UC/STANFORD U.S. HISTORY AND WOMEN'S STUDIES CONSORTIA
1995-1996 ANNUAL REPORT
INTRODUCTION
1995-1996 was an extremely busy year for the UC/Stanford U.S.
History and Women's Studies Consortia. While worked continued on
severa lkey ongoing projects, the group initiated some exciting
new activities, in spite of finding itself in the midst of a
significant change in membership. Katharine Martinez, Curator
for British and American History and Women's Studies Librarian at
Stanford, departed for RLG in mid-April. Katharine's departure
had an enormous impact on the consortia, for not only was she a
major player in all of our cooperative acquisitions endeavors,
but she was also the co-chair of the group, slated to take-on the
responsibilities of "senior chair" after the spring meeting.
Stanford has advertised the Curator position, with no mention of
the Women's Studies component. Several other membership changes
occurred just before or immediately following the spring meeting,
including Sally Willson Weimar, an original member of the group,
relinquishing her duties as Women's Studies selecor at UCSB, the
appointment of Nancy Kushigian as Women's Studies selector at UC
Davis and Sam Dunlp's Gender Studies assignment at UC San Diego.
These changes, particularly Katharine's resignation, became
impetus for revisions in the Consortia’s internal administrative
structure discussed in the body of the report.
I. ACTIVITIES: ONGOING
a. Journals Projects
Consortia members continued to track the status of journals under
last copy agreement in both U.S. History and Women's Studies.
While some titles were discussed at the winter and spring
meetings, the majority of this work takes place via the Consortia
reflector between meetings.
b. Guidelines for Collaborative Purchases
The group worked out procedures for consortial communication
about campus acquisition of major microform sets. We agreed to:
1) notify Consortia (via the reflector) of “intent to purchase;”
2) determine whether other campuses wanted guides to the
proposed acquisition;
3) finalize process for acquisition and distribution of
additional guides (with the goal of keeping the cost of
these guides within reason).
We also added the following language to our draft Guidelines for
Collaborative Purchases by the U.S. History and Women's Studies
Consortia (6/6/95):
"“All major microform sets should be considered in terms of
consortia-wide access."”
c. Feminist Press Project
After several lengthy discussions, taking place both via
reflector and during bi-annual meetings, the Consortia decided
to limit its initial project focus to feminist presses operating
in California. This decision, informed in part by pragmatics
(how much time and energy was available to dedicate to the
project) and by the fortuitous location (and mission) of the
Bancroft Library, helped us move beyond the stage of identifying
presses to a point where
negotiations, however informal, could begin with both Bancroft
and the Special Collection Department at UCSC (a number of
presses operate/operated in or around Santa Cruz). With
Elizabeth Sibley and Jacqueline Marie taking the lead, the
project continues.
d. MELVYL® Access to Stanford Major Microform Sets
Stanford's ability to acquire major microform sets has bene
somewhat of a mixed blessing for UC. On the one hand, regular
communication among Consortia members has kept us informed about
Stanford acquisitions; however, the fact that Stanford has
purchased (or indicated an intent to purchase) a set has
eliminated that title from SCAP consideration. Unfortunately,
individual Stanford purchases (non-SCAP) are not reflected in the
MELVYL®database. After agitating about this over the course of
several meetings, the Consortia decided to ask CDC to consider
the possibility of loading records for Stanford-held major
microform sets in U.S. History and Women's Studies into MELVYL®
On June 18, 1996, Consortia Chair Ellen Broidy sent an e-mail
memo to CDC liaison Judith Paquette asking CDC to place this
issue on their agenda.
II. SCAP
The Consortia submitted a request for Anti-Slavery Propaganda in
the Oberlin College Library (Research Publications) for which we
received partial funding SCAP funding. Additional monies came
from campus contributions (as outlined in our SCAP proposal).
III. NEW AND NEWER PROJECTS
a. Women's Studies Primary Collecting Areas
In an effort to address the problem of increased
demands/decreased budgets, the Consortia began to look at the
possibility of identifying primary collecting areas in Women's
Studies with a eye towards developing a project roughly
equivalent to the journals last copy agreement. Collecting areas
should be narrowly defined and extremely focused, ideally limited
to subjects that a particular library collects comprehensively,
or at least has as a stated collections emphasis (e.g., UCD's
interest in Eco- Feminism). Sally Willson Weimar had been the
facilitator for this project. Her departure from the Consortia
means we will need to assign this task to another member.
2. Non-SCAP Collaborative Purchases
Consortia-wide and regional collaborative purchases are becoming
increasingly necessary if we have any hopes to meeting research
demands. After some negotiation back and forth, the Consortia
agreed on the following three procedural questions:
1. Items considered for non-SCAP collaborative purchase
must cost more than $1000;
2. Participating campuses must contribute a minimum of $500
toward the purchase;
3. Developing a purchasing cycle is critical to the success of
the endeavor. This is, however, complicated by several factors,
including the necessity of timing orders so they will be charged
against the current year’s funds and the desirability of cashing
in on special publishers’ sales.
With these considerations in mind, the Consortia plans to
experiment with an annual cycle, commencing at the December
meeting.
3. Consortia Homepage
Elliot Kanter, UCSD, developed a homepage for the Consortia,
located at:
http://gort.ucsd.edu/ek/ushist/consort/consort.html.
We decided that it would contain both internal documents that may
well be of interest to people outside the Consortia as well as
links to important UC/Stanford and Internet resources in U.S.
History and Women's Studies (most of which have been developed by
Consortia members). Elliot has agreed to continue his role as
webmaster for the site.
IV. ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
a. Facilitator Duties
At the point that Katharine Martinez resigned fom Stanford (and
the Consortia), she was slated to take on the senior co- chair
function beginning in fall 1996. Her departure meant that we
needed to select two co-chairs, one to replace Ellen Broidy,
stepping down at the completion of a two-year term and another to
fill the remainder of Katharine' term. After a lengthy
discussion comparing the merits of co- versus single chairs, we
decided to opt for a compromise and initiate a chair/chair-elect
model. This should allow for necessary continuity as well as
giving the chair-elect time to “learn the ropes.”
A series of factors intruded upon on desire to immediately
initiate the new model, so 1996-1997 will be (we hope) an
anomaly. For the coming year, we will actually have three
members serving in some sort of facilitator/chair capacity.
Broidy will stay on as co-chair through the winter meeting.
Kanter will begin his term as co-chair in the fall and step in as
chair after the winter meeting. Koller will serve as chair-elect
for the entire year, assuming the chair in fall 1997. We will
select a new chair-elect at the spring meeting.
b. Meeting Schedule/Frequency
The Consortia decided to keep the twice yearly meeting schedule,
but opted for one full day rather than two half days. We will
continue to alternate meetings between north and south.
c. Note-taking
Previous practice had been to have one co-chair facilitate the
first day of the meeting while the other took notes and vice
versa the second day. We agreed to rotate responsibility among
the membership. This topic will be revisited in the future and
is open to revision if necessary.
Report submitted by Ellen Broidy
****************************************************
Ellen Broidy
Library Publications Officer
History and Film Studies Librarian
386 Main Library
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92717
ejbroidy@uci.edu
714/824-5694
FAX: 714/824-5740