Title VI: November 13, 2008 Notes

Title VI program officer Peter Baker remarked that, with the new administration in Washington beginning in January, it was still unclear when the deadline for the next round of Title VI proposals would be.  He anticipated it for late fall of 2009. 

Common Language for next round of Title VI proposals:  The Title VI librarians reviewed the common language submitted for the last round of Title VI proposal and made one slight change (“we will collaborate” was changed to “we collaborate” in sentence 3 below).  The paragraph now reads as follows:

The Title VI librarians sponsor collaborative projects within the following areas: Collection Development; Access, including cataloging, bibliography and indexes, and document delivery; Preservation; Advocacy and capacity building for Africa.  Along with other African NRCs, we are committed to cooperating in making difficult-to-obtain materials from Africa available to U.S. researchers.  We collaborate with African libraries and archives in the preservation of key documents, adding digitization when feasible; acquisition of African dissertations; and continue work on an electronic union list of African newspaper holdings in U.S. libraries. 

Peter Limb suggested that in future reports to area directors the connection between our goals as stated in the common language and our accomplishments should be detailed more clearly. 

Budget:  James Simon provided a financial statement for cooperative Title VI funds (reflecting money spent on the President Tubman project as well as the 2008 West African Training Pilot).  At the time of the Title VI Librarians meeting (Nov. 13, 2008), $32,668.81 of unallocated funds remained.   

• Project Reports and Proposals

Liberia

Frank-Wilson reported on behalf of Verlon Stone who was in Liberia at the time of the meeting.  The microfilming of the restored President Tubman papers is almost complete – final service copy sets will be produced in early December.  There will be a total of 47 reels.  One set of microfilms will be deposited at the Center for Research Libraries.  Title VI Librarians and CAMP participants are invited to purchase full sets of the microfilmed papers for their own libraries at cost ($ 1,350/set).  This price is valid if the set is reserved before December 15, 2008.  After that date, the cost increases to $ 1,850 because of an anticipated price increase for silver-based film at the beginning of 2009.  

The microfilming of the President Tubman papers finished $3,000-5,000 under budget, and Verlon Stone proposed to the Title VI Librarians to use the unspent funds for the shipping  of two sets of additional papers:

“Coinciding with this budgetary surplus is an opportunity to acquire two additional sets of personal papers from Liberia:  Romeo Horton was an important banker during and after the Tubman era; Father C.K. Kandakai, a well-known Liberian linguist, specialized in the Vai language and is its indigenous script.  Processing capabilities still do not exist in Liberia so the materials will be brought to Indiana University for arrangement and preservation.  Estimated cost for packing and air freighting the approximately 30-40 boxes from Liberia to Indiana is $4-6,000.” (from Verlon Stone’s report/proposal; for complete text with more detailed information about Romeo Horton and Father Kandakai), please go to  http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=1000394

After a discussion  of Verlon Stone’s proposal, the Title VI Librarians approved the use of any funds that have been left unspent from the President Tubman microfilming project to apply to the shipping of the Horton and Kandakai papers from Liberia to Indiana.  During the discussion, a number of questions were raised which, in the absence of Verlon Stone, could not be answered:

-           What is exactly is the content of the papers? Are they all equally relevant and of research value to scholars?

-          What is the vision for the papers once they are in the U.S.? Microfilming? Where would the funding come from?

-          In what condition are the papers?

-          Will they return to Liberia, and at what point?

-          Where do they come from – the family?

Frank-Wilson offered to discuss these questions with Verlon Stone after his return from Liberia and report back to the group. 

2008 West African Training Pilot report

This project was conducted in 2008, over the course of four weeks.  An archivist/film technician from Dakar/Senegal visited the United States (University of Iowa, UCLA, and Columbia University) to receive training on best practices in microfilming and duplication.  It is anticipated that this project will give the National Archives of Senegal the opportunity to implement the best practices learned in the pilot and to carry out the full process of microfilming, including duplication on site in Dakar, Senegal. 

Proposal to fund duplication of the original microfilm negative of Islamic court records for Saint-Louis (Senegal)

The original filming (funded by CAMP) was done in October 2008.  This request is for the duplication at the National Archives of Senegal of two positive copies (one for the National Archives of Senegal, and one for Columbia U., to be paid by Columbia U.) and one negative copy (for CAMP). Caruso originally proposed to have the filming done in Senegal, thus giving the National  Archives the opportunity to implement the best practices learned in the pilot and to carry out the full process of microfilming and duplicating.   The estimated cost for this proposal was $ 14,314.74. 

At the meeting, out of concern about the high price of this project, Caruso withdrew his original proposal  and re-submitted it with modifications.  In the revised version, he proposed to proceed as we have in the past, i.e., ask the national Archives of Senegal to send their original negative via special air delivery to the US and produce the duplications here.  This would reduce the cost to $ 4,000. 

The Title VI Librarians voted in favor of Caruso’s revised proposal and approved $ 4,000 for the duplication (1 negative and one positive copy for CAMP; 1 positive copy for the National Archives of Senegal; plus an additional positive copy for Columbia, to be paid by Columbia U.) of Islamic court records for Saint-Louis (Senegal). 

Proposal to complete funding for microfilming of newspapers from Tanzania and Mauritius; CAMP and individual institutions have already contributed;

Remaining funds needed:            $4,114 for newspapers from Tanzania

                                                                $ 5,295 for newspapers from Mauritius

• Additional ad-hoc Title VI Librarians meeting on Friday,  November 14, 2008 (lasting ca. 10 minutes), at the CAMP meeting

As anticipated, at the CAMP meeting, a number of proposals to fund the microfilming of newspapers (Allgemeine Zeitung, Namibia; Daily Dispatch, South Africa; The Nation, Malawi – request was for ongoing funding; Liberian newspapers), were received.  Since the CAMP budget was not in a position to cover all the proposals, a request was made to the Title VI Librarians to consider contributing Title VI funds.  Lauer moved to suspend the CAMP meeting and convene an ad-hoc Title VI Librarians meeting – the move was seconded and approved, and the CAMP meeting was suspended so the Title VI Librarians could discuss and consider the proposals.

The following was approved for funding with Title VI cooperative funds: 

$ 4,114 for newspapers from Tanzania

$ 5,295 for newspapers from Mauritius

$ 8,400 for Liberian newspapers (proposed by Joe Lauer)

Total approved:  $ 17,809

This leaves $10,859.81 remaining funds in the Title VI budget (keeping in mind that $4,000 have already been allocated to Caruso’s proposal the previous day), to be replenished in the early spring (around February 2009) when member institutions make their annual contributions.

• Brainstorming

 Future of West African projects based in Senegal (Caruso)

Caruso asked Title VI Librarians to consider next steps for the West African projects based in Senegal.  He pointed out that at the West African Regional Planning Conference we organized two years ago in Dakar (with participating archivists from the West African (francophone) region), the National Archives of Senegal was designated as the potential center to build a regional West African program of preservation and digitization in collaboration with CAMP.  Another outcome of that meeting was the compilation of a list of materials suitable for potential digitization projects. 

Caruso urged the group to think about the possibility to launch a cooperative digital pilot project in Dakar.  This would require raising funds for equipment as well as collaborating on the actual project.  He suggested to begin work on a grant proposal and asked for volunteers to collaborate on such a proposal. 

New Projects

There was no time left for this agenda item – it will be discussed at the spring meeting 2009. 

• Other Business

There was no time to discuss other business.  Frank-Wilson suggested that, in the event anybody had other business items, to circulate them via email, or add them to the agenda for the spring meeting.  

The meeting adjourned at 3:00 pm.