From: Deborah Jakubs <jakubs_at_acpub.duke.edu>
Association of Research Libraries (ARL)
Report to Meeting of Chief Collection Development Officers
American Library Association, June 27, 1998
SPEC Survey on Special Collections
ARL's Research Collections Committee discussed the draft SPEC survey of
special collections at their May 1998 meeting in Eugene, Oregon. Plans are
currently to distribute the survey in July 1998 in order to have
preliminary results for discussion at the October 1998 ARL meeting in
Washington, DC.
New SPEC Kit on the Organization of Government Document Collections
SPEC Kit 227, on the "Organization of Document Collections and Services," was
issued in April 1998. the results are accessible at
<http://www.arl.org/spec/227fly.html>.
ILL Performance Report Published
Measuring the Performance of Interlibrary Loan Operations in North American
Research & College Libraries, authored by Mary E. Jackson, ARL Access &
Delivery Services Consultant, has been published. The study was funded by The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. A copy has been sent to each library that
participated in the study; additional copies are available from ARL. For
ordering
information, see: <http://www.arl.org/access/illdd/pr.shtml>.
Pew Roundtable Report
"To Publish and Perish," an essay recording the discussions of the Pew Higher
Education Roundtable on Managing Intellectual Property in Higher
Education, was published as the March 1998 issue of Policy Perspectives.
Copies of the report with supporting materials for discussion on campus
were sent to each ARL library director in mid-March. Additional copies of
the report for ARL members are available from <pubs_at_arl.org>. A pdf
version of the report can be found at
<http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/pp/pp-main.html>. An additional web version is
now available at http://www.arl.org/scomm/pewrept.html>. Permission to
photocopy the report for educational uses is granted by the Trustees of the
University of Pennsylvania. We would appreciate hearing feedback on how
the report is being used on campuses. (Please send any comments to Mary
Case
<marycase_at_arl.org>.) Strategies for using the document as well as progress
on the recommendations will be shared with the community.
Department of Justice Investigations
We thank you again for the broad support for the requests for information
that came from the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in its investigations
into the recent mergers in the scholarly publishing market. The DOJ has
been able
to use the data libraries have provided to develop a new model for evaluating
concentration in the market. It is likely that at least some of the data
analysis will be made public by the economist working on the project. We
will let you know as soon as we have any further information.
SPARC
Development of the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition
(SPARC) continues. Eighty ARL libraries have now signed on as Founding
Members.
Richard K. Johnson has been appointed SPARC Enterprise Director and is
now on board at ARL. Negotiations with scholarly publishers are underway
with announcements of specific projects expected soon. Updates during ALA
are planned for the Chief Collection Development Officers of Large Research
Libraries and for directors of non-ARL university libraries.
AAU/ARL Global Resources Program
(http://arl.cni.org/collect/grp/index.html)
A grant of $35,000 in support of the German Resources Project (formerly the
German Demonstration Project) has been received from The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. The grant will be used in part to sponsor two meetings, one in
Washington (June 25, 1998) and one in Germany (Fall 1998), to bring together
North American librarians and their German counterparts to develop concrete
plans for shared document delivery, cooperative collection development,
enhanced access to Web resources, and improved bibliographic control. The
German project now has 28 participating ARL libraries.
The Latin Americanist Research Resources Project now has 40 participating ARL
libraries. The distributed resources component (formerly "monographic") has
reallocated some $160,000 towards deepening collections of strength at
participating libraries. According to testimonials from librarians at those
institutions, the project has allowed them to make significant additions of
unusual and unique research materials to their collections. The
University of Florida has submitted a report, "The University of Florida's
Latin American Collection: A Case Study of Unilateral Specialization in
Caribbean
Materials." It was undertaken by librarians at UF with the assistance of an
economist. A summary of the report will be available on the ARL web site
and/or in the ARL newsletter. In July, a detailed summary of project
activities and a survey will be sent to all participating libraries.
The Japanese Journal Access Project now has 29 participating ARL
libraries and several partner institutions in Japan.
A Global Resources Program survey was distributed to Title VI National
Resource Center Directors and faculty at their April 1998 meeting. The
results, which describe and quantify experiences with access, document
delivery, ILL,
etc., and provide information by world area on trends in the need for
international resources, are being compiled and analyzed.
A proposal has been received from the Africana Librarians' Council of the
African Studies Association (ALC/ASA) entitled "Cooperative Electronic
Management of African Newspaper Collections." Its goal is to create a
database of sub-Saharan African newspaper holdings, in all languages and
all formats. This Union List of African Newspapers will be Web-accessible
and will
eventually consolidate collections information from North America, Africa,
and Europe. The site will be hosted by the Center for Research Libraries
(CRL).
For information about ARL's Collections Program: jakubs_at_acpub.duke.edu
For information about ARL's Office of Scholarly Communication:
marycase_at_arl.org
For information about ARL's ILL study: mary_at_arl.org
Deborah Jakubs
Head, International and Area Studies Director, Global Resources Program
021 Perkins Library Association of Research Libraries
Box 90195 21 Dupont Circle
Duke University Washington, DC 20036
Durham, NC 27708
Phone: 919/660-5846 Phone: 202/296-2296
Fax: 919/684-2855 Fax: 202/872-0884
E-mail: jakubs_at_acpub.duke.edu
Received on Sun Jun 21 1998 - 14:37:38 EDT