travelling_librarian_2010

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ESU/CILIP Travelling Librarian Award 2010

“Servicing Caribbean Studies – learning from United States experiences” 9

th - 28

th October 2010

David Clover Commonwealth Studies Librarian and Senior Academic Liaison Librarian University Libraries – University of London

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Contents Executive summary 3

Acknowledgements 4

1. Personal profile and context 5

2. Objectives 6

3. Planning 7

4. Itinerary 8

5. The visits

Florida International University 9

University of Miami 12

University of Florida 14

University of North Carolina 17

Duke University 19

University of Illinois Chicago 21

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign 23

New York University 25

Columbia University 27

Schomburg Center for Black Cultural Studies 28

6. Key themes 29

7. Recommendations for University of London Research

Library Services 31

Appendix A: Dissemination plan 32

Appendix B: Expenditure 33

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Executive summary The Travelling Librarian Award, generously provided by the English Speaking Union and CILIP, made possible a seventeen day series of visits to university and research libraries in the United States with significant collections and services relevant to Caribbean Studies. Visits took place at Florida International University; the University of Miami; the University of Florida; the University of North Carolina; Duke University; University of Illinois-Chicago; University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; New York University; Columbia University; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library My objectives for this study tour were to:

Expand my knowledge of major collections relating to Caribbean Studies in the United States,

Make personal contact with United States librarians and archivists with Caribbean Studies responsibilities,

Learn about current projects relating to Caribbean collections, in particular relating to collaboration and digitisation,

Develop strategies for collaborative projects with United States libraries, including scoping digital projects, building on previous contacts with some institutions.

In addition the opportunity was taken to discuss other areas of interest, including models of reference service, staff roles for subject specialists, web based subject guides, and fundraising initiatives. The Award was a valuable opportunity to learn more about US academic and research libraries generally as well as provision for Caribbean Studies, and provided a wealth of information, ideas and inspiration, as well as helping to establish a useful network for ongoing contact and potential collaboration. As a result of this visit the following recommendations for further action have been submitted to the University of London Research Library Services:

That the University of London Research Library Services join membership of the Digital Library of the Caribbean (DLoC), initially contributing some existing digitised content as well as looking for small runs of periodicals or newsletters to contribute to the current phase of the programme, as well as looking for funding to digitise other suitable material, which could be hosted locally as well as within DLoC.

That the libraries investigate further and consider membership of initiatives including the Internet Archive and Hathi Trust.

That the libraries further invest in the electronic environment supporting subject-based materials, including an evaluation of LibGuides and similar products.

That the library continues discussions with the University of Illinois Chicago or potential joint projects related to the UIC Sierra Leone and Slavery collections.

That experiences from the universities visited contribute to discussions within the current review of enquiry services.

That the library considers fundraising and development activity further based on discussions and information gained on this trip on the US experience.

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Acknowledgements Thanks are due to CILIP and the ESU for providing the Travelling Librarian Award. I particularly wish to thank Gill Hale, ESU Librarian and Jill Martin, Director of Knowledge & Information, CILIP for their support and advice. I would also like to acknowledge the helpful advice received from previous award holders, in particular Robert Atkinson. Special thanks are owed to the librarians at the libraries I visited, who made me feel so very welcome, fitted in with my schedule and gave up their time to make my visits so useful. For their kind and generous hospitality I thank Gayle Williams, Latin American & Caribbean Information Services Librarian and Brooke Woolridge, Digital Library of the Caribbean (Florida International University); Meiyolet Méndez, Subject Librarian for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (University of Miami); Richard Phillips, Director of the Latin American Library (University of Florida); Teresa Chapa , Latin America and Caribbean Studies Librarian (University of North Carolina); Holly Ackerman, Latin America and Caribbean Studies Librarian (Duke University); Peter Hepburn, Digitization Librarian and Valerie Harris, Associate Special Collections Librarian (University of Illinois, Chicago); Paula Mae Carns, Latin American & Caribbean Studies Library (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign); Angela Carreño, Head of Collection Development and Latin American and Caribbean Librarian (New York University); Bob Wolven, Associate University Librarian for Bibliographic Services and Collection Development and Rob Davis, Librarian for Russian, Eurasian & East European Studies (Columbia University); and Diana Lachatanere, Curator, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division and Auburn Nelson, Senior Reference Librarian (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library). Thanks are due also to their colleagues with whom I had shorter meetings, who arranged displays of special collections material, who demonstrated projects in action and provided individual tours. I wish to acknowledge the support of my employer and colleagues for granting me leave to undertake this study tour and for covering my work in my absence. Personal thanks are also due to Emma and her family, and to Claire, who made their homes available to me in Durham and Chicago respectively; and to my partner for being so supportive and encouraging before and during my absence.

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1. Personal profile and context I am the Commonwealth Studies Librarian at the University of London Research Library Services and the Librarian for the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. In this role I have responsibilities for the collections relating to all regions of the Commonwealth, including the Anglophone Caribbean, in the fields of history and the social sciences. I am also Senior Academic Liaison Librarian, Senate House Library, managing the team of subject specialist librarians. I am a committee member of the UK Society for Caribbean Studies http://www.caribbeanstudies.org.uk/ , a committee member of SCOLMA (the UK libraries and archives group on Africa) http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/scolma/, and co-ordinator of ANZLAG (the Australian and New Zealand Library and Archives Group) and of BACS-LARG (the British Association for Canadian Studies‟ Library and Resources Group). I am a member of the Advisory Board for the British Academy funded Directory of Latin American and Caribbean Library Resources in the UK project, currently being carried out by the Joint Initiative for the Study of Latin America and the Caribbean (JISLAC) The Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library, now housed within the Senate House Library, University of London, is a major resource for those working on the Commonwealth as a whole, or on any of its member states, in the fields of history and social sciences (including politics and international relations, agriculture, economics, education, and the environment). The library contains nearly 200,000 volumes and over 230 archive collections. The Institute's Caribbean collection is one of the best in Britain and includes material on all Commonwealth countries and British dependent territories in the region. It covers history, politics and international relations, economic development and other issues such as women, agriculture, educational policy and the environment. Within the collection, the library of the West India Committee, deposited in 1977, is a major asset which contains a considerable amount of older material. In addition the archive collections include major collections such as the papers of the West India Committee, and the Simon Taylor (Jamaican plantation owner) papers, as well as the Castle Wemyss (Jamaican plantation) papers (all of relevance to the study of the slavery period), and papers of Sandbach Tinne & Co (trade and shipping company based in the UK and Demerara (now Guyana); CLR James (trade union and political activist and writer on politics and cricket); Richard Hart (trade union and political activist); and a contemporary collection of pamphlets and ephemera from Caribbean political parties, trade unions and pressure groups.

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2. Objectives Being well acquainted with resources for Caribbean Studies in the UK the purpose of this study tour was to look to the United States for information on collections and services there, for new ideas for projects and activities, and for inspiration. The tour would I hoped provide a different perspective on Caribbean Studies, reflecting different geographical, historical and political interests, as well as the closer physical proximity to the Caribbean region. My objectives for this study tour were to:

Expand my knowledge of major collections relating to Caribbean Studies in the United States,

Make personal contact with United States librarians and archivists with Caribbean Studies responsibilities,

Learn about current projects relating to Caribbean collections, in particular relating to collaboration and digitisation,

Develop strategies for collaborative projects with United States libraries, including scoping digital projects, building on previous contacts with some institutions.

Findings from the trip will enhance services at the Commonwealth Studies Library and beyond through a range of dissemination activities. I hoped also that the tour would provide opportunities for personal development as I reflected on overall aspects of academic library services and provide opportunities for ongoing relationships and future potential collaboration. One of the most valuable aspects of this scheme was that it is not tied to specific projects or outcomes and travelling with this open mind to new insights and experiences was highly appreciated.

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3. Planning The effort and time in planning a trip of this nature should not be underestimated. It takes considerable time to contact libraries, confirm interest and availability, compile a rough itinerary, book flights and then confirm details for each visit. I selected a group of libraries with collection strengths in Caribbean Studies and with projects with which I had already had some contact, and wished to explore in more depth and in person. I selected these libraries based on my own knowledge, discussions with researchers in Caribbean studies, and by looking through library and university websites. I made a decision to concentrate on the eastern half of the US for practical reasons of travelling time. Contacts at each library were usually the subject librarian with responsibility for Caribbean Studies. Specific issues or projects were identified as well as a general agenda for discussion which included:

Background of university, library and collections

Description of collections and collection strengths

Sources for material from or about Anglophone Caribbean

Collaboration with other institutions

Digitisation activity and projects

Relationships and liaison with teaching and research, and outreach activities

Trends in teaching and research, and in library use General discussions also took place on topics including:

Structure of reference and enquiry services

Library fundraising activity

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4. Itinerary My trip covered the states of Florida, North Carolina, Illinois and New York. In a total of seventeen days I visited libraries at Florida International University; the University of Miami; the University of Florida; the University of North Carolina; Duke University; University of Illinois-Chicago; University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; New York University; Columbia University; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. My first week was spent in Florida. I flew into Miami on Saturday 9th October, allowing a day to acclimatise and recover from the flight, and then spent three days in Miami visiting Florida International University and the University of Miami, then flying to Gainesville in north Florida to visit the University of Florida (experiencing Homecoming, which took place during my visit). The following Saturday I flew (via Miami) to Raleigh-Durham, basing myself in Durham for visits to the University of North Carolina and Duke University. From there I flew to Chicago spending a day and a half at the University of Illinois Chicago and travelling to and from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign on Amtrak in one day. On the Sunday I then flew to New York and in the next two days visited New York University; Columbia University; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, returning to London on Wednesday evening.

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5. The visits

Florida International University Monday 11th October and Tuesday 12th October

I had previous met with Gayle Williams from the Latin American and Caribbean Information Center (LACIC), in London in June 2009 to discuss the Digital Library of the Caribbean (DLoC). Florida International University is a fairly new institution. It was chartered in 1967 but opened in 1972, and was the first state university in Miami. About 15 years ago it began a move to gain Research status. The Latin American and Caribbean Center (the academic department) receives Title VI funding from the Dept of Education (as a National Centre for foreign language and area studies) which includes resources for the library. LACIC is about ten years old, and was set up initially to give prominence to additional staffing, partly paid for by the department, and exists as a space for staff and for consultation, but with collections integrated within the library as a whole. Gayle provided a very useful overview of Latin American and Caribbean studies in the United States, and library support and collections, discussing funding and regional and national collaboration. We discussed acquisition, by FIU, of material for Latin America and the Caribbean. Like many US libraries visited FIU use approval plans with library suppliers for the region as well as book buying trips and attendance at book fairs. Approval plans were not used for the Anglophone Caribbean. FIU use many of the same suppliers we use. I was interested to hear of growing trends towards self-publishing in the region, as well as an agent covering Belize that I was not aware of.

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There is a tradition of collaboration in Florida between State Universities (including FIU and University of Florida). The state universities have a shared catalogue system, are looking at sharing records and get discounts on databases through the Florida Consortium on Library Automation (FCLA). There have been some moves towards regional collaborative collecting, but issues of distance between institutions and issues of delivery have meant a backing away from this. The academic departments at FIU and the University of Miami have recently been awarded joint title IV funding, but library collaboration has not been discussed yet. There is a reciprocal borrowing agreement with the University of Miami, but as it is a private university this creates some barriers to working more closely together. Gayle noted that a history of informal collaboration has been enabled through personal contacts and membership of subject groups (such as SALALM), reflecting my own experience of UK-based subject groups. Gayle and I discussed collection assessment and evaluation. Gayle talked through the processes they used, which were dependent on use of the OCLC WorldCat Analysis programme (and shared use of Library of Congress classification). We discussed the use of RLG Conspectus, which Gayle felt had fallen out of use generally, and was not very useful for area studies. While it continues to be used to describe collections, few libraries have repeated Conspectus evaluations in recent years.

On my second day at FIU I met with Brooke Wooldridge, employed as Coordinator of the Digital Library of the Caribbean, to discuss the Digital Library of the Caribbean (www.dloc.com) in more

depth. DLoC is a collaborative digitisation project, funded by the Department of Education, to provide access to foreign information. The project was based on earlier work between FIU, the University of Florida and the University of the Virgin Islands on the US Virgin Islands Culture and History project. The project is of special interest due to its focus on material from the Caribbean regions itself and work with Caribbean partners; and focuses on the provision of technology for culture exchange, the promotion of Caribbean Studies, and digital preservation. The project recently received a second grant focussed on newspapers. This has led to an increased amount of material within the digital library, compared to when I first looked at this in June 2009 as well as providing a clearer sense of sustainability, with the current grant continuing for another three years and discussions ongoing about how to „institutionalise‟ the project to ensure it remains ongoing. There are currently twenty partners in the project from the US and the Caribbean, and one (KLTV) in Europe. Relationships are still being developed in the Caribbean – in some areas these are strong, in others moving forwards, and in some areas still weak and facing some difficulty.

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As well as ongoing technological developments and enhancement to the platform, enhancement of metadata and similar developments, plans for growth include digitisation from within the United States outside the original partners (originally not allowed as there were fears of overwhelming the project with US rather than Caribbean based content) and hopes to expand content with bilateral grants with different project partners (for example in the Dutch Caribbean and through OAS funding for work in Haiti). We discussed the work carried out in Haiti after the earthquake there. In some ways this was a detour for the project, but also an important opportunity to rethink what the project was for, and recognising the importance of relationships developed through the project. An invitation was made for the Commonwealth Studies Library and ULRLS to join and submit material to DLoC (including contributions to the newspaper project as well as archives lists) as well as working together to look at Endangered Archives Programme applications. We also discussed possible collaboration on thematic guides to content, similar to work we have already done in the Commonwealth Studies Library‟s Caribbean Online web exhibition. I also met with Vicki Silvera, from Special Collections at FIU. When the University started other libraries in the region already had specialities in Latin America and Florida so an initial development focus was on the Caribbean (including Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti). In terms of Caribbean collection development, a themed approach has been taken, with interests in slavery, the Morant Bay Rebellion; migration within the Caribbean; and Chinese and Indian migration to the Anglophone Caribbean and Cuba – based on research student and staff interests. I also met with Bryan Cooper (Associate Dean for Technical Service) and discussed digitisation issues and Stephanie Brenenson (Coordinator of Library Instruction), with whom I discussed reference services models and delivery.

Finally, I should record thanks to Gayle and Brooke for ensuring my visit included opportunities to experience Cuban and Haitian food and drink.

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University of Miami

Wednesday 13th October

I was hosted by Mei (Meiyolet) Méndez at the University of Miami, who is the Librarian for Latin American Studies, Caribbean Studies, History, International Studies and Modern Languages and Literatures.

The University of Miami was started in 1926. The current campus was built in the 1960‟s (the Library in 1962). The foundation library included a gift of a collection of books from a Cuban doctor, and there have been close ties since then with the Cuban community in Cuba and Miami (especially In the 1920s and 1930s). There has always been a strong interest in Cuban materials throughout the collections (and this was largely librarian led). Although a private university, the library was not well funded until recently and heavily reliant upon gifts until the 1990s. Collections and the library have more recently been boosted by the support of a new President and Provost. In 1998 the Cuban Heritage Collection became a separate department of the library, pulling material from the main stacks and receiving funding to create a new centre. Latin American and Caribbean collections also began as gifts, current approval plans are in place with a focus on Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Cuba and Venezuela. The university department receives Title VI grant monies which support collecting. This is currently received through a joint programme with FIU.

The University of Miami is at the initial stages of thinking about collaboration with FIU. They are impeded by geography (notably poor public transportation between the two institutions) and the kind of institutions that they are (private and state respectively). While they are considering copying aspects of the Duke/UNC model, issues relating to borrowing privileges, shipping costs and reciprocity need discussion and resolution. Of more general interest was mention of the Latin American Government Documents Archive (http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/archives/lagda/) hosted at the University of Texas – an ongoing web archiving project. Further investigation of this project

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is hoped to help inform planned discussions with the British Library on collaboration in relation to African official publications.

Mei and I also discussed enquiry services, the University of Miami operating a service that uses Library Assistants with professional (faculty) staff as back-up for much of the time. This model is one that I intend to discuss further within our own review of enquiry service provision.

We visited the Cuban Heritage Collection (http://www.library.miami.edu/chc/). The Cuban Heritage Collection was formed from the library collections in 1998, holdings including books, periodicals (including many rare titles), digital materials and archives and manuscripts. It was useful to meet with Lesbia Orta Verona, the Librarian and Bibliographer for the collection, who discussed the collection as well as providing a tour which included the closed access stacks, and an opportunity to see the wide range of material in the collection, including notable collections of posters and theatre related material. The Collection is housed in beautiful reading rooms and was an inspiring demonstration of how new library spaces can enhance the sense of value and worth of the collections they contain.

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University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Thursday 14th – Friday 15th October

The University of Florida is a large (over 50000 students), land grant, state university. It was founded in Gainesville in 1905 but dates back to the 1850s. As a land grant university the institution originally had strengths in tropical agriculture, sugar and citrus, but broadened its scope over time. It has retained some of these interests with interest in new issues of environmentalism and tropical conservation, and a niche remains in life and tropical sciences, lowland humid areas, and an interest in rural anthropology and sociology. A recent grant application to the Gates Foundation focussed on malaria (and includes a library component).

The University of Florida‟s library collections for the Caribbean are the strongest in the state and probably in the United States as a whole. The Center for Latin American and the Caribbean started post-WW2, in the 1950s. The center‟s origins reflect the geography of Florida, with familial links and migration to the Caribbean and Latin America and perhaps more importantly, trade links with Latin America and the Caribbean, the state of Florida being seen as the gateway to the region.

I was hosted by Richard Phillips, Head Librarian of the Latin American Collection and also spoke with Paul Losch, Operations Librarian.

The Latin American and Caribbean Library operates as a separate physical library within the University of Florida Libraries and also purchases materials from the region for other parts of the library (in sciences and agricultures, etc). Meetings also took place with staff at the University of Florida Digital Library (another partner in the DLoC project), and with staff in special collections and the extensive preservation unit, as well as at the Centre for Latin American Studies. I was privileged to enjoy discussions over breakfast on Saturday morning with the Dean of Libraries, Judy Russell.

Library collections include DVDs and film from the Caribbean (we have not collected this kind of material and it was useful to look at what was available and discuss suppliers as we consider this in the future). The University of Florida also has particularly strong collections of material in microfilm format, some filmed by the library in projects in the 1960s and 1970s from material in the

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Caribbean. This includes rare material such as Bahamas government records, the Leeward Islands Gazette (1872-), the British Guiana Chronicle, and Bahamas Gazette.

The library has always had, and retains some degree of, exchange with different libraries and learned societies. In recent years some of this has become inactive, as those publishing material no longer can afford to send or no longer produce material in print format. A lot of material is still received as gift, although the extent of this is reducing. Purchase is not always reliable for this kind of material. The library holds a large collection of government official publications, and notes that an increasing number of central bank reports, etc are now online, though general reports tend not to be. This matches our own experience, though exchange and gift has been greater affected by the increased distance and cost of sending material.

We discussed trends in research and Richard commented on interest in Jamaica, especially Afro-Jamaica; a lot of interest in Afro-Caribbean culture, music, literature and families generally; interest in religion, environmental issues;women‟s studies especially in terms of policy making; and in ideas of ethnicity and identity.

We talked about collaboration, and national and regional groups and initiatives. The University of Florida has a commitment to deep collecting for the Caribbean within the SALALM LARP programme, and has been involved in the LAMP microfilming programme (now moving towards digitisation). We discussed various regional groups and the advantages for collaboration of an ability to easily travel between members, and in the US context the advantages for private universities which are less constrained that state universities in terms of spending.

Within the Florida State university system a new scheme (UBorrow) is being launched that will allow users to make direct requests to borrow material from other member libraries, without the need for mediation by home libraries. There were some concerns about the extent and number of requests, and authentication issues, and we agreed it would be useful to discuss how the scheme worked in practice after it had started.

Digital activity at UF dates back to 1994 with a Mellon funded project to digitise two Caribbean newspapers – the Haitian Neuvollite and the Cuban Diaro de la Marina – although the interface wasn‟t very good the files created remain useful. Other digital projects include the Digital Library of South America, and within the UF Digital Library projects on the Panama Canal, Women in Development, and Africa. Library directors have supported moves towards digitisation and helped seek grant money, due to the national regard for the Latin American and Caribbean collections.

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The Caribbean remains a priority for Special Collections. This requires some purchases so focus and depth of collections are retained, and donations are also accepted, for example a recent gift of material on Brazilian popular religion (Della Cava). Within the Caribbean there is a focus on Cuba (with themes including early tourism, shared environment, revolution, diaspora, and sugar) and Haiti (with themes including the first Black revolution, exile, and diaspora).

It was useful to visit staff at the UF Digital Library, who carry out the technical side of the Digital Library of the Caribbean. I met with Laurie Taylor (Interim Director) and Mark Sullivan (Programmer (Systems)) as well as being shown the operation and equipment including copybook machines and book cradles, we talked about processes involved and planned developments. The service offered includes seeking copyright and permission requests and partners are able to download a toolkit to assist with submission to DLoC. We discussed OCR, standards used for images, metadata options, tagging (currently piloting in the Everglades Digital Library), geography browsing and links with Google maps, facetted searching and subject browsing, as well as back up arrangements and print on demand services. It was good to hear that if we contributed we would be able to customise and brand our own collections so it matched our own site.

Aside from the official schedule of meetings and discussions, special thanks to Richard for explaining Homecoming and the Homecoming Parade, as well as for showing me the sights of Gainesville and the surrounding area.

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University of North Carolina

Monday 18th October

I was particularly interested in visiting the University of North Carolina and Duke University to discuss their long standing collection development collaboration agreement. The two universities are situated in reasonable travel distance from each other, are served by a bus route between the two campuses, and many staff at UNC live in Durham, and staff at Duke live in Chapel Hill.

The University of North Caroline is a state university. I was met by Teresa Chapa, the Latin American specialist. Latin American and Caribbean studies at UNC was described as a solid discipline, with good faculty and part of an academic consortium with Duke – such that the field enjoyed a strong position on both campuses. Work with Duke includes joint grants and events including outreach – and these also try to include North Carolina Central University (a traditional Black college, with less resources). As well as a shared Title VI grant both Duke and UNC have received funding from the Mellon Foundation ($1m Challenge Fund), which has allowed $2700 per year discretionary funding to the LAC Librarian, in addition to funding through Title VI $1500 every other year for travel. This means that Teresa is able to use travel to attend books fairs and other events and use this opportunity to purchase material and make contact directly with publishers.

Within UNC there has been a general move away from the Bibliographer to the Liaison model for subject specialist staff. Global and Areas Studies staff remain an exception to this model and continue to receive their own books and do their own processing (using student assistants) except for firm orders, and don‟t do general reference desk work. There has been a move towards use of approval plans since 2000, and these now make up 54% of material purchased, the rest coming from firm orders and trips – book fairs where one can buy are useful for non-mainstream published material including NGOs, alternative press, small universities. Teresa also collects LAC „book arts‟ materials as well as indigenous language materials. Interestingly she encourages students on field work in the regions to buy material and reimburses expenditure.

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Collaboration between Duke and UNC has been ongoing since the 1940s, and originally also included Tulane. The agreement is based largely on countries within the region. Each library additionally collects material that is regarded as „core‟ – covering both teaching support and interestingly material to support research/PhDs (largely based on request), though attempts are made to get new faculty to understand the workings of the agreement. Generally the libraries will buy only one copy of expensive items – particularly microfilm. In operating terms, the librarians meet to discuss acquisitions, researcher needs etc on a regular basis – usual at a central café between the two institutions. The libraries also belong to the Triangle Research Library Network, which is comprised of four institutions, and includes a shared storage centre, built by Duke but which the other institutions including UNC have bought into. Difficulties are experienced where research is developing at the institution outside of the agreement and in some areas of overlap – e.g. Maya studies. To revisit the agreement is seen as difficult but needing to be done at some point and at some level.

Other potentially useful models to investigate that were noted included that of Stanford/University of California Berkeley and the University of California system (which divides up the Mexican states).

Although the UNC/Duke agreement does not include arrangements for staff, a South Asian post is shared between Duke, UNC and the North Carolina State University (80% Duke, 20% UNC and 20% NCSU) who is employed by Duke with Title VI grant funds. I thought this an interesting model of service and it was interesting to discuss this arrangement in more depth later at Columbia University.

There has been some interesting digitisation work at UNC. I was able to visit the digital library staff, who are members of the Internet Archive initiative. Under this initiative the Internet Archive (IA) hosts the data, leases equipment, and provides a turnkey solution including operators. The advantages are that this does not require capital investment by the university and that IA provides the technical support and backs up data files. UNC is digitising about 2000 pages per day; including regional and local initiatives with multiple reader solutions, including xml, pdf, and kindle formats. Data is also added to the local contentDM system – allowing opportunities to add value.

I had picked up some useful leaflets for library fundraising while at University of Florida so was pleased to have the opportunity to discuss library fundraising and development at UNC. We discussed events, donor contact mechanism, and current asks (unrestricted endowment and the Southern Historical endowment), as well as ways to work with donors to ensure they feel appreciated.

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Duke University

Tuesday 19th October

Duke University has about 13,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and is a private university created in 1924 by James Buchanan Duke, founded on tobacco money. Architecturally, Duke is an attractive campus, built in a faux Gothic style, dominated by the 210-foot tower of Duke Chapel, opened in 1930, and reminding me of my own first university in New Zealand.

I was hosted at Duke by Holly Ackerman, Librarian for Latin America and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. We discussed sources of acquisition and the role of the subject specialist. Holly discussed how the role of the subject librarian was changing. The mainstream of collection development is seen as largely mechanised by some, however International and Area Studies is seen as different, and still requiring specialist knowledge and input. In relation to her liaison role Holly has “office hours” both in the department and in the new Haiti Lab.

It was interesting to hear the view from Duke University on the Duke/UNC collaboration. Like Teresa at UNC Holly talked about the need for change. The original agreement was based on a division of countries (based on 1930s faculty interests) and it was felt this can no longer be sustained. Holly gave an example saying how in the last 3 years two very prominent Haitian studies faculty were recruited and that this was followed by the establishment of the Haiti Lab – a well financed interdisciplinary humanities lab with 25-30 students, representing a significant academic investment in Haitian studies. Haiti had been a long neglected area for collections at Duke, and under the agreement „belongs‟ to UNC, yet the library needs to follow this academic strength to support the work being done. Collaboration is seen a good idea but the question needs

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to be asked of what is the best way to collaborate. Holly felt that this direction needed to come from the Provost, President and University Librarian. She noted that academic support for the academic consortium is weakening.

Further work needs to be done to remove administrative barriers to access. Both institutions have off-campus storage in the same place and there are reciprocal borrowing privileges, a system is needed to avoid interlibrary loan processes. More work needs to be done to make it easy for the user – they DON‟T see as one collection. Collaboration works well for some material – for example for microfilm acquisition, but difficult questions about what to buy remain: to duplicate or not? to acquire material hard to acquire anyway – for example on Haiti. The two subject librarians meet to discuss new acquisitions, new faculty and any potential collaboration. Other issues include different models of acquisition – Holly is not able to go on buying trips as much (although she does go to the book fair in Mexico – a useful opportunity to visit NGOs and collect leaflets, publications and posters); and some differences in scope – the UNC Institute for the Study of the Americas includes US Foreign Policy and Latino studies, Duke has a separate Latino Studies programme.

In addition to the agreement with UNC Duke has responsibility under the CRL National distributed resources agreement for Latin America and the Caribbean in labor history and political humor.

The libraries have sought a Mellon grant for a project looking at joint access to e-books (through the TRL group) focussed on talking to vendors. (Duke is currently piloting e-book as preference with two disciplines within the Yankee Books approval plan).

Duke is surprisingly, perhaps, fairly new to digitisation, but is working on this and initially focussing on special collections, and will be developing this area of work further. Duke is only just starting work on an institutional repository.

One of the most interesting academic initiatives I came across in the trip was the Haiti Lab http://www.fhi.duke.edu/labs/haiti-lab at Duke, which I was able to visit with Holly and to talk to some of the staff and students attached to the Lab. The Haiti Lab is the first of an intended series of humanities labs, funded for an initial three years and intended as both a place and series of resources – for faculty, graduate and undergraduate students to work on projects together and enhance interdisciplinarity. Current projects included: women‟s rights in Haiti – linked to a project in the law school; post traumatic stress disorder in Haiti – part of the global health institute; and an art project working with visual arts students and a visiting artist; as well as a project translating/transcribing historical documents (but unfortunately this project had proved not to be popular so is being carried out by paying a graduate assistant). Students at Duke are able to visit Haiti through the Duke Engage scheme which has helped generate interest. Other initiatives I discussed included a mapping project intended as a slavery related resource, plotting conspiracies and rebellions across the Atlantic world, using googlemaps and overlaying historical maps and links to material including overviews, images, court reports and newspapers; and Kreol classes for both native and non-native speakers.

At Duke I also spoke to subject librarians for African Studies and British, Canadian and Australian Studies, discussing collaboration, research and teaching trends and interests, as well as the use of LibGuides, again described in very favourable terms.

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University of Illinois, Chicago

Wednesday 20th – Thursday 21st October

My visit to the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), followed previous contact with staff there and a joint (though unsuccessful) bid to the JISC/NEH Transatlantic Digitisation Programme around collections relating to Sierra Leone and the settlement of formerly enslaved Africans from the Americas. I was hosted by Special Collections Librarian, Valerie Harris, and Digitization Librarian, Peter Hepburn.

UIC is a state university started as an outpost of the University of Illinois, providing undergraduate teaching in Chicago in the 1950s, largely for veterans of WW2, and focused on vocational education. Demands for a permanent campus grew and the university and library were established on the current campus in 1964.

Two of the collections discussed and looked at in detail on my visit, the Atlantic Slave Trade Book collection and the Sierra Leone manuscript collection were purchased in the late 1960s on a buying trip in London, as the library was starting on the new campus. At the time the intention was to fill gaps that other Chicago institutions weren‟t collecting (thus complementing Northwestern University‟s African collections and Newberry holdings). The collections though proved to be oddities within the collections, which otherwise largely focus on Chicago, with emphasis on social services, ethnic groups and history from below (eg. women‟s histories) and architecture and design. The collections had until recently been neglected and the Atlantic Slave Trade book collection only catalogued this year.

The Carberry collection of 20th century Caribbean literature was purchased recently, and intended to support international aspects of the study of contemporary literature, and has for example

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recently been used in the study of how contemporary authors recreate historical worlds and how accurately these are represented.

The visit provided a valuable opportunity to discuss these collections and see them first hand as we continue to discuss opportunities to work together to promote these alongside UK held collections, including through digitisation. There are advantages to having a better understanding of the collections as we hope to talk to other potential UK based partners and through looking at the materials I was able to note narratives from these sources that could demonstrate the interesting content they hold and prove research value. It was useful too to build on the previous telephone and online relationships and talk in person to staff at UIC. These discussions continued over dinner on Thursday evening, hosted by Professor Emeritus Nancy Cirillo, one of the key academics supporting work with these collections.

While at UIC I had afternoon tea with a group of library staff including library management and met with the head of reference services, with whom I discussed models of reference service, online reference services and the relationship between „library instruction‟ and research consultation services. We also discussed a recent research project looking at the ethnography of the university library, and revealing interesting findings on teaching and research faculty knowledge of and expectations of library services.

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University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign

Friday 22nd October

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) opened in 1868 and is one of the original 37 public land-grant institutions created after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862. The University is in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana (total population 180,000) in east-central Illinois, situated about 140 miles south of Chicago. It has over 40,000 students, about a quarter of which are postgraduate students. The Library at UIUC contains over 24 million items, the vast majority of which are paper and book-based, including Medieval manuscripts, large collections of incunabula and early printed books, literary manuscripts, maps and atlases, prints, and all sizes and types of printed books and other paper objects.

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I met with Paula Mae Carns, who is Librarian for Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, modern languages and linguistics and, since the retirement of the Latin American and Caribbean Librarian two years ago, „interim‟ librarian for Latin America and the Caribbean. Like other centres visited UIUC receives Title VI funding and this supports library acquisitions. UIUC is notable for the very large budget for library acquisitions (the 5th or 6th largest in the country) and thus huge collections, UIUC being the 3rd largest academic library in the country, with over 12 million titles.

The UIUC has a large library system and a huge and seemingly ever expanding open stacks area. The luxury of space has meant though that until recently decisions on retention of collections and the best arrangements for housing of these has been avoided. Currently the UIUC Library includes 45 departmental libraries – LAC used to have a separate library (though it did not hold separate reference or circulating collections – similarly to FIU largely being an office based service). A new service model is being introduced to consolidate libraries and user service points, partly as there are not enough staff to cover all the user service points and also recognising that most of the collections are housed in the main library collection stacks. LAC and Africana Studies are moving into a single area and will be part of a new International and Area Studies Library (LAC, African, Asian, and Slavic studies).

UIUC differed from the other libraries visited as the English speaking Caribbean comes under English, Afro-American History, History, Music, Art etc – Latin American and Caribbean studies only covering the non-English speaking Caribbean. Like many libraries visited the Library relies heavily on blanket orders (about $100,000 a year) from Latin America, as well as discretionary and retrospective purchasing/firm orders.

The university did have a wide ranging general approval plan, but three years ago realised that too much was coming through and they needed to be more selective. We discussed suppliers and trends in research and library use. Like a number of US universities visited UIUC uses LibGuides, which are regarded as a good solution for promoting subject resources; being cheap, able to use multimedia, and able to share pages.

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New York University

Monday 25th October

Founded in 1831, New York University is now one of the largest private universities in the United States. NYU has more than 40,000 students, and its main base is around Washington Square in Greenwich Village. NYU Libraries include nine libraries and over five million volumes. I visited the main library, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library which houses more than 3.7 million volumes, 58,000 serial titles, and over 5.4 million microforms; is visited by more than 7,400 users per day, and circulates almost one million books annually. The Library is currently undertaking a process of refurbishment, and was at the time of visiting working on developing a 5th floor graduate Research Commons, and it was interesting to see how they were meeting new study and research needs as well as promoting and communicating the changes.

I met with Angela Carreno, Head of Collection Development and Latin America and Caribbean Librarian. In addition to subject responsibilities her role includes managing consortia relationships, campus wide sharing, communication between collections and technical services, and e-book strategy. We discussed all these areas as well as the role and responsibilities of subject librarians and reference services.

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The Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies began in the 1960‟s. The Caribbean was not a priority when established, but there was a mandate to improve this from 1985. For material prior to the 1950s referral is often made to New York Public Library and Columbia University, who both have strengths in this area. Angela noted the impact of mass digitisation, both commercial and open access, which has helped improve access.

We discussed suppliers and sources for LAC materials, as well as areas where it was more difficult to obtain materials. We also talked about the acquisition of the Research Institute for the Study of Mankind library and archive collections. Due to space restrictions NYU regularly transfers 100,000 volumes to closed storage each year. The Library operates as an e-preferred library, currently spending 60% of its budget on electronic resources, including full coverage of Oxford, Brill, Cambridge, and Sage reference works, as well as mass digitisation projects, including EBO2, and Sabin.

NYU is talking to NYPL Research Libraries and Columbia University about collaboration. There is a strong desire to cut back on duplication of the low use academic scholarly monograph and shared storage and access solutions are part of these discussions. It was noted that collaboration challenges the notion of the library as a treasure house.

Most subject librarians at NYU have dual reports – to both collections and to public services – some however, do cataloguing, depending on language needs. Humanities and social sciences reference services were brought together five years ago, recognising trends in interdisciplinarity, shrinking print reference collections, and the need to free up time for other sorts of reference. There has been a move to increased visibility of subject librarian offices – offering appointments and chat services.

At NYU I also discussed the Research Institute for the Study of Man collections in more depth with Angela and special collections staff and had the opportunity to look through the open stacks, in some cases finding books that my own library had donated to the Institute, which were now in the NYU collections.

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Columbia University

Tuesday 26th October

I visited Columbia University to discuss their experience in collaborative collection development, through the 2CUL collaboration between Columbia and Cornell Universities. I met with Bob Wolven, Associate University Librarian for Bibliographic Services and Collection Development, and Robert Davis, Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies Librarian, as Slavonic and East European Studies and Languages was the first area in which an agreement has been reached.

It was noted that this process was the result of many years of talking about collaboration. Collaboration between the two universities will include shared staff posts as well as collections. Shared staffing will use occasional visits, telephone, email, and Skype video conferencing instruction and consultation. While the two institutions already have shared records available on their catalogues the goal is to have a joint discovery system.

Columbia is initially looking at area studies, and is talking to NYU and NYPL about West European literature and German studies. Each area is leading to different models of collaboration. Sharing staff is intended to improve effectiveness, and make better use of expertise in areas where one institution has a strong programme and the other institution has a need but not as strong. It is intended that the two institutions will share a LAC specialist. In South Asian studies both institutions will retain staff but are looking at better co-ordination of expertise, for example in terms of subject or language focus. Some collaboration is also taking place in cataloguing in Korean, Turkish and Armenian languages.

The initial focus is on print monographs – Borrow Direct (a scheme between seven Ivy League universities) helps with access to materials, and off-site storage means users are accustomed to requesting materials in advance of use. It was felt that there was little economic sense in looking at retrospective collection management – due to the costs of checking holdings, condition, etc. We discussed the process of coming to agreement, things that helped and barriers, as well as how faculty were sold the benefits of collaboration. At present the reality is of two separate but co-ordinated collections – yet they need to sell the notion of a combined collection to faculty.

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Schomburg Center for Black Cultural Studies: A New York Public Library Research Library

Tuesday 26th October

The final stop on my visit was to the Schomburg Centre for Black Cultural Studies, a New York Public Library Research Library, which collects, preserves and makes available material on peoples of African descent. For over 80 years the Center has been an important focus for collecting within the United States, and its collections include materials from Africa and the Caribbean. Some particular archive collections of interest include collections relating to US organisations opposing the South African apartheid system, and archives of the American West Indian Ladies Aid Society, the Bermuda Benevolent Association, the British Virgin Islands Benevolent Association, George Padmore letters, Claude McKay letters and manuscripts, and a collection of letters written by C.L.R. James to his former wife and political associate, Constance Webb.

Meeting with staff at the Schomburg allowed for discussions on acquisitions for both Caribbean and African materials, as well as detailed discussions about collections and users. The Schomburg has limited staff and funding and large collections – creating some problems in the ability to deal with these collections. We discussed the ideas of Green and Misner, “more product, less process”, and the idea of letting the scholar discover, rather than providing detailed archival listing or collections.

I was also able to see the current exhibitions on show at the Schomburg Center and see the range of activities they host for the public, promoting the collections and library services to the local community as well as to more scholarly researchers.

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6. Key themes

Some overall themes and reflections from the visits include:

Digitisation

Digitisation projects were becoming more embedded in the way in which many libraries were working but libraries were at different stages in this process, some being early in this journey still. As well as digitisation of material by institutions, there was much comment on the impact of digital material being made available generally through mass digitisation projects. The libraries visited belonged to different digital initiatives, such as the Hathi Trust and Internet Archive, as well as providing their own value added interfaces to digitised material. It was interesting to see the range of equipment and processes used. This is an area which my own organisation has identified as a priority for development, but at which we are at an early stage still and it will be interesting to carry on discussions as our own strategy emerges.

Economic impacts on library services and collections

The impact of the economic recession was mentioned during most visits. The impact differed between libraries in terms of the extent of cuts and proposed cuts. All the university libraries visited were generally well funded and research intense, with large collections and collection budgets. It would be interesting to compare their responses to the recession to smaller, less well funded institutions. The context of cuts certainly emphasised the need to review services and acted as an incentive to ensure value for money, though for libraries visited the emphasis was on working better or reducing duplication (whether in collections or services), rather than cutting services.

Collaboration

Collaboration was a key theme in discussions and it was surprising to learn of shared subject staff in a number of institutions. It was useful to learn about things that both supported and acted as barriers to collaboration, and this has already been used in discussions about our own collaborative collection management project. We have some advantages which will help collaboration to be successful but need to be mindful of the barriers that still exist.

Web presence and web-based subject-based support

I came across some good examples of the use of web based environments supporting subject-based materials, and some areas where such tools seemed to be used less well. As we review our own web presence I think we should include an evaluation of LibGuides (which was highly spoken of by a number of those I spoke to) and similar products, as well as test with users the different kinds of use made of these products by different libraries.

The role of the subject librarian

Although in some cases area studies subject specialists were seen as „different‟ from other subject staff there was a clear sense that subject specialists were moving from a „bibliographer‟ model to an increased focus on users as much as collections, with explicit emphasis on teaching and supporting learning, and supporting research as well as developing and arranging collections. In

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some cases shortages of cataloguing staff with language skills meant that librarians continued to carry out cataloguing and classification.

Despite the use of approval plans the need for specialist knowledge and expertise was clear, and such plans provided staff with opportunities to explore the acquisition of other materials, more difficult to otherwise obtain.

Shared staffing solutions were seen by some institutions as a means of providing expertise in a cost effective way and allowing for specialisation. It was noted generally, that there were fewer opportunities for specialist staff in area studies and that this was impacting on opportunities for staff development, as well as generally less training available for new specialists.

Reference services

It was clear that physical reference services were or had been under review at each of the institutions visited. The size of many of these university libraries meant that a separate traditional reference desk remained popular and well used at some institutions. However, effective use of staff time and the time needed for “library instruction” and other forms of reference and research support meant that other models were being used. Moves towards consultations models and “office hours” will be further investigated as we review our own enquiry services model and the contribution of subject specialist staff to this service.

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7. Recommendations for University Libraries, University of London

As a result of this visit the following recommendations for further action have been submitted to the University of London Research Library Services:

That the University of London Research Library Services join membership of the Digital Library of the Caribbean (DLoC), initially contributing some existing digitised content as well as looking for small runs of periodicals or newsletters to contribute to the current phase of the programme, as well as looking for funding to digitise other suitable material, which could be hosted locally as well as within DLoC.

That the libraries investigate further and consider membership of initiatives including the Internet Archive and Hathi Trust.

That the libraries further invest in the electronic environment supporting subject-based materials, including an evaluation of LibGuides and similar products.

That the library continues discussions with the University of Illinois Chicago or potential joint projects related to the UIC Sierra Leone and Slavery collections.

That experiences from the universities visited contribute to discussions within the current review of enquiry services.

That the library considers fundraising and development activity further based on discussions and information gained on this trip on the US experience.

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Appendix A: Dissemination plan

Blog posts on Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library blog http://icommlibrary.blogspot.com/

Report on visit, including list of recommendations, prepared to ULRLS and for ESU and CILIP. Copies to ULRLS colleagues and to US libraries visited.

Presentation to Library staff at monthly staff meeting

Offered presentation to CILIP International Library and Information Group (ILIG)

Write article for CILIP University College and Research Group journal Relay, focussing on learning about collaboration .

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Appendix B: Summary of Expenditure

Grant received of £2000

Air fares and taxes 930.00

Taxies and shuttle buses 110.00

AMTRAK rail fare 25.49

Hotels:

Miami (5 nights) 424.44

Gainesville (2 nights) 184.12

New York (3 nights) 553.11

£2227.16

Other expenditure included meals, gifts, bus and metro tickets and other sundries