distribute responsibility for maintaining it among PacSlav members; or turn it over to a single colleague, even if outside PacSlav (e.g., June Farris at Chicago, who compiles a serially-issued guide). It would be best to keep it in the group, if possible. Possibly involve a bibliographer and cataloger at one institution in compilation (e.g., UW, which will consider it; possibly Hoover; or possibly a combination of Hoover for social sciences and UW for humanities, which would coordinate efforts). Final decision from among these options was deferred to a decision by the new Chair.
6. Duplicate exchange (Leon Ferder):
full members exchange duplicates, while affiliates have not; Leon summarized the procedure to date. A very successful means of acquiring materials and a major tool (excellent for Hawaii given budgetary realities; very good for the others). UCLA received 1564 volumes and kept 731 in the past year. Leon reviews all items personally and (given UCLA's remote storage options) occasionally retains second copies or marginal materials that may be of some interest. Leon suggested that we may want to review the parameters of inclusion: at present we restrict the exchange to 1990 and later imprints. We may want to include affiliates in the exchange. Subject areas are broad: Romanian mathematics to Russian literature--perhaps there should be stricter criteria for subjects covered, or to exclude publications that have only one small item relating to Slavic. We may want to introduce a routing sequence to avoid problems of subject relevance. Shipping costs are an issue to some extent. All in all, Leon sees the exchange as a productive, cohesive activity for the group. Wojciech suggested we could include some minimal subject and chronological profile for reach institution on the routing slip. Different institutions have deeper or less deep collections; some may be interested in seeing any and all older materials, while others may not want to see any. It was agreed to modify the routing slip to include brief profiles for each library.
7. Coordination of group purchases (Allan):
suggested the possibility of the group setting aside a common fund for acquiring large sets (e.g., Primary Media's collections of archival materials). Wojciech suggested that each member request his/her CDO to allocate a special, additional fund per institution toward consortial purposes; we have not yet made the point very strongly that the Consortium requires some additional budgetary commitment. It would be best to make this proposal to Assunta Pisani, who would then confer with other member CDOs. The amount of contribution would not be strictly prescribed. Ruth felt that, without uniform requirements of each library, there would be problems of equity in borrowing rights. We would need to clarify whether each member library's policies permit allocation of funds for purchase materials that would be held remotely. Allan suggested that we need to document our newspaper microfilm hodlings more cleary; also, clarification of our joint RAS database subscription is needed, since three members are now part of the joint California Digital Libraries project and have access to RAS that way. Each library needs to more consistently share information about acquisitions of $1,000 or more with the entire group, before finalizing these purchases.
8. Contributions to SEEMP (Michael Biggins):
possible creation of a union list of current newspaper-on-microfilm subscriptions and holdings, which would show all holdings of titles active since 1945. This list could influence decisions on retention of unique runs of hard copy when a particular title is not yet held in microfilm within the Consortium and could prove a valuable source of information to SEEMP, helping identify gaps in North America's distributed Slavic newspaper/microfilm collection.
Lunch discussion (agenda items 9-13):
Stanford's Director of Libraries, Michael Keller, joined the group for lunch and shared his thoughts on strengthening the Consortium. He suggested that the group should more fully document its organization and decisions, possibly by posting meeting minutes and other documentation to its WWW page. The question of continued technical support for the Union List of Serials (ULS) arose; Jim Coleman's successor, when hired, is expected to be the point person for the ULS. At present, technical glitches hinder efficient inputting of new records. Stanford has not yet devised a method for adding its own new serial records to the ULS; it was suggested that a uniform approach should be agreed upon for all contributing libraries. It was agreed that Allan/UCB would continue to host the Consortium's WWW page, focusing for the future on specialized services and information about the Consortium. Ruth asked if we knew how useful the WWW page is to our users. Most agreed that in its present state it was rather a tool for the librarians in the group. For the near future, it was agreed to add to the WWW page: the completed ULS; Wojciech/Stanford's Russian reference guide; and to consider shifting individual member libraries' WWW content to the Consortium's page. An annual update of the union list of hard copy newspaper subscriptions could also be added, retaining the older annual lists on the WWW site as archival information.
14. Cataloging (Beth Feinberg, Diana Brooking, Joanna Dyla, Inna Gudanets).
Action to date: little, mostly because catalogers have not been actively drawn into Consortial activities until now. East View, RPS and ATC have all promised packaged copy cataloging service, but little has materialized. Also, many of us have had large backlogs not knowable to other members. Joanna suggested doing a scan of expertise available at the different libraries, for possible cooperation. Diana suggests updating appendix 2 & 3 and doing a scan of needs and resources; determining the extent of collection overlap so that catalogers can chart specific common areas where the burden of cataloging might be shared out among member libraries. Stanford will begin submitting current cataloging to RLIN soon. Stanford suggested that with its full staffing perhaps it can take on some outsourcing from member libraries. Beth volunteered to draft a conspectus of staff and skills. Stanford is completely current in current periodicals and belles lettres monographs cataloging (though there remain pockets of older backlogged materials); all literary authors' call numbers that Stanford inputs are LC approved, and they are updating/correcting any literary author split files. New literary authors are assigned NACO-contributed headings. It was agreed to take a problem/situation-based approach to cataloging cooperation.
15. Russian Far East collecting (Patricia and Joe):
Pat announced she would be retiring in early spring 2000 and invited the group to meet in Honolulu then. In light of her retirement and anticipated financial situation at Hawaii, Hawaii's RFE newspaper collection has been transferred to Hoover; the PacSlav newspaper union list holdings will need to be changed to reflect this. Pat and Joe are planning an RFE acquisitions trip in 2000, to assess current acquisitions prospects from the region on behalf of their own institutions and PacSlav. Pat's other ongoing concern has been to lend support to RFE libraries, but she does not see growing opportunities here among granting agencies. The RFE, with Russia in economic crisis, is not in a position to gear up for any major projects. Ideas from the 1997 Seattle RFE conference: development of a joint listserv (but RFE libraries have connectivity problems--still we must keep this idea alive). N.S. Ivantsova at Gorky Library in Vladivostok has published a quarterly bibliography of publications on the RFE and has been issuing this on disk; it is no longer published on paper (due to shortages of paper and staffing); perhaps PacSlav can cooperate with her library to mount this on the group's Web page. It was agreed to do this.
16. Resetting priorities (Leon):
suggests either reducing the number of new projects we undertake, or assigning new projects to smaller groups, in order to complete what we start. For instance, one person could take on develoopment of procedures for PacSlav union list of serials (ULS) data input and resolution of technical problems, which would save other members a great deal of otherwise duplicated effort. Leon sees only the duplicate exchange as our most successful project. Support from CDOs: Leon observed that CDOs locally experience a great deal of pressure just to fund and support local needs (let alone outside, consortial ones). If CDOs are asked to contribute funds to consortial projects, will this compromise our chances of getting support for projects just within our own institutions? Assunta suggested that her response as a CDO to such requests would be to assume that any clearly formulated consortial proposal that she would approve would be useful to the local institution, as well as the group. But this presupposes that proposed projects will be worthy ones. Also, the individual librarians need to persuade their CDOs of the worthiness of projects. Ruth wondered how, for instance, Stanford balances its other more broadly based consortial commitments with a more focused one such as PacSlav, i.e. how does Stanford square PacSlav with State of California cooperative commitments? PacSlav may have some objectives that would not square with larger consortial commitments. Stanford is waiting to see how California libraries will benefit from each other within the California Digital Library. Stanford may venture as far afield in partnering as economy may require; for instance, it joined with Solinet to acquire a license to Academic Universe at 1/5 the normal cost. Allan doubted whether the California Digital Library will pose problems of duplication very often, because our area's resources tend to be so far out of the mainstream that CDL covers; the RAS database duplication was more a rare coincidence than anything else. Leon stressed the importance of developing a formal understanding among the CDOs of the shared commitment to consortial development (for joint acquisitions funding vs. local). Pat mentioned the problem that some individual institutions do not support the consortium much beyond their signature on our agreement. Assunta suggested she could make contact with all member CDOs with a list of the Consortium's immediate and long-term priorities, calling for coordination and support. On some occasions, she and Stanford's DOL could take the issue a further step, to the joint library directors. Also, the ALA CDO group (which involves Stanford, UCB, UW, UCLA and Arizona) can be used for PacSlav CDO communications; Assunta will ask that PacSlav support be put on the ALA midsummer meeting CDO group agenda. Allan will compile a complete list of member CDOs and e-mail listserv. The group can compile a list of specific priorities and needs, eventually adding dollar amounts per institution to each. Assunta also mentioned the importance of keeping the possibility of outside foundation and grant support for the Consortium in mind: Mellon Foundation, LTSA (? some West coast thing). Allan underlined Michael Keller's point that every interinstitutional agreement involving commitment of funds should have the signature of our directors of libraries.
17. New projects and continuation of ongoing ones:
Union List of Serials (ULS). We need student hourly for inputting at our institutions and central database technical support at Stanford. There was brief discussion of the original rationale for the database: detailed holdings information and last copy principle. The possibility of preferential interlibrary lending based on the ULS was discussed in Seattle, but has there been follow-through on that? The findings in 1996 were that preferred ILB arrangements could not be made that modify existing agreements, and that ILS's generally wholesale procedures tended to override any attempts at preferential treatment in a particular subject area. RLG members do have an ILS commitment to each other. Allan mentioned that Stanford, UCB, U-Texas agreement principals found that an interlibrary loan agreement was crucial to the success of the agreement (otherwise, its rationale would be minimal); the DOLs involved ultimately handed a mandate to their ILS departments to work out the cooperative borrowing/lending piece. Leon pointed to the need for verifying holdings for each title, as OPAC holdings are occasionally in error; the group was split on the economy or feasibility of doing this, as well as the justification. Assunta asked that institutions assess what the cost of inputting remaining data will be, as part of making a final decision on taking the project forward. Some member OPACs still have only abbreviated holdings information (e.g., whole years, but not individual issues within a year, as in Socrates at Stanford). It was asked what the ULS's cost/benefit ratio was, and whether it was an essential tool. Individuals pointed to the fact that Jim Coleman built in some features that not all OPACs support--country, language, holding institution parameters; it's a handy and useful database and will get used if it's completed. We must also consider the time saved by the complete database, as a research tool for faculty/students. Our users tend to move along a West Coast axis and will be interested in materials available at neighbor institutions. Assunta suggested that we continue inputting now in stages, from largest to smaller collections, for the sake of efficiency and cost saving for the smaller institutions. The librarians will put together a statement of anticipated completion costs per institution and submit it to Assunta and other CDOs; at the same time we will formulate a proposal for funding of ongoing joint acquisitions of major items, whether the funding be new or designated out of existing area studies acquisitions budgets.
18. Conclusions (Allan):
Immediate action items and priorities: items 9, 10 and 11 are hereby turned over the the catalogers in the group; Michael will send all past PacSlav minutes to Allan for posting to the WWW page; the group will resolve the future development of Stanford's Russian reference work WWW site; members will formulate a request for support for completion of the ULS and submit it to their CDOs, at which point Assunta will coordinate; and we will formulate a request for support for joint acquisitions; Ruth's coordination of Tallinn 2000 conference--she has submitted a proposal to Janet Crayne but has not heard back.
New business:
Pat expressed disappointment at Hoover's still not being a member of the Consortium. Joe noted that Hoover's administration has not found significant benefit in memebership, since Hoover collects at level 4 or 5 in its specialized area, regardless of neighboring institutions' priorities. However, Joe agreed to convey the benefits--tangible and intangible--of membership to Hoover's administration.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 p.m