Currently viewing the tag: "Melissa Guy"

Finance Committee 2012 Report

By daisilla On August 15, 2012

June 16, 11-12:30, 2012 Hibiscus Room and June 18, 3-4:30, Maraval Room, Trinidad and Tobago
Submitted by: Paula Covington, Chair
Members present: Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, Anne Barnhart, David Block, Hortensia Calvo, Angela Carreño, Paula Covington, Pamela Graham, Melissa Guy, Peter Johnson, Alma Ortega, Richard Phillips, Laura Shedenhelm.
Others: Adan Griego, Joseph Holub, Elmelinda Lara, Martha Mantilla, Mei Méndez, Craig  Schroer, Lynn Shirey, Gayle Williams
Finance met twice in Trinidad to review the current and proposed budgets, conference budgets, the state of investments, and proposed new fiscal policies and procedures.  Melissa Guy was welcomed as a new member to the committee.

Treasurer Peter Johnson reviewed the current and future fiscal outlook for SALALM.  Hortensia Calvo reported that the status of the current Secretariat budget is on track for this fiscal year.  Joe Holub presented his final report for the 2011 Philadelphia conference and reported approximately $11,000 in profit.  Elmelinda Lara estimated a profit of $12,000-14,000 for the Trinidad conference.  Mei Méndez and Gayle Williams reviewed preliminary figures for the 2013 Miami conference.   Laura Shedenhelm reported on the subcommittee, the Investment Working Group (IWG), which met earlier on June 16.

New business included a discussion of the need for liability insurance for the directors and officers of the organization.  Richard and Paula will have the pleasure of reviewing the proposed insurance policies.  Also discussed was the fraud report recommendation for an audit and the response from Howard Azer and Associates, P.A., a CPA firm specializing in non-profits.  Given the small number of transactions, all backed up by receipts and bank-generated documentation, Azer felt that a full audit is not necessary. The other options are a review report or the less expensive compilation report (this basically reviews the financial statements and banks reports and issues no opinion).  The committee also approved moving the IRS990 preparation and filing to Azer.
The IWG recommended that SALALM consider using TIAA-CREF to manage SALALM’s investments.  The group will submit its investment goals to TIAA to determine the best strategic investment plan.  The objective is to invest conservatively to provide regular stable annual returns and achieve an endowment that will be sufficient to cover the anticipated administrative costs of running a Secretariat in the future.

The committee reviewed Peter Johnson’s recommended changes to the member registration policy.  The draft was discussed and revised and sent forward to the Executive Board.

Peter Johnson reported on the new SALALM Scholarship.  The committee recommended that recipients be given a one-year membership in SALALM, one free webinar, and that their conference registration be waived during that year.

The software QuickBooks that was recommended by the auditor will be purchased from the Secretariat’s miscellaneous funds and implemented at the Secretariat.  Hortensia Calvo submitted the Secretariat’s proposed budget of $67,247 for the upcoming fiscal year and it was approved.  Dues will remain the same.

Hortensia Calvo reviewed the membership numbers that indicate no appreciable shift between the last two years, though institutional memberships are down from earlier years.  Payment of dues in September when they are due would be very helpful in planning and reducing the cost of reminders.  A general discussion included cost-saving measures, publication costs, and new personal and institutional membership generators and offerings.

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Four Case Studies on Human Rights Archiving: Methods, Process, Content, and Connections to Users

By daisilla On February 5, 2012

Panel 2, May 30 2011, 2:00 pm-3:30 pm

Moderator: Holly Ackerman, Duke University
Presenters: Bix Gabriel, International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (not present); Pamela Graham, Columbia University; Patrick Stawski, Duke University; Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez, Princeton University
Rapporteur: Melissa Guy, Arizona State University

Holly Ackerman presented Bix Gabriel’s paper titled “Remembering Guantanamo: How Can We Build a Public Memory of this Site’s Century-long History?” which focused on the Guantanamo Public Memory Project, an ongoing project of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC).

The Guantanamo Public Memory Project highlights the reality that Guantanamo as a place of detention has a long, complex past. Today, nearly 200 prisoners remain indefinitely detained at the U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, but prior to 2001, Guantanamo also housed detainees. In 1991, the George H. W. Bush Administration held Haitian refugees fleeing the Aristide regime. In 1994, the U.S. government created camps to house Cuban refugees who had attempted to flee to the United States. The Clinton Administration created Camp X-Ray as a separate facility to house those refugees who “caused trouble” in the camps, which remained open for over a year.

Gabriel found that Guantanamo has had many “ends,” and each time the camps are closed, public memory fades. The Guantanamo Public Memory Project, which began in 2009, seeks to preserve memories of Guantanamo. The ICSC began the project to encourage individuals connected to Guantanamo to tell their stories. The short term goal is to “learn how it has been used and re-used,” to imagine its future, and become involved in determining the outcome of what happens there today. The long term goal is to establish comprehensive documentation about activities, individuals, and policies associated with Guantanamo. The project seeks an “ongoing forum for truth-telling, dialogue, and collective accountability.”

The ICSC is a network of about 250 historic sites of contested history. All sites of conscience are based on the idea that “preserving and interpreting history is as much an act in support of human rights as is waging a campaign for justice.” In 2009, the organization held its first international working group to develop a framework for the Guantanamo Public Memory Project with various stakeholders including historians, librarians, detainees and their lawyers, members of the military, and directors of sites of conscience. Four principles emerged: 1) the entire history of Guantanamo should be included in the project; 2) it must include multiple perspectives; 3) the project should avoid considering Guantanamo a “closed” history; 4) the coalition should be international in scope. Already the coalition has identified more than 1,000 resources (books, archives, films, etc.) on Guantanamo. The creation of a virtual site is also in progress, since the actual camps at Guantanamo are not accessible. Ackerman is a member of the Advisory Board of the project. More information can be found on the ICSC website at: http://www.sitesofconscience.org/activities/guantanamo-public-memory-project

Pamela Graham followed with her presentation titled “The Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research: Collecting, Preserving, and Promoting the Record of Human Rights.” The Center at Columbia was built around the acquisition of the archives of several major human rights organizations beginning with Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, and Human Rights First. The records of these organizations were originally acquired and organized at the University of Colorado, Boulder by Bruce Montgomery in the early 1990s. In 2004, the collections were transferred to Columbia where they have undergone additional processing, arrangement, and description. These particular archives are on deposit at Columbia; the human rights organizations continue to own the records.

In 2005, Columbia founded the Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research to extend the scope of the collections acquired from Colorado, to expand the focus to the library’s general collection, and to develop digital projects. Archival materials are managed by the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library while the Center focuses on programmatic collecting and promotion of materials. Graham runs the Center and collaborates with library staff including subject specialists in global area studies; processing archivists; the oral history research office; web collection curators; technical services; and the digital program division.

Collections include archival primary sources, published scholarly materials in the general collection, and born-digital material. This particular presentation focused on the archival material; a separate presentation in Panel 9 described the Center’s efforts to archive born- digital material on the Web.

Within the archival materials, the records of greatest value are those that document “what advocacy looked like.” Examples from the Amnesty USA collection include: circulars distributed to country groups, records related to disappeared persons in Chile, and correspondence from the Executive Director and Executive boards. Human Rights Watch/Americas Watch records reveal connections among NGOs including the Committee to Protect Journalists (whose records are also housed at Columbia) and also contain news releases, field notes from hot spots, and legal testimony.

Graham concluded her presentation by describing some of the challenges associated with collecting in human rights, including creating the actual archives, since the organizations are focused on advocacy, not records management. Legal and privacy issues are unique with human rights records; balancing those concerns with the desire to make the records accessible to users can be difficult. Preservation issues are always a concern, particularly with regard to born-digital materials and the shift to online production of records.

More information on the Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research can be found at: http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/humanrights.html

Graham’s presentation was followed by that of Patrick Stawski, the Human Rights archivist at Duke University, whose presentation, “History in Action: Connecting Students, Scholars and Community to Human Rights Histories & Practice” focused on human rights archival collections and outreach efforts at Duke. The collections at Duke focus on human rights activism of individuals and NGOs. Their 25 collections are format-neutral and global in scope.

Major Latin American holdings include the records of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and those of Coletta Youngers, a WOLA associate. The WOLA records span the years from 1974 to 2005 and contain information on human rights abuse cases, documentation of the organization’s efforts to lobby U.S. officials for policy change, and evidence of WOLA’s collaboration with local human rights organizations in Latin America.

Duke also houses the Marshall T. Meyer Papers, which document the Argentine rabbi’s role as a human rights activist, religious leader, and scholar from the 1950s through the 1990s. The records also detail his involvement with CONADEP, Argentina’s truth commission, of which he was the only Argentine-born member. A traveling exhibit highlights materials from this collection.

The collection at Duke also contains materials that focus on human rights issues in Latino communities in the United States. The Student Action with Farmworkers records document working conditions of immigrant communities and activism among labor and student groups.

Other collections at Duke include the records of the Center for International Policy and the papers of Patricia Murphy Derian, the first Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs under President Carter.

Outreach for these collections focuses on creating a bridge between students, faculty, the community and records creators and includes, among other things, the WOLA/Duke book award and a documentary film series. More information on the human rights archives at Duke can be found at: http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/human-rights/

Fernando Acosta-Rodríguez completed the panel with his presentation, “From Underground to Open Access: Civil War, Society and Political Transition as Documented by the Archive of the Guatemala News and Information Bureau,” which focused on the transition of records from microfilm to open access digital material. The records of the Guatemala News and Information Bureau (GNIB) have been housed at Princeton since 2002. GNIB was created in 1978 in San Francisco as an activist group that sought to call attention to issues such as labor rights, indigenous rights and movements for peace and justice in Guatemala through informational campaigns, lobbying of U.S. officials, as well as educational and cultural programs.

Princeton had the collection microfilmed in 2004 with Primary Source Media. Nine academic libraries in the United States (including the Center for Research Libraries) own the 112 reels of film. In addition, Princeton donated a complete set to the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamérica (CIRMA) in Guatemala. Documents range from the 1970s to the present and include records related to the civil war in Guatemala and the peace accords of the 1990s. The microfilm is comprised of four sections: 1) grey literature and ephemera (about 60%); 2) serial runs (141 titles); 3) studies and reports (56 titles); and 4) news clippings (less than 1% of total.)

Princeton is now in the process of creating an open access digital collection of the first section of the GNIB archive. The first section (grey literature and ephemera) will be the only portion digitized due to its research value and unique content. Only the Guatemalan section of the NACLA archive comes closest to matching the richness of the GNIB records, but Princeton’s materials are unique in that they cover the years preceding and immediately following the peace accords. Section one of the GNIB records also complements the records of the National Security Archive project on Guatemala.

The open access digitization project was the result of conversations between the library and Princeton’s program for Latin American Studies about alternative access models for the Latin American political ephemera collection as a whole. In those conversations, five models of access emerged as possibilities:

1)      Outsourced microfilming and commercial distribution (already in place)

2)      Outsourced digitization, publishing, and distribution

3)      Outsourced digitization, internal publishing, and non-commercial distribution

4)      Internal digitization, internal publishing, and non-commercial distribution

5)      Consortial agreement with costs and responsibilities shared among participating institutions

Ultimately, Princeton decided to substitute the first, already established option with a combination of options three and five: outsourced digitization, internal publishing and non-commercial distribution as part of a consortial agreement. The GNIB archive was chosen as a pilot project because of its research value, the structure of the archive, the types of materials it contained, and its potential to reach wider audiences on a global scale. The ultimate goal is to create a searchable website for section one of the GNIB materials with contents described at the item level and open access to all images.

Partial funding for this ongoing project has been provided by the 2009 Cooperative Digitization of International Research Materials Project, sponsored by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and a four-year TICFIA grant.

Acosta-Rodríguez concluded that the project has been complex and labor intensive, but also worthwhile. He believes that a consortial open access model for digitization is the best way to move forward with similar projects, and he hopes that SALALM and LARRP will be involved in future endeavors.

Questions & Comments:

Paula Covington (Vanderbilt University): “Fernando, who funded this project?” Acosta-Rodríguez responded that funding came from a U.S. Department of Education TICFIA grant: $45,000 with matching funds plus labor from Princeton. James Simon (CRL) confirmed that TICFIA stands for Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Information Access.

 

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E-books, New Products/News Developments

By daisilla On September 5, 2011

Panel 13, May 31, 2011, 2:00 pm-3:00 pm

Moderator:     Adán Griego, Stanford University
Presenters:     Melissa Guy, Arizona State University; Felipe Varela, e-libro.com; Lluis Claret, Digitalia; Barbara Casalini, Casalini Libri
Rapporteur:    Meagan Lacy, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

These presentations focused on e-book trends from the perspectives of students, academic librarians, and vendors.

Adán Griego opened the panel with a PowerPoint presentation introducing the evolution of the e-book, emphasizing that the availability of e-books in Spanish are not meeting user expectations. Griego cited a study in Library Journal to show that academic libraries are ripe to provide e-books in Spanish. Griego also cited an informal survey (sent out to SALALM libraries) that collected information about which platforms these libraries used (Ebrary, Netlibrary, Digitalia, Alexander Street Press) and whether or not, to the respondents’ knowledge, they provided content in Spanish. These results implied that public libraries are more ready than academic libraries to provide e-books. Anticipating skepticism, Griego stressed that e-books are a solution to space issues in libraries and that future college students, “digital natives,” will expect to have access to e-books. Griego concluded the presentation by listing resources academic librarians can peruse in order to keep current about the e-book market. Resources included: Blog de Libros y bitios (http://jamillan.com/librosybitios/), Libros electronicos (open group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/universoebook), and Javier Celaya (on dosdoce.com).

Melissa Guy continued the panel discussion (see PowerPoint here) describing how the systematic, patron driven acquisitions (PDA) program at Arizona State University (ASU) has affected e-book usage. ASU serves over 70,000 students in the Phoenix metropolitan area, many enrolled in its distance education programs. In order to serve this scattered student body, ASU prefers electronic sources. Due to the recession, however, ASU was unable to purchase anything for its collections between 2008 and 2010. This environment forced ASU libraries to devise a new system.

In 2009, Guy noted, ASU partnered with Coutts because they could provide an immediate, e-preferred approval plan. This plan had three components to accommodate the purchase of electronic books, books in print, and books from university presses. E-books are collected using a three-click model. Records to titles not exceeding $150 and that fit subject parameters are streamed in the catalog and after the third user clicks on the title, that e-book is purchased (so two uses are free). For print books, again records are streamed in the catalog, and titles are purchased automatically (through acquisitions) after the first click. Books from university presses are collected using the more traditional approval plan method (arriving automatically in print). One challenge with this system is deciding when to stop streaming MARC records in the catalog after they have been loaded (i.e. how to remove records to materials not purchased). ASU can buy books from other e-book vendors, but the PDA program runs on the Coutts My iLibrary platform.

At this point, there are 4,700 MARC records for print titles. E-books were loaded in 2009. It took an additional year to get print titles going because of backend issues. Because the plan is e-preferred, ASU has a 90-day hold on print titles. What this means is that when a print title is available, Coutts waits 90 days to see if the title will be made electronic, at which point it will be streamed as an e-title. If there is no e-version after 90 days, the record to the print title is streamed. If a book available in print becomes available as an e-book, the electronic book record replaces the print record, which has caused challenges for acquisitions.

Not surprisingly, social sciences and humanities disciplines dominated print titles, while demand for e-books was led by STEM disciplines. Almost all print books were selected by faculty (45%) and graduate students (40%). In FY2011, ASU spent $100,000 on print titles from University Presses, $152,000 on PDA e-books, and $24,000 on print books (much of these orders were fulfilled by Amazon since Coutts doesn’t have titles in stock).

Another challenge, according to Guy, included assessment as well as implications on area studies and foreign language collection development. Involving subject librarians from the beginning, continuing the approval plan with university presses, and permitting firm orders have all worked to mitigate some problems. When the PDA program was established all of the regular fund codes were eliminated, so subject librarians were drawing from the same pool of money for firm orders. Presently, since less money is spent on PDA, more money is available for firm orders. Also, area studies librarians were the exception; they had their own budget outside of firm order funds, so approval plans with international vendors could remain in place.

Following Guy, Felipe Varela (e-libro.com) opened his presentation by providing updates about changes happening at e-libro. First, ProQuest bought ebrary, and ebrary and e-libro have been working in tandem since 1999. So, ebrary and ProQuest will now distribute e-libro around the world. Ebrary will distribute e-libro in the United States; ProQuest will distribute e-libro throughout the rest of the world. Also, if any libraries subscribe to Academic Complete with ebrary, they can now update to Academic Complete con Español, which includes approximately 3,700 e-libro’s titles. The e-libro’s platform is exactly the same as ebrary so the features (highlighter, dictionary, translator) and the process for searching the text are familiar except that the searches can now be accomplished in Spanish. Students can print twenty pages a session or 40 pages per day – a restriction e-libro grants in order to please publishers and thus sign them. Also, every student can create their own library, which allows them to save their highlighted text and notes for later review. Currently e-libros holds about 45,000 titles including theses, articles, and books. Every year, e-libros is building momentum, and it is getting easier for the company to obtain new titles. For instance, they currently have 86 titles from Fondo (working toward another 200), Instituto Politécnico Nacional, UNAM, and Universidad de Guadalajara. In Spain, they have Siglo XXI. Other titles come from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Grupo Planeta.

 

Valera further explained that the price for e-libro depends on FTE at the university. Worldwide, e-libro has approximately 500 clients – doing well especially in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. In the US, they have four clients (all in Florida because Varela lives in Florida). Since e-brary is now distributing e-libros titles, e-libros expects to have more US clients.

 

Next, Lluis Claret (Digitalia) introduced his products and services. Digitalia was formed five years ago with a mission to provide quality e-content to libraries without disrupting traditional models for selection and acquisitions. The company has concluded that there are basically two purchasing models: subscription and ownership. Subscription works well in Latin America but not the US, where libraries prefer perpetual access. Claret admitted that PDA is a third option but intimated that it is not realistic for publishers who would be forced to do more “commercial stuff.”

 

Digitalia offers three purchasing models where customers can subscribe, buy, or lease-to-buy. New York Public Library uses this latter model, which allows them “the best of the subscription” as well as some perpetual rights. One feature that sets Digitalia apart from other vendors is that they provide subscriptions to e-books and e-journals. In addition, all titles are accessible by multiple users, and users can print as much as they want. The platform is very similar to myilibrary. Claret emphasized that Digitalia is academic and research focused and is working mostly with academic libraries. Digitalia is committed to acquiring quality academic titles in Latin America and the Caribbean as quickly as possible.

 

Finally, Barbara Casalini (Casalini Libri) explained how Casalini Libri, founded in 1958 in Italy, is fulfilling its mission to bring publications in the Romance Languages to Academic Libraries worldwide in the digital age. Its digital division started in 2000, and in 2004 they launched Editoria Italiana Online (EIO) and in 2006 Edición Española Online (EEO).

 

Recently, the EEO platform was launched. To demystify how Casalini Libri operates, Casalini explained the process of acquiring e-content. First, she said that they contact publishers who provide a print-ready PDF of the content. Then, MARC records are created. Finally, they sign the Digital Rights Management contract. The objective is always to develop a collection that is of enduring value to libraries (“long tail” titles). Casalini acknowledged that libraries need to know what content is available electronically in a timely manner.

 

Next, Casalini demonstrated EEO, mentioning that it holds approximately 500 books from 14 publishers and is growing. Spanish content is provided in the eBook format only (as opposed to being divided into clickable chapters), but features will eventually be enhanced. Currently, the subject content is focused heavily in Social Sciences and Law though subject content is expected to grow.

 

The new EEO platform was designed to sustain different economic models and meet Web 2.0 expectations. Its interface is available in 5 languages (Spanish, English, Italian, German, and French) and allows for customizable skins (to match institutional theme). From the user end, libraries can choose to either show e-content that it has acquired or show all of the content available, accommodating PDA in a variety of manifestations. Also, the platform was designed with federated searching (SUMMON, PRIMO Central) and usage statistics in mind.

 

In the future, Casalini Libri aims to acquire more titles from university presses and content that is already available in Open Access and to design a mobile interface. Finally, it is striving to facilitate agreements with CLOCKSS and Portico to promote digital solutions to publishers in Spain and Portugal and to collect more regional content.

 

Questions & Comments:

 

Jesús Alonso-Regalado (University at Albany, SUNY) questioned the fairness of pricing models based on FTE since Spanish readers are a minority on university campuses, and he asked the vendors whether or not they charge customers for Open Access content (such as that from CLASCO). Varela responded that FTE is the best solution they currently have to charge customers and that customers pay for a subscription – whether or not some of the individual titles are freely available. (E-libro was deleting free content, but customers complained when titles started to disappear from the database.) Casalini said that Open Access content has no fiscal bearing on the subscription price. Valera added that whenever e-libro signs a publisher, he only obtains what the publisher wants to give. In other words, he does not obtain exclusive rights. So, publishers are able to put their content anywhere else they choose, including through Open Access channels.

 

Peter Johnson (Hunters Point) asked what consideration the vendors have given to important publications (monographic and serial) that are issued by Think Tanks, NGOs, and branches of the government (at a national, provincial, and city level). Valera said that e-brary has close to half a million titles from NGOs and the like, but e-libro, still concentrating on finding publishers and university presses, is not even close to that number. However, he added that e-libro hopes to gather this kind of content in the future. Claret cited a publication from the government in Valencia that is included in his database and said that it took him three years to negotiate the deal – suggesting that the dearth of these kinds of publications might be traced to the time consuming process associated with obtaining them. Casalini agreed with Claret’s comment, saying his experience resonated with her own.

 

Patricia Figueroa (Brown University) addressed Casalini, asking whether or not she had plans to merge EIO, EEO, and any other platforms. Casalini clarified that the content is already available from one platform but that the interface is available in five languages.

 

Melanie Polutta (Library of Congress) asked Guy how they are receiving MARC records for titles they are streaming but haven’t yet been purchased. Guy replied that Coutts supplies those records but that for items obtained through Amazon, additional processing the MARC records is required on the part of ASU Libraries.

 

Martha Mantilla (University of Pittsburgh) asked the vendors whether or not, when they negotiate with publishers, they obtain exclusive rights. Claret responded that, though they do have some exclusivities, this is not always the case. They are not pushing for exclusivity because it is so difficult to obtain exclusive agreements. In the future, he expects to see that many platforms will have similar content and that it will then be up to the customer to decide which platform she wants to use. Mantilla restated her question, asking whether or not a publisher granting exclusivity to Digitalia could also sell that content to e-libro. Both Claret and Varela said that in the case of an exclusive agreement, no, but that such instances are rare. Now, agreements are almost always non-exclusive.

 

Miguel Angel Valladares (Dartmouth College) addressed Guy wanting to know whether or not there is a limit to the amount patrons can spend. In response, Guy recommended first that the audience participants interested in PDA go to the Library-Bookdealer-Publisher Relations committee meeting where Holly Ackerman (Duke) is expected to give a talk about PDA at Duke. Then, she explained that at ASU the library has the ability to deactivate this feature at any time. In addition, ASU Libraries set aside a large reserve of funds in case “people went nuts.” As it turns out, people didn’t abuse this feature, and ASU actually had a surplus for firm orders. Valladares followed up, asking whether or not ASU publicized the feature. Guy said that ASU libraries did not publicize PDA at all. Valladares’ also wanted to know how many eBooks titles ASU was able to acquire. Guy said that she would find this information and contact Valladares directly. In jest, Valladares asked Guy if he could use her name with his Coutts representative.

 

 

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