Mission

The California and Western Cooperative Latin American Collection Development Group, better known as Calafia, is a consortium of libraries in California, Oregon, and Washington. Libraries from Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and/or Montana may also join. The combined Latin American holdings of the Calafia group number more than one million volumes and are surpassed only by the Library of Congress’ Latin American Studies Collection.

Statement of Purpose

The original California Cooperative Latin American Collection Development Group (CALAFIA) was established in 1995 to optimize resources and effort by promoting collaboration and coordination among member institutions in building Caribbean, Chicanx, Iberian, and Latin American library resources. Continued growth in publishing, shrinking or steady library budgets, and the inherent problems of acquiring and accessing resources in the region make library cooperation not only practical, but an imperative to assure adequate coverage of the area for present and future generations of scholars.
 

This consortium evolved over years of national, regional, and inter-institutional formal and informal cooperative efforts. The consortium is currently composed of area specialists, selectors, and catalogers who are responsible for developing and managing collections and resources and/or offering instruction or research assistance utilizing these collections. This document is a general statement of principles, goals, and organization for the group as a whole. Formal agreements between some or all members of the consortium contain detailed provisions for cooperative arrangements between those members.

Goals

1. To identify and develop strategies to collect, acquire, promote, provide access to, and preserve important research resources.
2. To develop and coordinate formal collection development agreements in order to maintain or enhance the collective collections, based on programmatic needs and strengths of individual campuses. Coordinating serial cancellations and new subscriptions, developing collections in new program areas, building retrospective backfiles, and accepting geographic collecting responsibilities are examples of appropriate activities. Agreements should clearly identify participant responsibilities, minimum time and funding commitments, notification and monitoring provisions.
3. To collaborate to obtain extra-institutional grant funds, whenever appropriate, to support consortium goals.
4. To promote access to appropriate electronic resources.
5. To identify preservation needs and coordinate projects.
6. To promote the exchange of information across western institutions.
7. To promote the development and exchange of instructional tools and research aids.
8. To coordinate projects, activities, and initiatives in collaboration with other regional, national, and international Caribbean, Chicanx, Iberian, and Latin Americanist groups or institutions, to the extent possible.
9. To work with vendors and publishers to develop needed products and favorable consortium purchasing arrangements. Some of this is now coordinated through the Latin American Materials Project (LAMP) and the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (LARRP) of the Center for Research Libraries.
10. The group will work to promote the spirit of cooperation embodied in the “Brief Guidelines for Collaborative Collection Development and Management Among the University of California/Stanford University Libraries” (Revised October, 1994).

Organization

1. Co-Chairs:
   1. The consortium will elect one co-chair each year for a term of two years for overlap and continuity.
   2. The election will normally occur during the SALALM Calafia meeting time.
   3. A call for nominations from the co-chairs will be sent out at least one month prior to the election followed by a vote of the current members.
   4. The term will begin at the end of the annual SALALM meeting or July 1, whichever occurs first.
   5. If a co-chair resigns during their first year, an election will be held for a replacement to fill out the remainder of the two-year appointment. If a co-chair resigns during their second year, a replacement is appointed by the remaining co-chair to fill out the remaining time to the next election.
   6. Chairs may succeed themselves if re-elected.
   7. The co-chairs will convene meetings; develop the meeting agenda; track the progress of projects; keep projects to reasonable time frames; keep the Calafia Google-Group, based at UCSC, current; and coordinate with Stanford University Libraries to maintain a current CALAFIA website, including a roster of members. In addition, they will submit a brief annual report of the activities of the group or the minutes of the meeting held in conjunction with SALALM by August 1 of each year for posting on the website.
2. The group will meet in conjunction with the annual conference of the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM). A second meeting may be held in California following Super Bowl Sunday or prior to or following the California International Antiquarian Book Fair in person or virtually.
3. Members are those library employees currently involved in collecting, cataloging, preserving, and/or providing instruction on the Caribbean, Chicanx, Iberian, and/or Latin American materials at their institution.
4. Members are listed on the CALAFIA website and are part of the CALAFIA Google-Group.
5. The quorum for a meeting is composed of those present (physically and/or virtually).
6. Motions are approved when 50% plus one of those members present vote in the affirmative; for email voting, it is 50% plus one of those members who respond either affirmatively or negatively during the allotted time stated for voting. Voting may also take place by general consent.