PACSLAV Meeting Minutes, November, 2000
Pacific Coast Slavic & East European Library Consortium (Pacslav)
Annual Meeting, Nov. 11, 2000, Denver, Colo.
Present: Allan Urbanic (Chair; UC Berkeley), Mike Markiw (U. Arizona/Arizona State), Joseph Dwyer (Hoover Institution), Michael Biggins and Diana Brooking (U. of Washington), Karen Rondestvedt and Inna Gudanets (Stanford), Beth Feinberg (UCLA), Mieczyslaw Buczkowski (U. of Oregon).
Absent: Patricia Polansky (U. Hawaii), Jack McIntosh (U. of British Columbia), Ruth Wallach (USC), Leon Ferder (UCLA).
News from the institutions:
1. U. of Washington: The program and its activities remain much as before, there have been no reductions. The Baltic program and collections continue to grow. Michael Biggins described a new project, the Central Eurasian Information Resource (a Title VI grant project), that the UW along with a community college and another state college are working on. By January 2001 a pilot covering the Russian Far East should be ready that will contain a GIS-based database of regional statistics and an image database.
2. Hoover Institution (observer): Joseph Dwyer reported that the Hoover Institution is beginning to receive tapes and transcripts of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
3. U. of Oregon: A new program for Judaic Studies will be launched and the funding includes some resources for library acquisitions. The Russian Dept. has merged with the Russian and East European Studies Center (28 faculty members with 2 positions yet to be filled). The second year of a four-year serials cancellation project has been completed--some Slavic serials have been cancelled. A gift has been received of about 1,000 titles about the Balkans (mainly monographs on anthropology).
4. Stanford: Karen Rondestvedt will be joining Stanford in the new year. Inna Gudanets reported on a reorganization of the Catalog Dept. There is now one Slavic professional cataloger for both serials and monographs and one paraprofessional. A new workflow has helped to eliminate backlogs. The turnaround for cataloging (full BIBCO national-level records with complete authority control and LC call numbers assigned by LC for belles lettres) is now 2 weeks. Stanford's records can be found in RLIN as well as in their web catalog "Socrates II." Stanford continues working on the Pamiatnye knizhki microfilming project for the 20th century pre-Soviet period, which will be finished this year. Stanford has acquired the CD-ROM "Rossiiskaia natsionalnaia bibliografiia," 4th edition, and also a large microfilm set of the Russian-langauge newspaper "Segodnia" (1920-1930), published in Riga, Latvia (not yet cataloged).
5. UCLA: The Library received a large gift collection on Slavic linguistics (USC received 1,000 of the titles that were duplicates for UCLA). The Center for Russian and East European Studies has broadened its scope and is now known as the Center for European and Russian Studies. A new undergraduate program in "European Studies" does include Russia. The Center received a Title VI grant, part of which will purchase books in underrepresented languages (Albanian, Ukrainian, Romanian, and Baltic languages). The new head of the Bibliographers Group is Ellen Broidy (formerly of UC Irvine). The new head of Cataloging is John Riemer (formerly of the U. of Georgia). Beth Feinberg reminded us that titles on order or in process are not in MELVYL and not in UCLA's OPAC. Please contact Beth or Leon Ferder directly for any information about titles that might be in their in-house acquisitions database. UCLA has acquired several large microform sets (not yet cataloged, no location designated yet): IDC Slavic Judaica, Anti-Semitism and Nationalism at the End of the Soviet Era, the State Dept. Central Files on the Soviet Union International Affairs (1960-1963), Soviet Union Special Studies 1995-1997 Supplement. UCLA kept 45% of the titles from the Pacslav duplicate exchange.
6. U. of Arizona: The U. of Arizona is adding a librarian for Slavic and German. There are 20 area studies faculty on that campus, 10 faculty in the MA Russian literature program, and 1 faculty with an interest in Romania (for which Pacslav duplicates come in handy). Mike Markiw has been supporting their programs and coming on campus about 4 days a month. Mike has successfully increased their collection to the point where the University has now decided they need an "on-site presence" in the library.
7. Arizona State: The Romanian program is in its second year. Pacslav duplicates have been helpful in this area. Arizona State University has held a Critical Languages Institute the past several summers to teach such languages as Tatar, Macedonian, and Serbo-Croatian. Armenian is a future possibility. ASU has 20 Russian/East European area studies faculty. The History Department has added another faculty member in Russian history this year and is cooperating with the Department of Religious Studies in offering some graduate coursework in Russian religious studies.
8. UC Berkeley: There has been a reorganization in which the Center for European Studies has been elevated to the Institute level and the Center for Slavic and East European Studies has become the Institute of Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. Central Asia has become an important area for research again. The only hole in the faculty at the moment is in Czech language and literature. Within the Library the work with the Russian independent press database continues. The project to microfilm writings of Russian women is moving forward--the first third (according to the English alphabet) of 20th century writers is complete, plus 130 19th century women writers. World War II remains for now the cutoff for that project. An on-line subscription to Transitions was begun. A gift of late 19th and early 20th century titles on Romanian literature was received. The grant for Caucasian studies has ended and an approval plan with ATC has been set up to continue that collection.
Agenda items:
1. The Pacslav duplicate exchange was assessed. The exchange is for more recent imprints, including serials, titles that duplicate one library's holdings but may be useful for another member. (Exchange does not include U. of British Columbia due to border and customs issues.) U. of Oregon keeps about 50-60% of titles coming through on the exchange, UC Berkeley and U. of Washington keep about 20%, UCLA keeps 45%. The exchange was deemed to be very successful and worthwhile. Hoover Institution proposed to send their duplicate titles to Stanford to be included in the exchange.
2. The Union List of Currently Received Newspapers and the Union List of Current Newspapers in Microform: Michael Biggins will update the lists to include CRL and SEEMP holdings for Russian regional titles. All members were asked to look over the lists and send any corrections or updates to Michael by Jan. 1.
3. The Pacslav homepage was discussed. A suggestion was made to have the navigation sidebar show which page you are currently on as well as the other choices. Allan Urbanic is happy to receive any more suggestions from members about the page and its structure.
4. Digital acquisitions. So far RAS is the only consortial purchase for electronic resources (in fact, now purchased by a subgroup of Pacslav since UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Stanford now receive it through the California Digital Library). Digital acquisitions would be easier to approve and pay for, since vendors can bill members independently. The East View database of humanities and social science periodicals was discussed. There are no real backfiles (most titles begin in 1999 or 2000), but it is searchable full-text. Mike and Allan will pursue pricing options.
5. The Union List of Serials was discussed. The database has not been added to recently due to lack of funds. And the person who designed the database has since left Stanford. It will be necessary to obtain funding from the AUL level to continue the database. The members will continue the discussion over email and decide by June 1, 2001 what is to be done.
6. Karen Rondestvedt has agreed to continue to maintain Wojciech Zalewski's Russian Reference Bibliography on the Pacslav web site. Thanks to Karen! From now on members may send additions for the bibliography to Karen.