DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 046 459
LI 002 489
TITLE
Conference on Sharing Caribbean Resources for
Instruction and Research, College of the Virain
Islands, March 17-19, 1969. Proceedings.
INSTITUTION
College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas.
PUB DATE
Jun 70
NOTE
189p.
FDRS PRICE
EDRS Price M7-$0.65 PC-$6.58
DESCRIPTORS
*Conferences, Libraries, iLibrary Cooperation,
Library Materials, *Library Services, Library
Technical Processes, Library Technicians, *Regional
Libraries
IDENTIFIERS
*Caribbean
ABSTRACT
The first day of the conference identified library
resources, what they are and where they are, whether in the area or
outside of it. The second was devoted to discussing access to these
resources, the problem encountered in vining access to them,
identification of library needs and ways to make library efforts more
successful. Recommendations of the Conference included: upgrading and
sharing of library resources, better utilization of modern
technology, legal establishment of depository libraries, continued
support of the Pilot Bibliographical Center, new surveys of library
resources, preparation of guides to library holdings, creation of
union catalogs, shared cataloging and acquisition services, updated
acquisitions lists and bibliographies on the region, identification
of nonbook materials, increased use of microtechnology, increased
attention to scholarly papers, development of oral histories, larger
and more comprehensive collection of materials on the Caribbean
region, and improved training for paraprofessional personnel. A list
of participants and attendees is included.
(AB)
LC1
U.S. DEPARTMENT DF HEALTH. EDUCATION
& WELFARE
OFFICE 'IF EDUCATION
THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED
EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR
ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF
VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECES
SARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EOU-
CATION POSITION OR POLICY
PROCEEDINGS
"--)CONFERENCE ON SHARING
CARIBBEAN RESOURCES FOR
INSTRUCTION
AND RESEARCH
COLLEGE OF THE
VIRGIN
ISLANDS
March 17-19, 1969. ?-'"'"
Published By
°COLLEGE OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS,..)
ST. THOMAS, VIRGIN ISLANDS
00801
June
1970
This Conference on Sharing Caribbean Resources for Instruction
and Research was held in observance of the inauguration of the
Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library of the College of the Virgin Islands,
through the inspiration of its President, Dr. Lawrence C. Waniass,
who has guided this College through its critical first six years.
The Conference was sponsored by the College, and was
assisted by federal funds provided under Title III of the Divher
Education Act of 1965.
John P. McDonald, Librarian of the University of Connecticut,
wag engaged to serve as consultant to the College for coordinating
this Conference.
He was assisted by Dr. William S. Dix, Librarian
of Princeton University, who kindly consented to serve as
moderator, and by Mrs. Marietta Daniels Shepard, Associate
Librarian and Chief of Latin American Library Development Programs
of the Pan American Union, who gracefully accepted the role of
Recorder.
ENID M. BAA
The Editor.
Moderator:
PARTICIPANTS AND ATTENDEES
Dr. William S. Pix
University Librarian,
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Co-ordinator:
Mr. John P. McDonald
University Librarian,
University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut
Organization of
American States:
CARIBBEAN AREA
BAR4ADOS:
CURACAO:
DOMINICAN
REPUBLIC:
Mrs. Marietta Daniels Shepard
Chief, Library Development Program,
Organization of American States
General Secretariat
Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
Mr. Alan Moss
Director Librarian,
Centre for Multiracial Studies,
University of the West Indies, Library,
Bridgetown
Dr. Alexander F. Paula
Archivist,
Centraal Archief, Fort Amsterdam
Sr. Hector Inchaustegui Cabral
Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra
Santiago de los Caballeros
GUADELOUPE:
M. J.P. Hervieu
Archives Departmentales, Basse-Terre
GUYANA:
Mrs. Yvonne V. Stephenson
Reference Librarian,
University of Guyana, Georgetown
Mr. William A. Trembley
Head, Department of History,
University of. Guyana, Georgetown
Ii
JAMAICA:
PUERTO RICO:
TRINIDAD:
Mr. William E. Cocking
Librarian,
University of the West Indies, Mona
Miss Glory Robertson
Librarian,
West Indian Reference Library,
Institute of Jamaica, Kingston
Mr. Joseph J. Breen
CODECA;
Caribbean Regional Library, Hato Rey
Sra. Maria Elena A. Cardona
Institute of Caribbean Studies,
University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
Sister Nora Hillery
Director of Library,
Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Ponce
Mr. Lawrence Miller
Area Director of. Libraries (Area I),
Inter-American University, San German
Sta. Noemi Pagan de Collin
Librarian II,
University of Puerto Rico, Ri6 Piedras
Dra. Albertina Perez de Rosa
Latin American Studies and Exchange Librarian,
General Library,
University of Puerto Rico, R'o Piedras
Srta. Luisa Vigo Cepeda
Directora,
Biblioteca, Colegio Regional de Humacao,
Humacao
Dr. Alma Jordan
Librarian,
University of the West Indies,
Faculty of Agriculture, St. Augustine
VIRGIN ISLANDS
OF THE U.S.?
Miss Enid M. Baa
Director, Bureau of Libraries and Museums,
Department of Conservation and Cultural Affairs,
St. Thomas
iii
VIRGIN ISLANDS (W TIT U.S. (confirmed):
Miss Rose :;ergamini
Librarian,
Wayne Aspinall Junior High School,
St. Thomas
Mr. Tram Combs
Tram Combs Books, St. Thomas
Mrs. Nina A. Corneiro
Librarian,
Charlotte Amalie High School, St. Thomas
Mr. Christian Do,tte,
Photoduplicatim Supervisor,
St. Thom ;s Public Library, St. Thomas
Mrs. Brenda Galindo
Assistant Librariat,
Charlotte Amalie High School, St. Thomas
Mrs. Betty J.M. George
Children's Librarian,
Public Library, St. Thomas.
Mr. Edwin F. Golden
Library Assistant (Bookmobile),
Christiansted Public' Library, St. Croix
Mrs. Frances C. Hunt
Librarian LSCA,
Public Library, St. Thomas
Mr. Robert E. Kim
President, Data Concepts, Inc., St. Thomas
Miss Eva Lewaetz
Danish Translator - Research
Christiansted Public Library, St. Croix
Mrs. Florence Leuisohn
Historian and writer, St. Croix
Miss June A.V. Lindqvist
Library Assistant (Caribbean Reference),
Public Library, St. Thomas
iv
VIRGIN ISLANDS or TNE U.S. (continued):
mr. ii. Gilbert
!ieol
Director of Development,
College of the Virgin. Islands, St. Thomas
Mr. James M. Oliver
Acting Director of School Libraries,
Department of Education, St. Thomas
Miss Patricia C. Oliver
Librarian,
Central High School, Kingshill, St. Croix
Mr. Douglas C. Pyle
Instructor in Biology,
College of the Virgin Islands,
St. Croix Center, Kingshill, St. Croix
Dr. Arthur A. Richard
Dean,
College of the Virgin Islands, F,t. Thomas
George A. Sean -n
Wildlife Biolugist,
Department of Conservation,
Cristiawited, St. Croix
Mis! Sylvii Trout
Librarial,
Country ')av Scaooi, Christiansted, St. Croix
Mrs. Margo H. Tyler
Public Information Director,
College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas
Mrs. Men Vanderpiank
Danish translator,
Public Library, St. Thomas
Mr. Robert V. Vaughn
Librarian and History Teacher,
St. Dunstan's ipiscopal School,
Christiansted, St. Croix
Mr. Ernest C. Wa,,zner
Librarian,
Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library,
College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas
EUROPE
DY,NMARK:
Mr. Palle Birkelund
Librarian,
The Royal Library, Copenhagen
ENGLAND:
UNITED STATES
Mts. Valerie Bloomfield
Librarian,
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
University of London, London
Mr. John Alden
Keeper of Rare Books
Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts
Mr. Fred Cross
Ford Foundation
Mr. G. A. Farrer
Director of Libraries,
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
Miss Evelyn Day Mullen
Program Officer, U.S. Office of Education
Library Services Branch, Region III
Charlottesville. Virginia
Mrs. Dorothy B. Porter
Librarian
Negro Collection, Howard University
Washington, D. C.
Miss Valarie S. Robinson
President, Virgin Islands Society, Inc.
New York, New York
Dr. Giles F. Shepherd, Jr.
Associate Director,
Cornell University Libraries, Ithaca, New York
Dr. Irene Zimmerman
Librarian, Latin American Collection
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
March 17,1969 - 9:30 A.M. Session
DR. WANLASS:
It is my pleasure this morning as the
President of the College to extend the College's welcome to you.
I see that as I look around this is one of the most interesting
groups we have had at the College in our relatively short tenure
of seven years.
I am of the opinion that the level of discussion will be
very much worth your attendance, that you will find a diverse
point of view.
I see a very wide geographic representation.
I
have not been at a meeting more broadly based,
In terms of the
interest and the purposes I think these are as important as any
meeting could have in view.
The fact that Justice Marshall, in
speaking about the purposes of a library, said something to the
effec that a learning center, or this heart of the campus really
properly used, is more than the sum of its parts.
Re talked
about students and books and faculty; but if the library comes
mean what we want it to mean, it is goiLg to be more than just
the sum of those.
It is going to be something that becomes vital
to the College and to the community and to the Caribbean, and I
welcome you in this spirit.
I hope your discussions will be fruitful, that you will
enjoy being here.
We extend to you all courtesies that we have
to offer and I might say just in closing, because my remarks are
going to be very brief, that one thing I have not been able to
discover in my seven ylara of reading about the Caribbean is the
origin of the name St. Thomas.
Now, this means that we are in an
interesting area where things are of great interest but are not
completely known.
This is not an area where stagework has been as
extensive as we will like it to be.
The fact is, when you talk
about these newly emerging nroblems on the mainland, Afro-American
relations, the Caribbean is where the important history was being
made and we have to remember that.
So with this sense of importance of what we have in view,
welcome to the College; and I extend te you again the College's
best greeting and hopc, for a good meeting.
2
DR. DIX:
Now, let's get started, let me just say a
word or two about the ground rules.
My job is to be a traffic
policeman as I see it; I hope there will be a full and free dis-
cussion, only one at a time, and we can move ahead with the dis-
cussion.
This conference is labelled a Conference on Sharing
Caribbean Resources for Instruction ana Research.
I think the
focus was intended to be, and I think we ought to try to keep to it
if we can, on library materials about the Caribbean primarily.
Now, if you will look for a moment at this agenda of two
pages;
this is our general diary.
It is a pattern and I hope you
will be able to move systematically through it.
We will spend a
day mostly on the identification of these library resources, what
they are, where they are, whether in the area or outside the area.
We will spend tomorrow roughly talking about access to them and
the problems encountered in so c.ing.
In other words: here are
the materials today, tomorrow how do we get at them?
What are the
needs? How can we identify these needs?
What must be done to make
our efforts more successful?
All of this discussion will lead, I
hope, to rather specific recommendations addressed to someone,
perhaps to a variety of persons.
These recommendations should
state what can be done now, and what needs to be done next, and how
to plan for the future.
I have asked Mrs. Marietta Daniels Shepard to keep notes .7.z
we go along in order to attempt to formulate for us on Wednesday
morning those specific recommendations.
As I see it there might
be recommendations to the president of this College, there may be
more general recommendations and identification of things that
3
10
need to be done by others.
I am made aware, now, from the round
of introduction of participants which we have just completed, that
we have a vast and considerable range of stages of development and
sophistication in this area.
In other words, we have here repre-
sentatives of some of the older European libraries which have been,
in a sense, collecting the resources of this area for a very long
time.
We have colleges such as this one, very new, just begin-
ning.
It seems to me our problem in the beginning is to simply
identify who is doing what in terms of collection building, where
and what these collections are.
Some of this, much of this, is
undoubtedly available in print, but I think a rather leisurely re-
view of it won't be a waste of time at all.
I think Mr. McDonald pointed out that the word Nharing" is
the important emphasis.
I know that we in the larger academic
libraries in the United States have reached the conclusion, I think
perhaps a little late, but I think it dawned onus within the last
ten years, that no library can go at it alone.
I should like to give you just a bit of concrete evidence of
this sharing.
A good many years ago in Chicago, an organization
known as Mid-Western Library Center was initiated as an attempt to
collect and store seldom used resources of that area, and to make
them available to the whole group in the mid-west area.
Two years
ago
his organization decided to become a national organization- -
in other words, to open its membership to the country as a whole.
The first library to join was the Harvard University Library.
Although it is located a good many miles away, this, the largest
university library in the world, I believe, comprising nearly
11
4
eight million volumes, recognized the need to share in these re-
sources, these seldom -used resources collected in this Mid-4estern
Library Center located many hundred miles away in Chicago.
What I
am saying is that recorded knowledge is growing so fast that cer-
tainly those of us in the larger libraries now realize that no one
can hope to acquire it all and, that,
if we can survive during the
next one hundred years, let us say, we can do so only if we engage
in more sharing than we are now doing.
However," -sharing is complicated work.
It includes, as I
see it, two kinds of activities: first, access to the text itself
which one really wants by some method or other.
To achieve this
it is imperative to know what is available, and where these things
are.
Second, we must know what the schools, libraries and students
need.
Therefore, we should address ourselves to both of these
issues in the course of today.
Now, if what I have said is true
about the largest libraries, the multimillion volume libraries, I
am sure it is much more true of the very small libraries because of
their limited resources.
These small libraries, in turn, it seems
to me, should somehow find ways of sharing their resources.
I
think this particularly interesting and challenging problem is
further complicated by your natural geographic separations, as com-
pared to the larger contiguous areas, and the necessity for water
or air transport where you have a group of libraries such as those
represented here separated by water as much as you are.
The whole
problem of simple communication, bibliographical information and
technical expertise is particularly important in this area.
I
believe essentially what we want to talk about, and see if we can
reach agreement on, is what remains to be done.
A great deal has
5
been done, what remains is to improve the very simple matter of
getting the man who wants a particular book in touch with the book
he wants, face to face.
This is the essence of what we are as
librarians.
By the way, in our own provincial way, we in the
United States have been very bothered to define any distinction
between librarian and archivist.
I should say we are concerned
about both, and those of you who come out of the European tradi-
tion where a much sharper distinction is made between the two
roles should remember as we go along that, if I say librarian, I
mean libraries and also archives.
We are talking about those
institutions which preserve, organize and make available, it seems
to me, the materials (public records, books, documents, published
or unpublished works, etc.) for study and research essentially.
I believe that in general we are in agreement with the pre-
mise that undergraduate institutions are expected to provide for
the basic needs of their respective undergraduate students as re-
quired by their curricula, and that those materials to be shared
will be essentially materials on the research or graduate level.
Now, we haven't said anything about school libraries, and
there are a number of school librarians here.
My own feeling is
that we will let this issue develop as it will.
I am really
totally incompetent in this area, Mrs. Shepard here is not, and
there are others here who are not, if we want to talk about the
whole school library situation; but I don't think it is the
primary focus of this conference, as I understand it.
Finally, as another ground rule, I will ask that those of you
who are not at this table and who speak will identify yourselves
for the benefit of the tape recorder and the stenotypist, so that
we may put together some Sort of permanent record of this con-
13
f
ference.
Now, our intention is to have a coffee break somewhere about
now.
(Discussion)
We will move right ahead and then have some coffee later.
So
if you will come to order again then we will move right ahead.
Miss Bea has been asked to help put this conference in its
context, that is, in relation to other occasions in which the aca-
demic scholarly community of this area has been assembled.
So we
will go right ahead and you can tell us something about the back-
ground.
MISS BAA:
This conference which is convened
today in St. Thomas, by the College of the Virgin. Islands in
observance of the inauguration of the Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library,
is noteworthy in that it proposes to up-date and reiterate some
of the problem areas with which some of us have struggled in the
past.
We hope that its recommendations will be the basis for
further achievement throUgh closer regional cooperation.
Awareness of the need for adequate libraries and cooperation
in the area was first cited by Dr. Ernest A. Savage who in his
Report on the evaluation of Caribbean libraries cited the existing
deplorable situation of the early 1930's, and made recommendations
for library development in the area.
Out of his discussions with
the Carnegie Corporation emerged two significant grants.
The
first ($30,000.) was made to the United Staten Virgin Islands in
1930 for a four year period.
By this means the public libraries
were reorganized into a centralized service and materials and
personnel strengthened.
The libraries were recognized as a vital
adjunct to the total educational program, and they were for the
14
7
first time given departmental status in the government hierarchy.
A young native woman was selected for training in the library
field and received scholarship grants towar6 that end.
The second grant ($71,000.)
was made to the British West
Indies in 1941 for a period of four years.
Under the able
direction of Dr. Helen Gordon Stewart, now in retirement, a
second centralized system was initiated in the area and it became
known as the Eastern Caribbean Regional Library Scheme.
Another
!.'e young man was also selected for training under Carnegie
%,Liarships.
This second project was much more comprehensive
than the first and covered a larger area of cooperation, stretch-
ing from Trinidad and Tobago northward to the British Virgin
Islands.
It went further than the improvement in public library
operation.
It set up a library training school under an ex-
tension program of the University of London in which regional
candidates could earn an Associate in Librarianship.
The Carnegie
Corporation therefore was the moving force behind the first two
centralized systems in the Caribbean area.
At the same time Dr. A.E. Gropp of Tulane University swung
through Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean just as the
second Carnegie grant was beginning to revolutionize library
practices in the British territories.
His GUIDE to these libraries
issued in 1941 could not therefore have embodied those changes
which were beginning to be felt and which were the direct results
of the grant.
With this thrust libraries, especially in the two
groups, moved so rapidly that by 1951, E.A. Flood remarked:
"On
8
I I'
15
reading again the manuscript of this booklet...I realized that
in the space of a few months much of the information was already
out of date."
Not much could be said in any of the'se publica-
tions regarding college or university libraries of the
Caribbean.
We know, however, that some institutions of higher
learning existed in Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto
Rico, Barbados, Trinidad, and perhaps even in Antigua, but the
quality of this service was superficially evaluated, and the
University of Puerto Rico at Rfo Piedras and the Polytechnique
Institute at San Merman were not even mentioned.
I believe that it would be appropriate at this point to
define the use of the term Caribbean as it is used in this
paper.
It can be correctly stated that a certain prerogative
is taken by those who have been oriented to the Caribbean
Commission and its successor, Caribbean Organization.
The term
as used by them refers strictly to the islands which were once
dependent areas, but was stretched to include also the island
republics, the Cuianas, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and British
Honduras.
This use arbitrarily excludes all circum-Caribbean
countries.
Two world events have influenced strides made in this
area's libraries.
The second World War and, at its termination,
the establishment of the United Nations came into being at the
Dumbarton Oaks Conference.
Out of this the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was
born.
Also, by 1945 the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission
16
was expanded into the Caribbean Commission when France and the
Netherlands joined this regional efforz -- to up-grade social,
economic and educational well being of their dependent
countries.
Public library services became one of their prime
interests including bibliographic control of the area.
In
1947 the Library of Congress convened the Assembly of Librarians
of the Americas at which librarians from Puerto Rico,
Dominican Republic and other islands attended.
From this point
onward there had been many meetings and conferences involving
Caribbean libraries, bibliographic activities and exchange of
publications.
Pere are the important meetings which have in-
fluenced the future:
1947
Assembly of Librarians of the Americas,
sponsored by the Libraryof Congress,
Washington
D.C.
1951
Conferencia Sobre el Desarrollo de los
Servicios de Bibliotecas Publicas en America
Latina.
(UNESCO/OEA)
Sao Paulo, Brasil.
1953
Seminario Sobre Canje Nacional e Inter-
nacional de Publicaciones.
La Habana,
2-12 de diciembre 1953.
1955
Seminario Nacional de Canje de Publica-
clones de la Republica Dominicana.
Ciudad Trujillo, 12-13 de diciembre.
1956
Seminario Sobre Permuta Nacional e Internacional
de Publicac'es, Recomendacres, aprovada pet() Plenario.
Sao Paulo. 26-30 junho.
1956
Printer Seminario Nacional e Internacional de Canje.
Panama, 10-11 septiembre.
10
17
1956
ReuniOn de Expertos Sobre Canje Internacional de
Publicaciones en America Latina.
UNESCO, 1-5 oct.
to Habana, Cuba.
Perhaps the conferences which proved most effectill for the
Caribbean were the following:
1955
Primer Seminario Piloto de Bibliografia held at
Havana 11-15 July under the auspftes, of the Regional
Center for UNESCO in the Western Hemisphere and the
Agrupacion Bibliogreifico Cubana Josg Toribio Medina.
1958
Segundo Seminario Bibliogrgfico de Centro America y
del Caribe, Panama, 24-28 febrero.
1960
Tercer Seminario Bibliogrfifico de Centro America y
del Caribe, Mexico City, Nov.21-Dec.4.
Under also
Seminario Latinoamericano de Bibliografia, Docu-
mentaci6n y Canje de Publicaciones.
It was even more imperative that the Caribbean Commission, re-
chartered as Caribbean Organization with Secretariat in Puerto Rico,
should hold to its commitment.
Accordingly, on February 19-21,
1962, a meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Conference on
Library Development in the Caribbean Area was held at San Juan.
Nevertheless, that conference was never convened.
UNESCO and the
Caribbean Organization resumed their diplomatic game of tag.
Direct results of these meetings are registered in the biblio-
graphic activity in the area and the general improvement of
libraries.
CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY was initiated in 1950 and
was published somewhat irregularly until 1965, by the Caribbean Or-
ganization and continued by the Caribbean Economic Development
Corporation (CODECA).
This Corporation succeeded the Caribbean
Organization and the library is known as the Caribbean Regional
Library.
This bibliography is currently being compiled through
the
cooperative efforts of the contributing libraries of the area, and
speeded_ up by that revolutionary electronic innovation - the
computer, which enables the production of monthly issues with a
11
cumulated annual.
UNESCO and the AgrupacfOn Bibliografica Cubana Jos Toribio
Medina published four volumes of the BIBLIOGRAFIA DE CENTROAMERICA
DEL CARIBE - 1956, 1957, 1958 and 1959 with the cooperation of
the Government of Spain.
It later became known as the BIBLIO-
GRAFIA DE AMERICA LATINA.
This was, however, only one of the
numerous bibliographical publications which were inspired by this
ferment engendered by UNESCO.
Also in 1956 on the United States mainland the Seminars on
the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) held
their first meeting at Chinsegut Rill in Brooksville, Florida, and
these meetings have continued annually, growing larger and more
complex.
Very recently they have become incorporated and organized
for permanency.
These Seminars devise ways and means of bringing
into the United States libraries the publications from Latin
American countries about which only very little was known and the
procurement of which was very nearly impossible.
Out of this great demand for Latin American library materials
developed the practical and efficient Latin Ametican Cooperative
Acquisition Project (LACAP) underwritten by Stechert-Rafner, Inc.
and a few substantial libraries.
This works very well for the
South American materials, but not yet for the Caribbean.
Why
doesn't it York here?
Because publishing as a trade is not as
stabilized and as precisely organized as on the mainland or in
Europe.
There the patterns are standard, in the Caribbean the pub-
lisher, printer, and even the distributor may be one and the same.
An author may publish privately and sell his own work either
directly or through an agent or agents.
The publicity is generally
12
AL-
non-existent, and there are no depository laws, and if there are,
they are usually not enforced.
Publications, whether private or
official, periodical, serial or monograph, when issued in tne
Caribbean area, disappear and are out of print long before they are
known through book trade journals or bibliographies.
Moreover, the
compilation of bibliographies is so long in preparation that when
finally issued the materials listed are not available.
The result
is that current bibliographies are not current and retrospective
bibliographies are academic exercises seldom indulged in or
appearing only in scholarly works.
In 1961 the Council on Library Resources financed what I should
like to refer to as an exploratory mission into the establishment of
a Caribbean Bibliographic Center in Puerto Rico.
Marietta Shepard
of Pan American Union, Bob Kingery of New York Public Library, and,
Dominick Coppola of Stechert- Rafner submitted a joint report, with a
proposal but nothing more developed.
In the meantime demands from
mainland libraries for these Caribbean materials still increase.
Universities and institutions of higher learning have
emerged within the Caribbean arew.and these alio require the
establishment and maintenance of local collections.
Such biblio-
graphic control becomes increasingly more urgent.
At the same
time technological advancements in microprint, computer applica-
tion in electronics and interfacing throw new light on the whole
subject of information storage and retrieval, and enable
libraries to utilize their contents as well as the contents of
1.3
20
their neighbors to a larger extent.
Moreover, telecommunication
networks link distant libraries with eacixother and place the
resources of large libraries at the convenience of users wherever
they may he.
Some developed countries have conceived the idea
of data banks for cooperative pooling of information.
In this world of turmoil, violence, population explosion
and publications deluging the fields of knowledge, the need is
greater than ever for collecting, preserving and sharing library
resources.
As Sir Phil Sherlock and Dr. Jaime Benitez agreed at
Tobago, in 1968, the ills of the Caribbean may be corrected
through academic understanding Ini cooperation.
When the Heads
of Caribbean Universities met again in November of that year
they further agreed that libraries in academic institutions
may jointly plan and cooperate in the sharing of materials for
the greater good.
We are fortunate that this year -- 1969 -- Puerto Rico has
been chosen as the venue for the following meetings:
1) CODECA-Virgin Islands Library development - April/May.
2) Association of University and Research Institutions and
Libraries - June.
3) Dewey Decimal Classification
4) SALALM, - June.
All are interested in various phases of Caribbean library..
development.
21
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much, Miss Baa, for that
able concise summary and very long history.
Ywr7seeme-to-4sem
Are
there any questions now of Miss Baa?
We hope to have a lot of
participation.
Are there things you would like to add subseqrently
that she may have overlooked in her summary?
Dr. Zimmerman.
DR. ZIMMERMAN?
I would just like to say Miss Baa
has done a very good job previously in this type of bringing us to-
gether, and that one of her earlier and major contributions is to
be found in the publication of the fifth Seminar on the Acquisition
of Latin American Library Materials Working Papers, in which she
had a paper on inter-library cooperation and its relation to prob-
lems of acquisition of library materials in the Virgin Islands, and
at that time David Eaton also had a paper on problems in publishing
in the Caribbean area, and one on microfilming of archives and
microfilming in the Caribbean.
MISS BAA:
It'd like to say this, Dr. Zimmerman, that
in 1959 when I made the survey of Caribbean Libraries, this was
done mostly by visiting and by questioning.
I find that in 1969
this is very much out of date and I wouldn't recommend it strongly
for the use of anyone except for historical purposes.
In 1963 I
submitted &rather paper on'"Libraries and bibliographic activities
in the Caribbean", at the Madison, Wisconsin Seminar on the Acquisi-
tion of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM), and in 1964
another paper on "Library activities in the Dominican Republic".
I believe all of these papers are out of date because materials
particularly, situations are changing rapidly, so rapidly.
DR. DIX:
I think the coffee is ready and perhaps we
15
09.
should stop at this point before we go further.
(AFTER COFFEE BREAK)
DR. DIX:
May we come to order and get right back
down to work.
Are there other comments or additions to what Miss
Baa had to say about the past, that is, about what is going on
before, and out of which this conference grew?
Miss Bea wants to
amplify her own remarks.
MISS BAA:
There was one thing I forgot to mention:
that in March 1967 a conference was held at CODECA in Puerto Rico
concerning automation and bibliographic control, in which the
Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico were concerned.
DR. DIX:
Thank you.
This conference is informal
but I know several people have literature, publications, notices,
tracts, etc. which they would like to give to the participants.
The best way to do this is to set them on the tables and we will
call attention to it at the appropriate time.
There are a number of blue sheets describing the 14 seminars
on acquisition, and especially the one that will be held in Puerto
Rico in June.
You should have it in front of you; if not, Marietta,
do you have copies of these?
I suppose there are enough around.
MRS. SHEPARD:
Yes.
And I also have a press re-
lease in multicolor, containing some essential information.
A
yellow sheet of paper is being passed around for you to sign your
name if you would like to continue to receive information on
SALAD.
Please give your name and address.
MR. WAGNER:
If I may, I should like to call
attention to some interesting publications here that you will be
16
Of)
interested in purchasing.
I am askingthook store people to make them
evailaUe ',co you.
We have Mrs. Lewisohn's history of St. Croix.
In
addition, we have reprint editions of Knox's history of St. Thomas
and St. Croix.
These publications are for sale.
DR. DIX:
Well, I think this will develop as we go
along.
At your places also is a new catalog of microfilms held by
the St. Thomas Public Library and there are also provisions for your
obtaining microfilming of some of this material which is listed here.
Things like this will come along and I am just delighted that you
have them, so let these develop as you go.
Now, let's move into the next section of our agenda today which
is a brief survey of resources.
We will probably not get through
with the first part of that before lunch but it is my intention to
ask various people, some of whom have been alerted and some may not
have been alerted, to talk informally of resources of particular
areas as listed here.
I think these should be quite brief, but will
give us a good sense of what we are talking about, and I think it is
proper to start with our host, Mr. Wagner.
I have asked him to
come up here as he has generally stationed himself away so he will
be able and available to handle crises as they come up but we have
got him here at the head table to summarize the general library
situation and resources in the Virgin Islands.
MR. WAGNER:
Thank you, Dr. Dix.
I am goir-_, to tell
you first about the resources of the library of the College of the
Virgin Islands.
Our library was established in 1963 and of course
we are basically an under-graduate library, which means, of course,
it is designed primarily to support the present work of the College.
17
24
We have a book collection of over 20,000 volumes and something like
1500 reels of microfilms.
Our collection includes prints, clip-
pings, phonograph records, film strips and 16 millimeter films.
Our primary interest is of course supporting the teaching of
programs, that is, at least from 1963 to date.
In the future of
course we hope to
at least begin specializing in some area.
Now,
odisammase, for Caribbean material we rely heavily on the public
libraries of the Virgin Islands which I'll tell you something
about in a minute.
We hope to establish here at the College a
definitive collection of materials on slcvery and we have some
friends who promise to help us in that direction.
Now, let me tell you a few words about the public libraries of
the Virgin Islands.
We are speaking now of the libraries of the
United States Virgin Islands.
Incidentally, I don't know if we
have anyone here from the British Virgin Islands.
The libraries-
of the Virgin Islands comprising only three islands contain a
general collection of books of over 80,000 volumes.
The collection
includes a definitive collection of Caribbean materials of some-
thing over 15,000 volumes, the emphasis there being on materials
on the United States Virgin Islands, and I think the materials are
in English, Spanish, French and Danish.
Is that correct?
MISS BOA:
That is correct.
MR. WAGNER:
The collection includes books, serialp
and official documents.
The Public Library of the Virgin Islands
in addition has recently in the last year been officially desig-
nated a partial United States depository, which means, of course,
that this area will receive selected publications of the United
18
25
States Government.
The library of the Virgin Islands contains a
complete collection of Virgin Island newspapers dating from 1770 to
date.
These newspapers are on microfilm and some are
in the
original printed edition.
In addition the library contains 1660'
reels of microfilm of various archives and documents.
It has an
excellent growing collection of theses on Caribbean subjects and I
was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Caribbean area had re-
ceived so much attention in research.
The library, that is, the
main library here in St. Thomas, operates a complete, self-contained
Laboratory for microfilming and photocopying materials of all kinds,
as well as photo-offset reproductions facilities.
And I think that
concludes our survey.
DR. DIX:
Thank you, Mr. Wagner, that is just the
sort of summary I think we want.
I wish those of you who will
comment later 11111 remember to bring out particularly the things
that are unique or relatively unique.
I assume this collection of
Virgin Island newspapers is the best that exists anywhere.
Miss
BIM)
MISS BAA:
Yes, Dr. Dix, it is presumably the most
complete collection of Virgin Island newspapers.
I thank Mr.
Wagner for being so enthusiastic about our library, but I should
like to make one little correction.
Our collection of (Caribbean
materials is not definitive, it is an awfully small example even '
though it is a relatively large library;
but 15,000 volumes, more
or less, is just a drop in the bucket as far as Caribbean material
is concerned.
We have emphasis on the Virgin Islands but we also
include some general Caribbean materials.
19
MR. SEAMAN:
May I ask a question, that series of
newspapers, what was that date again?
MISS BAA:
1770.
MR. SEAMAN:
Now, is that continuous or are there
breaks?
MISS BAA:
There are some bread but we have the most
complete collections as far as microfilms are concerned anywhere.
We got our start from the Royal Library in Copenhagen many years
ago, I forget what year it was, berhape it was 1959.
We ordered
from the Royal Library all of the Virgin Island newspapers on micro-
film which were in that library; in addition to that, we bought from
the Bancroft Collection in California and from 6.4g National
Archives in Washington, to ftll in whatever gaps we had.
DR.DIX:
Identify yourself.
MR. VAUGHAN:
My name is Robert Vaughan.
Does this
include all newspapers?
MISS BAA:
All Virgin Island newspapers.
MR. VAUGHAN:
In other words, let's take for
example in St. Croix, does it include the ST. CROIX AVIS?
MISS BAA:
Yes, the first newspaper was issued in
St. Croix in 1770, and in 1815 in St. Thomas.
However, we have all
of the St. Croix and St. Thomas newspapers to date.
DR. ZIMMERMAN:
1770 or 1717?
MISS BAA:
1770.
MR. COCKING:
Don't worry about the year, there are
two hundred of them.
MISS BAA:
As I said before, what we have is really
20
a drop in the bucket.
DR. DIX:
Will you identify yourself for the steno-
grapher.
SISTER HILLERY:
Sister Nora Hillery, Catholic
University in Ponce.
Newspapers are great to have, and we have them
in Puerto Rico; but can you tell me, do you have these newspapers
indexed?
MISS BAA:
Now, you are asking for to
much.
We have
not indexed these newspapers.
For instance, we have the complete
San Juan Star which we filmed from issue one to the present.
We
have set up no indexing service.
DR. DIX:
This gentleman over here.
MR.MILLER:
I am Miller from Inter-America Univer-
sity.
In what library is this, are these,newspapers physically
housed?
MISS BAA:
In the St. Thomas Public Library, and I'll
extend an invitation to all of our participants to visit with us.
MR. DOCKING:
Does the library have facilities for
making positive from the negative?
MISS RAM Yes, we do and we can sell you positives,
and we can reprint whatever negative you may have.
We can also
make Diamo jackets for reducing personnel files, correspondence,
and so on, which will, then convert your microfilm rolls to 4x5 cards
in drawers, instead of rolls, and so on.
TRAM COMBS:
I'd like to put the situation of the
St. Thomas Public Library into focus with a couple of phrases, if I
may.
Because St. Thomas is the capitol of the Virgin Islands, the
St. Thomas Public Library has come to function without thinking of
itself in just that way as the national library of the Virgin Islands,
and by the enthusiasm and ability Miss Bea has demonstrated, this
library has built up a very large Virgin Islands collection.
It is
slightly weak on rare materials and things before 1900, but overall
it is developing the best collection of materials on the Virgin
Islands anywhere in the world.
DR. DIX:
Thank you.
Shall we move ahead now to the
British West Indies and Dr. Jordan.
I don't know whether you have
been alerted or not, but will you give us a summary of the situation?
DR. JORDAN:
Yes, I prefer to refer to my area as the
Commonwealth Caribbean because we have a few independent territories
now and I don't know that they will particularly relish being re-
ferred to still as British.
I am thinking about Jamaica, Trinidad,
and Barbados.
These are three independent territories, and the
associated state group, which were formerly Windward Islands and
Leeward Islands.
I am not taking up Guyana, we have
representative
from Guyana, and I don't have anything on the British Virgin Islands.
The Commonwealth Caribbean is really the former territory of the
British federation, The Federation, as it used to be called, of the
West Indies that I am referring to, and I am concentrating as you
ask on West Indian material, although I originally had an idea that
this conference was going into a rather broader field.
DR. DIX:
You can be as broad as you want, go right
ahead.
DR. JORDAN:
Well, when you think of library
resources you can approach it in so many. ways, by subject and by
22
taking only Caribbean materials in general.
I have approached it by
subject and when you talk a little about resuizces of the islands, I
want to say two things generally on the subject that Miss Baa men-
tioned.
Out of the conference that was held by the heads of the Carib-
bean Universities in November last year, we are hoping to form some
kind of Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Libraries.
Planning for this, I hope, will be much further ahead by the time I
leave St. Thomas, because the other members of the planning committee
are also here.
We are planning to have a meeting this Wednesday or
Thuruday after the conference is over.
But our brief plan is to have
a meeting just immediately preceding SALALM (in June), which will in-
clude all participants, all universities and research institutes, the
representatives of the November meeting and all heads of Caribbean
universities.
We also invited a number of other libraries to be
alerted if they are interested, to attend as observers.
Planning for
this conference could take up rather much the same kind of broad
topic that we are talking about here, and which I think would consti-
tute another channel where what we talk about can be carried forward.
There was also a very recent conference in Trinidad on the
national literature.
This was held about two weeks ago (in February),
sponsored by The Library Association and at that conference a good
deal of attention was given to the collection of local materials
that actually exist in Trinidad and more so of the problems of
collecting local materials, and what might be done about some of
these problems.
So with those two comments on background let me say
something as briefly as possible on the ten territories.
23
fir4
80
The Institute of Jamaica has been active since 1879, I think,
and the collebting of local materials began almost from that time.
The Institute also served for many years, I think, only as a sort
of public library system in Jamaica well until the 1,501s.
Its
collections are described in articles: there is an article in The
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION RECORD of October 1958 by Mrs. Bretno, who was
the librarian at that time, and in that article she described the
Institute collection fairly in some detail.
She talked particularly
of the newspaper collection and the material -- manuscripts, maps,
prints and all kinds of valuable materials- -for historical research
that were held in the Institute library.
I think now the Institute
contains all current West Indian newspapers, and if my information
is correct the University of the West Indies at Mona passes on its
West Indian material as a whole.
We have a representative here
from the Institute of Jamaica, and I am sure she will be able to
add to anything that I may not have brought out clearly enough.
I
think it is enough to say that the collection at the Institute of
Jamaica is the oldest and in this sense alone the best.
Secondly,
it is the strongest in Jamaican materials as a whole and in many
instances, it is also very, very strong on other West Indian
material, stronger than some of the libraries that exist.
The
Jamaican Public Library published a bibliography for independence
showing location of the items in these three libraries.
The University collection at Mona is well described in a
paper by Mr. W. Gocking which was presented oo. SALALM in 1967.
The paper is entitled "Regional Collection of the University of
24
31.
C
West Indies:
Mr. Cocking described the scope of the collection,
the kinds of materials contained, and the sort of emphases that have
been placed.
There are several emphases, one of. them a listing of
all the serial holdings of the library.
They are quite strong
although their files are not complete; they are not only a guide to
what the library has, but they are in a way the initial steps
fo...ward--they are the sort of definitive listings of West Indian
series I think we definitely need, something that should tell us
what all the series types are that have been published in the
different territories from a given date to when they ceased publi-
cation, which is a favorite habit of soapy of these West Indian
serials.
The collection at St. Augustine moved to Trinidad and is also
described very, very briefly in the same working paper number 25.
The collection at St. Augustine is strong mainly in that a very
small part of it was inherited from the Historical Sbciety of
Trinidad and Tobago.
The Historical Society was organized, or it
was established, somewhere in 1934, and they published a good deal
of historical material, and were very active in accumulating a
library; and then somehow they mysteriously died as an organization.
Its library was passed on partly to the Central Library of Tobago
and partly to the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture at
St. Augustine which later became the University of the West Indies
Faculty of Agriculture and the base of the university campus opera-
tion in Trinidad.
So we have some very rare, well perhaps not
many, but a few quite rare and distinctive items.
One of them is
a prise showpiece which is a two- volume diary maintained by Sir
25
32
William Young, who was a 19th century governor of Tobago.
It is
rather priceless because there are some attractive watercolors and
drawings in it and I think this is the first thing we rush to show
to our visitors because it is attractive and unique.
It is the
only manuscript we have, by the way, but it is rather a showpiece.
The collection has in it the same materials inherited from
the Historical Society, a number of standard West Indian histories,
and a long history.
In recent times we have added to it by buying
West Indian books, of course, and more so collecting West Indian
pamphlets and reports of this kind.
The usual difficulty of course
has been experience and I wouldn't go into that here, let's just say
that what we have now is a nucleus collection of which we are hoping
to expand and build to a fullfledged Caribbean collection in our new
building.
We also inherited the library of the Federal Information Ser-
vices.
The West Indies Federation was short lived and when it
folded up in 2961 the assets were distributed and the library was
given
to the University of the West Indies.
Since the federal
capitol was seated in Trinidad, the Trinidad campus library has the
material that was this Federation collection.
It was not a
catalogued collection, however: it took us six or seven years to
sort out.
We fond that we got most of it, especially the news-
papers and pamphlet materials, reports, particularly serial
publications, because the Federation, from its very inception, has
established a depository Low.
The Federal information Aervice
collected a lot of local documents as they were published and these
have come to the University library.
There was also a large guide
'26
of Jamaican reference material in the territory which was pub-
lished in 1965.
There is no published guide to the Federal Informa-
tion Service collection, which in itself was not catalogued.
Perhaps something should be said about the Caribbean Regional
Library in Puerto Rico, as belonging to this area that I am cover-
.
ing.
Because it was originally housed at the library in Trinidad,
we still nostalgically think of it as being once ours.
It was a
very strong resources center for West Indian reports, again espec-
ially for research and social sciences and, although some of the
same materials exist at the University libraries in Trinidad, we
nevertheless feel that access to the resources of that Caribbean
Regional Library is a very worthwhile objective.
Therefore, we
are pleased with the program that was instituted there for xerox-
ing naterial in that library for the use of other area libraries.
The Trinidcid Central Library is one of the three public
libraries serving in Trinidad.
Tobago has fairly extensive
collections of West Indian material and reported over 8,000 volumes
in the recent conference.
That collection is particularly strong
in newspaper clippings for which they have maintained a file over
the last eight or ten years, and they are very strong also in West
Indian literature and in reports as a whole.
These were collected
over the past eight to ten years, including some older materials
inherited from the Trinidad Historical Society.
The Trinidad Public Library is the original public library
dating from the 1850's.
It recognized the need for collecting West
Indian materials rather late in their existence.
One would have
hoped that since this library was there since the 1850's we might
:'7
34
have had a treasure house of some of the older reports.
Unfor-
tunately, it was reported that they did not collect local materials
to any great extent before 1900.
It is therefore not possible to
determine what the collection contains, for it is not catalogued
but is arranged by subjects.
Happily, they are particularly
strong in Trinidad newspapers.
They have bound files of the news-
papers going right back to the early days.
This was one of the
sources used by the University of Florida in Gainesville in micro-
filming materials from the island a few years ago.
All the special libraries in Trinidad have some West Indian
materials, depending on subject fields in which they are especially
concentrating.
I think the Industrial Development Corporation
Library, with which we were nssocivted in the first year, has a vast
clipping f.le which was built up from the very inception of the
library, and a nlmber of the West Indian reports which are directly
related to economic development and industrial development.
They
have all the statistical reports, this kind of thing.
There is
also a new library at the Central Bank of Trinidad with a pro-
fessional staff.
There is a library at the Ministry of Economic
Planning and Development, and there are a number of government
department libraries which are collecting materials relative to
their subjects but I don't think they warrant more attention in this
very quick glance we are giving.
The Barbados Public Library also is especially rich in local
history materials.
They recently published in 1966 a bibliography
which lists the work pertaining to the history of the island of
Barbados instead of the region.
Most of the material listed there
is actually in the Barbados Public Library.
In 1960 when I did a
survey, that collection was already reported at about 5,000 items.
That was nearly ten years ago; I believe the library has since ex-
tended, and the reference collection is now much bigger.
There is
also an organized archival collection in Barbados with a professional
archivist 'oho publishes a list of necessions
to the archives.
There
are a number of local reports being collected so that Barbados is
fairly well taken care of.
If I may say a word on the national archives in Trinidad.
Un-
fortunately the government has not been able to house archives
properly and they are in a rather sorry state at the moment.
It is
therefore impossible to tell what is there, so that nobody can quite
use them.
Plans for the new development include housing for
archives but until a building is available it is futile to assess
them for the present.
The other public libraries in the West Indies--and the Antigua
Public Library particularly comes to mind--all have rather small
collections which are locked and somewhat tucked away with some
valuable West Indian materials.
I think a survey at this time is
urgently needed to locate and preserve some of these things not
known in veneral and which are not rroperly recognized by the people.
I can only say Antigua has more than the rest of this kind of
materials, but ':hey were deteriorating, were in poor condition, and
it was a Tong time ago when I saw them.
I haven't seen the
collection in recent years and I don't know if there has been an
improvement.
If I could just sum up briefly some of the difficulty that we
are encountering.
At this recent conference Miss Ursula Raymond
36
did
paper on why, how and what to collect and she identified no
less than 19 types of materials to be collected and over 20 differ-
ent sources of information, or sources of actual collecting that
should be done.
She suggested methods like going through the death
notices to see whose things are going to be thrown out next and
this is, although facetious, not exactly offbeat, because sometimes
this is where a lot of the older rrre materials can be found.
There are a number of areas of current research which need to be
taken account of which are valuable sources for collecting.
In
agriculture, literature, sciences, etc. much work is going on.
For
example, a member of the faculty was recently found doing a biblio-
graphy on aoil that he found in a number of the West Indian islands,
and he was able to locate bibliographic reports that had been done
by members of th! staff which would never otherwise have been dis-
covered.
People do not think of making them available for others'
use; they
Ise them for their own pl,rnoses and file them away and
that is the end of the story.
I hope that Miss Raymond's paper will
be published.
If I may touch on that, funds are perhaps the greatest
hindcrance to development of our nation, and if we are going to
progress at all we are going to have to have money.
We will need
the manpower to pursue our objectives but,unless we have the money,
we can't get manpower, and I think this is perhaps where we need to
concentrate next.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much, Dr. Jordan.
Now, are
there others in the area that may want to amplify this?
MR. GOCKING:
On the paper to which Mrs. Jordan
referred ns n snlient paper number 2f: since then and before that
we hod tried several times to get .urcling for retrospective bibtio-
graphies or the publishing of new materials, without success; for-
tunately. our present librarian is working on a great project for
recording 'lest Indian manuscripts abroad.
He is hoping to publish
that in due course.
Part of what !.e has -lone already on the manu-
scripts, perhaps in America, may be published very soon, I hope.
DR. DIX:
Are there any questions
MR. TREMBLEY:
I would like to mention, Pr. Jordan
did brim it un, the nap colrection at the Institute of Jaraica.
The finest in the West
I believe, it covers not only
British but all parts of the West fndies.
MISS BAA:
In connection with what Dr. Jordan has
said concerning this proiect on cards and reproduction I see it
immediatelq as a cooperative microfilming project.
We should lice
to offer you such microfilming serices.
:R. JOPDAN:
t'll weak to you later.
DR. DIX:
This is the kind of communication I think
this conference is particularly designed to establish.
mRS. SHEPARD:
Speaking on the same topic there are
two things that occurred to me from what Dr. Jordan mentioned, one
the need for a-survey of materials that are in existence, parti-
cularly ip unknown locations.
7 vould think that it should be
possible, with the met berehin now of Trinidad and Tobago and Bar_a-
dos in the Organization of iknerica States, that they might ask the
OAS to do a survey on the resources in the Caribbean basing it on
their need for this information for developmental purposes.
The
31
38
other thing, as far as the publication of indexes, there are a number
of commercial firms that are very much interested in being able to
produce or photocopy what you have already done on cards.
One of
course in C.K. !fall Company which has done a number of bibliograph-
ies.
Also the !,careerow Press is ielighted to know of interesting
bibliographic projects which could be commercially feasible.
Scare-
crow is not particularly interested in large number of copies to
be sold, but merely to contribute to the world of scholarship.
These two organizations, comnercinl enterprises, are especially to
be considered in making this more widely available to everyone.
DR. DIX:
Thank you, Marietta.
Weil, as I look at
the clock, it is almost time for lunch.
I think after lunch we
should resume this, and I hope that you will be back at two o'clock.
(AFTER LUNCH)
I would like to congratulate all of you on your promptness.
Let
ask before going on whether you like this procedure that
we am followinr?
This is a democratic conference, if you want to
change it, we can.
Does anyone feel we can use our time in some
other way the rest of the dav?
All right, we will hurry up and
finish what we were doing.
Ir. Jordan had another comment or two
on her area but. before I do that, there has been some request for an
accurate list of names and addresses of everyone here.
I am going
to pass this around and we should be able to get this to all of
you in mimeograph form before you leave.
Dr. Jordan.
DR. JORDAN:
Yes, there were just two or three
points I want to make quickly which I should have made this morning.
The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture Library of the Univer-
sity of the West Indies is of course mainly in agricultural
and -!!elatei sciences.
have brought a list here, 4if
39
which I don't have enough copies but just want to show, of agricul-
tural journals and serials that are held at the university library.
The list is 34 pages long, full pages, and this gives you some idea
of the scope of the collection there, and I want to say that the G.
K. Hall Company was supposed to be considering publishing the cata-
log of this material.
It has a lot of West Indian material in it
but has a much wider coverage of tropical agriculture.
The other thing I wanted to mention which somebody else sug-
gestedabout a collection on slavery, I think, with reference to
the Virgin Islands.
There is, quite recently, a Center for Multi-
Racial Studies jointly sponsored by the University of Sussex and the
University of the West Indies.
These multi. - racial studies are on
the campus of the University of Barbados and they have already
attracted, although they have been going only about two years, a
very substantial, gift collection of about 15,000 volumes on Negro
life and history.
They have not catalogued this as yet, of course,
and can't say exactly what is in it.
It seems to be a very rich
and valuable collection.
I think Richard Moore, a Barbadian book-
seller now in the United States, gave this collection to the Bar-
bados government who in turn passed it on to the Center for Multi-
Racial studies.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much.
Let's move aheadi
let's go immediately to Mr. Hervieu and the French-speaking part of
the islands.
MR. HERVIEU:
(Through interpreter.)
The "Archives
departementales de la Guadeloupe"(County Archives of Guadeloupe)
were created only seventeen years ago by a county or departmental
40
VA
law dated August 23, 1951, as authorized by the decree of June 28,
1947, which extended metropolitan legislation, dealing with
archives, to the French overseas departments (counties).
Prior to this time only two actions related to the protection
of public archives at Guadeloupe are worth noting: firstly, the
creation by the governor of a small archival service designed to
preserve the papers of only governmental officers and parti,Aarly
to bind the official records, the governmental decisions and
ministerial memoranda, and secondly, the organization iif a
depository (as stipulated by the decree of November 20, 1929) of
public papers to preserve the duplicate copies of all notarial
transactions, deeds, and court judgements from 1912 on.
(For prior
years, these documents are kept in Paris in the depository of
public overseas papers which is part of the overseas section of the
Archives Nationales (National Archives).
From 1951 to about 1960 the "Archives departementalee have
been used mainly as repositories for the documents of the various
departmental (county) agencies.
Since 1960, more documents have
been included, namely those of all governmental agencies as well as
all notarial documents--as prescribed by the French archival regula-
tions.
The principal sources accessible to researchers may be
classified in the following manner:
(1)
"Depeches ministerielles"
(Ministerial memoranda): This
includes correspondence addressed by the Ministry of the Navy (later
of the Colonies) to the Governor of Guadeloupe (One to four volumes
per year) going back to 1826.
(There are also bound volumes of
copies of rinisterial memoranda concerning the Customs Office (1817-
1838).
(2) "Arretes et decisions du gouverneur" (Governor Decrees):
This collection is also bound (one to 12 volumes per year) and
starts only in 1894.
(3) "Fonds du Conseil prive de la Guadeloupe et du Conseil de
eontentieux Administratif"
(Minutes of the Governor's Council of
Guadeloupe and of the Administrative. Council):
these two organiza-
tions, which were eliminate <' in 1947, played the role of the
consulting body of the insular administration and of the administra-
tive court.
Their proceedings and judgements go back to 1826.
(4)"ronds :-;ttedois de Saint Barthelemy" (Swedish Archives of
Saint Barthelemy): This consists of the public archives of the island
of. St. Barthelemy during the Swedish period (1784-1878). This island
was later linked administratively to Guadeloupe and today consti-
tutes a "canton' and a "commune"
(township and town) of the depart-
ment ( "arrondissement" of Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy); these
archives, quite complete for the whole Swedish period, are composed
in reality of several collections: papers of governors, archives of
the courts, of the Customs Office (manifests), notarial documents,
etc.
These archives were transferred to Basse-Terre in 1932 (for
the most part) and in 1962 where they are briefly catalogued.
A
definitive catalogue and a systematic recording on microfilm are
planned as a result of a request from the Royal Swedish Archives to
the "Archives de France" (French Archives).
(5)
"itegistres Hypothecaires" (Registry of Deeds): This
collection
constitute a private source for the socio-economic
history of the islands.
The registries start in 1811 for Besse-
5
42
Terre, 1830 for Pointe-a-Pitre and Saint Martin and 1858 (only
year) for Marie-Galante.
(6)
"Registres d'etat civil de l'arrondissement de Pointe-
a-Pitre et de la villa de Basse-Terre"
(Registry of Civil Acts for
Pointe-a-Pitre and Basse-Terre):
This comprises two distinct
collections, the first one transferred in 1962 by the Pointe-a-
Pitre court, the second one deposited in 1961 by the municipality
of Basse-Terre.
The registries with earliest dates are from the
following "communes" (towns):
AbymPs:
1i39 (births). 1838 (barriages), 1838 (deaths)
AnseBertrand:
1775 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Baie-Mahault: 1781 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Desirade:
1783 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Cosier:
1782 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Maric-Galante (Brand-Bourg): 1840 (births), 1839 (marriages),
1825 (deaths)
Marie-Galante (Capesterre):
1842 (births), 1839 (marriages),
1842 (deaths)
Marie-Galante (Vieus-Fort-Saint-Louis):
1842 (births),
1841 (marriages), 1839 (deaths)
Morne- a -Lgau:
1782 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Moule:
1793 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Petit-Bourg:
1803 (births, marriages, deaths)
Petit-Canal:
1780 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Port-Louis: 1780 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Sainte-Anne: 1781 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Sainte-Rose: 1;81 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Saint-Francois: 1782 (baptisms, marriages, burials)
Basse-Terre: 1795 (births), 1795 (marriages), 1794 (deaths)
36
43
(7)
"Minutes notariales"
(Notarial Minutes):
Since 1964,
four depositories of minutes have been made by the notaries of
Guadeloupe:
Mr. Boudin at Basse-Terre (minutes starting in 1759),
Mr. Lacour at Basse-Terre (minutes starting in 1792), Mr. Turlet
at Basse-Terre (minutes starting in 1771) and the court of Saint-
Martin (minutes starting in 1775).
After this enumeration of the principal collections of
archives in the "Archives departementales de la Guadeloupe", one
should not forget the "printed archives", which are administrative
publications of great importance for the history cf the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries:
starting in 1834, "proces-verbaux des
deliberations du Conseil colonial" (Proceedings of the Delibera-
tions of the Colonial Council), later named 'proces-verbaux des
deliberations du Conseil general" (Proceedings of the iielibera-
tions of the General Council`, Bulletin, Gazette et Journal
officiels de la Guadeloupe", (starting in 1828).
In addition, the "Archives departmentales" preserve the
manuscripts of the local historian Jules Ballet (1825-1904); 19
volumes and 10 folders all concerning social, political, and eco-
nomic history of the nineteenth century.
(For the seventeenth,
eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the works of Jules Ballet
have been published in five volumes from 1890 to 1899 under the
title "La Guadeloupe, Renseignements sur l'histoire..." (Guade-
loupe, Information on the History...)
A large historical library with more than a thousand books
and brochures is attached to the "Archives departementales".
This library includes on the one hand books
acquired since 1960
37
44
and on the other hand two collections: one deposited in 1962 and
1967, twit of the "Federation mutualiste", and the second in
1964,
the "bibliothique du Conseil general".
It comprises works on the
history of Guadeloupe and
local newspapers
(nineteenth and
twentieth centuries) and, thus, today it is the most complete
reference historical library in existence in Guadeloupe.
(A
collection of microfilms of European documents dealing with Guade-
loupe is also maintained and built up regularly every year.)
This brief survey of resources of documents in the depository
of archives of Guadeloupe will, no doubt, leave
the reader per-
plexed:
why are there so few documents more than a hundred years
old and none dating back further than 1759?
The explanation is
simple: in addition to the destructive tropical climate, Guadeloupe
has suffered from wars,
earthquakes and hurricanes, but the great-
est damages were due to several fires which up to recently have
destroyed local government buildings and files; thus,
for just the
town of Basse-Terre, one may list the following buildings which
were destroyed or damaged in the twentieth century:
the Governor's
House (1905), a building housing records of
the District Court
(1918), the building with the offices of the controller (1922), the
building with the records of the Court of Appeals (1929), the
General Council building
(1931) and even the "Archives departe-
mentales" (1955).
(The fire at the "Archives departellftvAans" 04
not cause, in 1955, much permanent damage to the preserved
collections.
However, all the papers we
soaked and this
necessitated much salvage work which lasted several years.)
Since 1956, the archive room is fireproof (cement ceiling and
38
45
metal shelves) but, today only onP vacant shelf remain,.
An enlarge-
ment and modernization project, in the planning stage, will provide
the "Archives departementales" with more room and air ,.onditioning.
Thus, it will be possible to preserve, with better guarantees, the
historical graphic heritage of Guadeloupe.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much, Mr. Hervieu and Mr.
Caron.
Are there any questions or additions?
Identify yourself
please.
MISS VIGO:
Miss Vigo from the Institute ,f
Caribbean Studies.
Could you tell us about the library of Guade-
loupe?
MR. HERVIEU:
We will get to that shortly.
DR. DIX:
Well, we have got a lot to do.
Miss
Stephenson, could you tell us something a ,out Guyana?
MISS STEPHENSON:
The principal library in Guyana
the University Library of Guyana, the public library, the Royal
Agricultural Commercial Society Library, and several libraries
attached to various government departments.
The University of
Guyana Library was established in 1963, the same year as the univer-
sity.
Our collection is mainly an undergraduate library which
supports the teaching program for three faculties: arts, social
sciences and natural science.
Our special collection is the
Caribbean collection.
It consists at the moment of books, pamphlets
and newspaper clippings, published books and pamphlets about the
West Indies, and offic4u1 government documents.
As there is no
enforced japository practices, these are difficult to obtain.
We
are trying to build a comprehensive collection of all documents
39
4"
issued by the two main polid.cal parties.
It is interesting to
observe that these documents are never dated, so we have actually
had to go back to the source:
what year was such and such a
Pamphlet published:
This is a characteristic of publishing in
the Caribbean Area.
Our government ias permitted the librarian
to examine certain government documents or: the premises.
The University Library is very young but we have already
undertaken two projects:
a)
we are attempting to index news-
papers and periodicals.
We hope at some future time vo.,
will he
able to publish these indexes; b)
ue are trying to compile a
bibliography of all materials with a local imprint.
Tkis is all
I can tell you at the moment about the University of Guyana.
The Public Library is another important library o' Guyana.
This vas established since 1909, but at the time there was no
emphasis on collecting local materials.
'This was initiated around
1940 and from that time they have built u'
quite a collection which
includes most of the standard works on history of Guyana in narti-
cular.
There is also a valuable collec tion of newspaper clippinrs
and pamphlets of local artists, and some newspapers.
the WfST
INDIES CHRONICLE and the ARGOSY hv,- since been transferred to the
Archives.
The third library .f imnortanc:! as fir as Caribbean material is
concerned is the /loyal Agriculturia and Commercial Society.
Started
in the days of great plantation owners, It was n private library and
a social club where planters met.
This was continued until very re-
cently even though it served only a few people.
Its collection
is rellly a storehouse of early material on Guyana, some dating
hack to the early 17th and 18th centuries, including
4°
47
material that dealt with our early border disputes.
A more liberal
policy now allows students to consult these works for reference
purposes.
Other special libraries are not very rich in Caribbean
materials.
They are mainly concerned with material collected in
their own subject area.
Another source of Caribbean interest is the government
archives.
This is poorly housed and disorganized; therefore it is
not very easy to tell what is available.
However, the archivist
is well acquainted with his illection and can easily identify and
produce the documents needed.
Mr. Trembley who is also here from
Guyana will tell you more about the material of the archives.
This
is in summary what exists in the island.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much, Miss Stephenson.
Let's move aheac, Mr. Trembley mig'It say something about this area,
and also, I think, something about Haiti of his previous knowledge.
MR. TREMBLEY:
The archives, as Mrs. Stephenson men -
toned, are in rather bad shape.
They are housed above the fire
station in a wooden building.
Most of the newspapers that are
extant are in the archives.
Guyana published a tremendous number
of newspapers which didn't live very long, but various political
movements are represented by short-lived newspapers.
Many of
these are quite old and have suffered from the weather, making it
impossible or prohibitive to use as it will disintegrate.
There
is a single microfilming machine in the country and the university
finds it very expensive to put out money for this filming at
present.
Investigations are being conducted to see if the govern-
.4!
ment will buy it for the university and archives.
The archives include a representative collection of material
from the Legislative Council, even though most of the governmental
documents are housed in the Publishing Records Office in London!
also, in the early part of the 19th century they had been shipped
to Amsterdam.
I should also like to comment on Guyana concerning
the university: since we don't have microfilm machines these news-
papers are falling apart so rapidly we have decided to record on
tape various articles which we think are of historical value until
we can get microfilming projects going.
The University has inaugu-
rated this year an oral history program.
We find there is a large
percentage of elderly people, some in their hundreds, who came to
Guiada as indentured laborers dating back to tne emancipation
period and we are hoping Lc, get some of these people interviewed
on tape and put them into thy library for use.
DR. DIX:
Would you go on to Haiti.
MR. McDONALD:
As I understand it, the problem is to
get a microfilming camera.
It is not the cost of film itself, since
you are able to tape things which is probably a little more expensive
than filming.
MR. TREMBLEY:
Yes, it is the outlay for the pur-
chase trice of the camera itself and related initial expenditures,
whereas we find we can buy the tape on installment.
MRS. SHEPARD:
I seem to be today the proponent of
capitalism, but I know that University Microfilms have been very
much interested in knowing what kind of materials in the Latin
American area should be microfilmed.
They haVe been interested in
42
49
many instances in placing the equipment in institutions if there
will be somebody there who is willing and technically efficient to
do the filming.
111. TREMBLEY:
Thank you.
There is not a great deal
to be said about Haiti.
Haiti does have an archive building with a
very fine trchiviet trained loth in France and in the United States.
The building is ,f concrete but the collection is uncatalogued, or
at least it wasn't catalogued a year ago, which was the last time I
was there.
Some of the most valuable material going back to the
17th century was simply rotting on the shelves.
It is uncertain
whether the material is still there.
It was arranged by centuries,
16th, 17th, 18th; but on the whole I found the archives pretty
completely useless for historical research.
Of course it receives
current material coming from the government depository vault of
government documents.
Librarywise, there are four which I think
are important; two of them are the libraries in the two Lycies.
The
better of the two has a very valuable collection of Haitian imprints.
Haiti has a tremendous volume of book publication.
A survey
done in 1950 shows that they printed more books per capita than any
other country in the western hemisphere except the United States,
but the number of copies printed in any edition was very small.
Many of them have been lost.
There is a national library which was set up under Pres.
Duvalier in the 1950's but I am afraid it has suffered from
personnel changes, and a large portion of the collection has dis-
appeared.
However, most of the materials in the national library
was not Haitian, but mostly French, and this was French written by
43
50
France.
In 1930 the Bureau of Ethnology was established as part
of the neighborhood movement that had been inaugurated.
The chief
man behind it was Dr. Jean Price-Mars (1876-1969), the famous
Haitian anthropologist who is now q3 (Ed. note:
He died after
Uarch).
Neverthqess, the Notional Library is an excellent
library and it continuos to to expanded because President Duva-
lier is in.:eresnd in it.
14 was in the very beginning a member
of the Lih-ary Blreau.
There are or were a number of church archives.
I don't know
what their statis is; I myseif worked in a Roman Catholic Archive
diocese it Port au Pr:nca am! this was an excellent depository
for educational materials since th. 'Thurch headed the schools.
The dame is equally true of the Episcopal Church.
Roth churches
have suffered urder Duvalier's repine and it is possible that a
lot of this material ray hay.: diswipeared.
Ther( are ,ther -rchiveq deal in'; with Haiti outside of Haiti.
The Unitet; States National Archives contain all of the materials
on the United States occupation, which covers a very important era
of ?aitian history from 1915 to 1933.
The French National
Archives in Paris have a wealth of material on the San Domingue
period up to and including the revolutionary period ending roughly
in 1791.
It is very well catalogued and quite accessible.
The
same is true of the Public Records Office in London.
The ran who has done the most wqrk in the French archives is
the Frenel historian :abrle] Debien, who is associated with the
University of Mater.
lie pioneered in this field and actually did
the cataleguing as he ',.sed the material on San Domingue.
Pe was
51
a
mainly interested in tracing French planters, and his use (1 the
archives was more or less from the French poinr of view, very
helpful to anyone doing research on that perioU.
There are private collections, but
i
should mention three.
I just learned since I have been h're that part of the collection
of Curt Fisher, on Austrian who ,ett to
aiti about :5 or
years ago, is oFered for sole.
M.. Aldin tells me that pert of
it has been acquired by the Bastin Publi, Library.
le still has
some of it in Puerto Rico wLich I learne recently he offered for
sale at Yale.
I don't know whether they bought it or not.
The other is the Nemours Collection. which was collected by
Alfred Nerours (1883-
), the iaitian i.mbassaior to Paris in the
1920's.
The University of. Puerto Rico bought that in 1962.
He
was mostly interested in Toussaint L'Ouverture and Dessaline and
the revolutionary period but it is an excellent cnllectior.
All
the books have been catalogued, the documenta have not been.
But
the documents are quite good, there is a lot of corre ponderce
including three letters of Napoleon, which are A.gned by
Napoleon, concerning his represertatives In San Domingue.
The third is the collection of Gerari de Catalocne (1905-
),
one of bhe outstanding historians in Haiti.
I have not been able
to sme him within the last five y.tacs.
Ee is more or less under
house arrest.
Whether his library
inthct ± oo not know, I think
probably if it doesn't equal the Fitiher collection, it certainly
comes very close to it.
DR. DIX:
Thank yo: very much.
Ouestioas? Yes.
413
ITSS VIGO:
7 woule
to add something to Mr.
Trembley's information and Viet is that the list of the Nemours
Collection anpe:Irs in CARIBIP:AN STUDIES (v.2, no.3, October,
1962), and was nrepared by him and Mrs. Toth.
;'76. PORTER:
I wonder if we might make a recom-
mendation, one of the recommondatiors might he that we suggest
that University microfilms sond a !amera down to Ilaiti.
I have
had gone rcIntac, with UniverAty Microfilms recen_ly and my objec-
tive is tc
keep them 'iert to places where they are most needed.
I think this company rot onl
would send a camera there, but they
will provide an operator, too, and I think because of the im-
portance of Paiti's extensive collections and the danger that in
another two or three years they will be gone.
I haven't had any
opportunity to compare it wi,:h our collections.
I think this is
one
,f the areaF that Oniverdty microfilms might be. quite willing
to go to if we recommend it.
TW:MBLEY:
You mean send it to Haiti or--
MRS. PORTER:
Yes--to place the camera down there
wherever resources are and to send an operator because it is
difficult to get funds or for a foundation to do this on an
individual basis.
But they are going into the African areas and I
am certain that they will he interested in some of the Caribbean.
I'll be glad to carry that to some of the people I know.
111.
DI:'.:
We will discuss that when we discuss
our recommendations.
Identify yourself.
"R. CO' BS:
Tram Combs.
The collector Curt Fisher
t
told me that he considered the best collection of printed material
4,;
53
on the revolutionary period of Haiti was under. ':17. alien's
.re
in the Boston Public Library.
Perhaps he will
ay a cord a',out
that.
MR. ALDEN:
Well,
think
due course I'll have
an opportunity to speak about that collection it the ',lilted
States.
DR. DIX:
Well, let's move to another language now.
Mr. Inchaustegui with the help of Mrs. Cardona.
M11. INCHAUSTEGUI:
(Through interpretee)
He will
make a general summation of the Saneo Dom.ngo situation, and of
the places where the documents are iituaeed.
TI ere ail onl
two
large libraries: one is the Library of the Naticnal Ueiversity of
Sante Domingo and the secone one s the CItholi, Univ(rsity.
f:
Madre y Maestra at Santiago de Ion Caballeros.
There are miny
small public libraries and some special libraries, such as the
one administered by the American Embassy, U.S. 'nfornetion
Service Library, called the Lincoln Library.
TLere a,e several
private collections of documents.
.$e Catholic Univceeity eub-
lished two collections of goverment documents.
The Catholic University has po!,lished a baliopreohy o
documents from 1930 to 1960 in a ni-linRull edi Lon
SnanLsh
and l:nglish.
They have now ostabiished an exchange section for
the distribution of publications of the University.
-hcy have
published several social documents, soda'. sciences, end contem-
porary studies of documents,
His contribution to the discussion was limited by his
linguistic inability.
DR. DIX:
Thank vc u very much.
The nce:t area we
47
54
move to can be described loosely as ?.etherlands Antilles, and Mr.
Paula will spea on that.
T shoul.' ray Mr. Paula received his
invitation late and has not Lad a chancato do much homework in
that area.
PAULA:
P.rmit to do my own translation.
The
Public Library ii Curacao is an institution of the public adminis-
tration contro13?d by the local ccwernment.
The director or the
Library at the roment is Mis:- De Plula, qualified as a public
librexian after spending a few years in Holland.
She has suc-
ceeded Mis,; Dapbne Labega (Mrs. von !!chindler), known; to sore of
you, who WAS equally qualifitd and who had moreover followed a
course in the United States.
The Public Library has several volumes of antiquated value con-
cerning Opr hist)ry of Curauo but there are no manuscript collet.-
tiorv; exceat a f w volumes from the
7uracio As:;ociation of Straw
Hat ieaver; (thrt's my own translation) .
There are also some old
printed mans fro-1 the 18th century and the first half of the 19th
century.
The most valuable copies are kept in a vault at the Office
of the Land Registry; there is a catalogue of these maps.
In 1955
.
there was an exhibition of the most valuable maps and books in the
public library.
However, the collection was supplemented by a great
number of privately orned volumes.
The head of the office of Land
Registry is most interested in old maps of the territory of the Vest
Indies, has organized an exhibition In 1954 of old maps, and is now
planning to set up documentation of all maps in the Antilles; he
hopes thereby to get the necessary cooperation from the general
state archives of The Hague in Holland.
Besides public libraries. there is on the island of CUracao also
a Scentific Library.
This 'cientjic Library is controlled
by a .)rivate fountiatioi, (STIcUSA) but recAves :11 annval sn)sidy
of more or less fifty t:bousand guiltlerq from tilt
loca2 government.
There are also a number of 1Jcal oranizations and institutions that
donate a fixed sum each year.
T.
ounda.ion for Cultural Coopera-
tion between the Netherlands, Surinam and Netherlands Antilles
supports the library by buying a number of hooks yearly.
However,
this library is operating with an alarmizr deficiency.
At the
present time there is no diroctor.
he ac Ang djrector is the
assistant 1Lbrari.11 who has i.he
neede( dip1( ma fcv. docu-
mentation but who has not received any sp cial trainir; as z1
librarian.
The scientif.c
,tart..d in 19.,7 witl an az:angerent o'
central catalogues but remae.ably enough
he public liorary
not been included.
There is still luch to be desired concerning
the cooperation between these two libraries which are just maybe
two or three minutes from each ot)'e!.
Talking about Aruba, there
are no documents in the library o: ,ruba, accorcing tc Mr,
Hartog, diractor of the Public Lii,rary.
'.here ere soul old gooks
about the history of the Antilles torrito-y but these 'oaks for
some mysterious reason are locked ur in a bookcase.
It is re-
markahle that no attempt was made to apprzach private owner:. to
get books and documents for the library it Aruba.
We :now cf
several private colleecions about the West Indic:;.
Arlrt flom
these on the island of Curacao the idea Li that all the doct-
ments should be centralized.
The nucleus of
1tese archives is
the so-called government archives dating from 1846 to 1.938.
These
49
56
contained diaries, correspondence with the Minister of Colonies,
and with the Governor-General, Surinam, and with local govern-
ments, and all the islands of the Caribbean.
Important for the history of Latin Ameriva and particularly
for the Caribbean area are the extensive correspondence with the
Counci] located in the different islands of the Caribbean area and
South America.
The archives of the Court of Justice begin in the 19th century
and form a truly rich source of history of the social relations on
the island.
There are also maru documents dealing wit). slave rela-
tions in the Netherlands Antilles and on slave relations between
the Netherlands Antilles and Surinam.
The archives from 164 to
1845 are all in the general State Archives in Holland.
I have
brought along here a GUIDE TO THE SOURCES IN NETHERLANDS FOR THE
HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA.
This is an inventory to these archives
and it is therefore very easy for someone who wants to consult
them to get all the information. through our office in Curaco.
using this GUIDE we can write to aoiland to get copici of these
documents.
Furthermore, we should mention that the archive.; in
Netherlands Antilles are presently being reorganized.
With
specialized assistance from Holland we are trying to reorganize
the archives, centralizing the materials and documenti from the
different islands. . Vpr this reason, a building has ben restored
in Willemstad which is fully airconditioned.
We also hope very
soon to be able to start with microfilms and I have already
approached the microfilms specialists.
Last year someone started a collection of books originating
50
57
I
rls
in the Netherlands Antilles, and later another started to collect
all the books that are written in papiemento; that is, the local
dialect.
Frank Martinis, a person who is busy with these
collections, has discovered tnat from about 1850 to date there
are over one hundred books written in papiemento; most of these
are prayer books printed by the Roman Catholic authorities.
I thank you.
DR. DIX:
Thank you, sit .
Any questions or
additions here?
MISS VIGO:
I'd like to ask a question.
You spoke
of a scientific library.
Would you consider it also a public
library?
MR. PAULA:
It is both, but it is more specialized
in certain fields.
MR. VAUGHN:
My name is Vaughn.
What is the title
of this index that you have there, the exact title and author?
MR. PAULA:
It is compiled by Mr. M.P.H. Roessingh
and the title is GUIDE TO THE SOURCES IN THE NETHERLANDS FOR THE
HISTORY OF LATIN AMERICA.
MRS. EEWISOHN:
My name is Lewisohn.
Where can one
get that GUIDE and do we have to send to Curacao or to the Nether-
lands?
MR. PAULA:
You may write to The Hague but, as I
have already said, it is always possible to get the information
through Curacao; so that, if I get the names of those persons that
are interested in the GUIDE, I will send it to them.
MRS. LEWISOHN:
Is it in English?
51
58
MR. PAULA:
It is in English, yes.
DR. DIX:
Mr. McDonald, your comments.
MR. McDONALD:
I just want to say we
are indebted
to Mr. Paula for accepting this assignment with even briefer
notice than the rest of you.
Professor Dr. Harry Hoetink who is
a visiting scholar in the United States this year, spending the
fall semester at Yale University and the spring semester at the
University of Texas, had been invited to come, was tempted but
had other travel plans in the Caribbean later; he and Dr. Thomas
Mathews at the Institute of Caribbean Studies suggested that we
get in touch with Dr. Paula who was good enough to help us.
Dr.
Hoetink, I think, will be remaining in this hemisphere and very
likely will become a permanent part of the Caribbean scene.
I think
from all I have heard of him he'll he a great asset to the area.
There are others of you here who know his work better than I and
can substantiate that.
Thank you, Dr. Paula.
MISS AAA:
I think you will be interested to know
that Dr. Paula has just given me a published copy of his doctoral
dissertation entitled:
FROM OBJECTIVE TO SUBJECTIVE BARRIERS,
published in Rome in 1967.
It is in the second edition with a forward by Dr. Harry Hoetink.
It was published in the Netherlands Antilles, in 1966.
DR. DIX:
Well, we will conclude this roundup, then,
of the areas by coming back to Mrs. Cardona.
MRS. CARDONA:
The development of library services
in Puerto Rico can be said to have taken impetus in the last twenty
years, particuhely after the creation of the Section of Library
5?
59
Services in 1965 within the Department -.1f Instruction.
Since that
date, this department took charg..! of the planning and development
of public library services in addition to the school library ser-
vices.
During the first years after it was created the Section of
Library Services concentrated its efforts in the organization of
public libraries of all types throughout the island:
Libraries at
the municipal level, prison libraries, hospital libraries, rural
libraries, bookrobiles and rural traveling
for 1960 vnd 191,7 clearly show this increase:
libraries.
1960
The figures
1967
Public libraries
7
38
Libraries in Housing Projects
27
27
Bookmobiles
8
8
Special libraries
0
12
Rural travel libraries (boxes)
189
346
Primary school libraries
0
22
Junior Itigh school libraries
28
62
High school libraries
82
100
Since 1968 the Department of Instruction has started a strong
program of development of school library services, as the following
figures show:
gategOry
1967
1968
Students
Primary school libraries
22
31
447,000
Junior high school libraries
62
118
141,000
Senior high school libraries
100
106
86,000
I am giving this information on library services in Puerto Rico
to serve ns a bakground, although I know your main interest lies in
5 t
60
library resource:: available for higher education.
There are in Puerto Rice two 'al.ge university library systems:
the rniversity of Puerto Rice libriry system, and the Catholic
University librry system: there are also the Cnllege of Sagrado
Corazon Library, and Toter-Aericar oniversity with caopuses at
San GermAn and flit° Re,.
The R.livorrity of Puert,
Rico 11,rar- system is organized on
three main camaLses: Cie General. library it R4e Pieeras, the
Maya,tuez Library, and the Me(Acal tichool Library at qan Juan.
The eirecter or Cie University of Puerto Rico's General
Libr try at R10
tedrar, is Miis Josefina del Toro.
The General
Library was founded in 1903.
Tt is 'roused in :
two-story moderr
building which is undergoing renovation and enlargement at present.
Besides its malt building it also has the Libriries of Natural
Sciences, Public and Pusines; Administration and the one at the
Plaraing
chool
The main hcildirg las separate sections for
Reference. Reserve, Documents, Records and Periodicals.
After
bui:ling 'mprovements now ir process are finished the library will
be reorRarized.
The main building also has special collections
with separate rooms.
Outstanding among, them is the Puerto Rican
Collection and worthy of special note is the 'Sala Juan RamOn
Jimenez Collection", named after the Nobel Prize winner who lived
man' year
and died ic Puerto Rico and donated his cersonal
coljectiou to t'm Library.
The director has announced that, in
addition .o housing tie new graduate Faculty of Library Services,
there are clans for a room for the hlind with hooks in Braille and
special t7Tewriters.
54
61
Collection.
The total holdings of the collection are
1,075,715 columes which include 371,(22 catalogued books, pamph-
lets, bound periodicals, microfilms rind all kinds of educational
material in a variety of forms.
The classification used is the
Dewey Decilal Classification.
Only part of the collection is in
open stacks.
Tie library is a depository for the federal U.S.
Government publications, for United "Jations documents, and Pan
American Union, the Secretariat of the Organization of American
States publications.
ctivities.
the Puerto Rican Collection
prepares several indices that: are very valuable tools to guide
readers to its holdings:
INDEX TO PUERTO RICAN PERIODICALS:
(1) the newspaper EL MUNDO for items of local interest, (2) the
INDE OF PUERTO RICAN LITERARY MAGAZINES, covering Almost all the
item; with the exception of uocial news, (3) INDEX TO PUERTO RICAN
POETRY;
(4) INT EX TO PORTRKTTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 01' PUERTO RICAN
ITEMS.
They hn.e also startld an INDEX TO MONUMENT!' AND BVILDIICS
OF PUERTO RICO, alphabetically arranged by geographic areas.
The Reference Department has in progress a SHORT STORY INDEX;
this is an author and title index tc short stories in Spanish, in-
cluding originals in Spanish and translations to the Spanish
language.
The 'RETRY INDEX is a title, author, subject and first
line inclay. to poetry in Spanish appearing in anthologies and
author collections.
(;oth these indices refer to works available
in the General Library.
The Institute of Caribbean Studies pub-
lishes a 'Current Bibliography" of. Caribl,ean interest which appears
in its quarterly journal entitled CARIBBEAN STUDIES.
The purpose
62
of this bibliography is to list as soon as possible the titles of
current books, pamphlets, and periodical articles of interest to
Caribbeanists.
Another bibliographic activity is the Union Catalog, begun in
1963; it is a Union Catalog of University Libraries at college
level.
At present the junior colleges are not included.
It will
integrate also u.pecial colle,:tions of the University of Puerto
Rico like the De Onls, Hispanic Studies, etc.
There is a list of
14 participants, however; at present only the following libraries
have been integrated:
The Library of the University of Puerto Rico
at Yayaguez, the Humacao Regional College, Law Library, Library of
Pharmacy, Library of redicine, Education Faculty Library, Selles,
De Onis Collection, the Library of the College of the Sacred Heart
and the Library of the Inter-American University at Hato Rey.
The
Unica Catalog if. located next to the public catalog and is for the
use of the general public.
There is only one entry, the authorrmain
entry, and the catalog is arra'iged in alphabetical order.
The Puerto Rican Collection was begun in 1935 for the benefit
of a few researchers.
It has all the material published by Puerto
Ricans and about Puerto Rico and the Puerto Ricans which includes
books, current and rare, documents, bound volumes of old periodicals,
manuscripts, posters, maps, rare and contemporary, periodical pub-
lications and microfilms, clippings of articles about Puerto Rico
in foreign periodicals and all the Puerto Rican government publics-
tions mai all the private organization and private business
publications.
The collection has 24,048 bound volumes, 4,667 maga-
zines, 2,360 periodicals, 38,778 documents and ephemeral material,
5 ti
63
and 255 reels of microfilms of Puerto Rican newspapers, a total of
69,853 items.
PhoLoduplicatingLaboratorv.
The University has a Xerox 729
photoduplicatinc machine and an Olivetti coin-operated machine in
addition to it', microfilm equipment.
They have several projects,
the most important is the microfilming of Puerto Rican periodicals.
They have already filmed EL WSCAPTE and some issues of LA DEMO-
CRACM.
General in Formation on the Library at the University of Puerto
Rico, !.;,:iaguez...cpmpns.
The director is Mr. Rafael. Delgado.
A new
building, was inaugurated in 1963, timee floors high with a capacity
of 70,000 square feet.
The collection has about 593,O00 volumes,
bound books, bound periodicals, records, microfilms and current
periodicals.
It is strongest in scion;:ific and technical materials
and it has open stacks.
The Libra7 is a depository for United
Stat,ls lovernment publications.
Toe Order and Acquisition Depart-
ment is in the process of being automated.
The director hopes to
have the whole system automated before long.
A few weeks ago this
library offered an Institute on Library Automation sponsored by
T.B.M.
This is more or less the library activity in Puerto Rico.
Mrs. de Rosa may like to add something to this.
DRA. DE ROSA:
i
thin!: Mrs. Cardona has covered
everything.
DR. DIX:
Thank you.
Well, that ends our summary.
Now, it seems to me we have at least touched the surface of
the collections pertaining particularly to the area.
This
64
57
iF the kind of material that. it si'r's to me, is well to have orally
presented. but
i i l bc of remanent alue when it apnears in the
genort of this conference.
Somethin
it seems to me we might dis-
cuss on
.:(2,inesdav morning is an un-to-date directory of libraries in
the ire:.
liss !Taa has been concealing from me two things she has
o p7T-:CToRY OF LITMARIES IN THE CARIBBEA}' AREA, 1959. And
then. in 10(13. coo 0 the worl-Anc nant!rs for the SALALM Conference
("III SALALN, Yorkin,. Parer 10). a rarer called LIBRARY ANTI
THE CAlriBBEo::. which I
noticed contained a
sumrary description or a number of libraries.
Are these still
Availatip
1 *. BAA:
Yes.
2f2. DIX:
One of cur -ecommendations, it seems to
me. on ':enesday would he that somc le undertake to ''rim' this un
to date.
T.
thick, then--pr. Jordan.
JOgDAN:
! wns jnt going to add that the
Jamaican 1 ihrar r Associatiov has tublished a DTRECTOPY OF JAMAICAN
LIB ART' :!;
in two parts.
Part One is on public libraries and has
already arpeared, in lq67.
Part Two is on school libraries, and
will soon he issued.
Also, my own thesis that was completed in 1966
will be published by Scarecrow Press:, and has a listing of the
libraries as they stood whe I die the survey.
DR. DIX:
It seems to me that one of the things we
should wish to talk about tomorrow is a kind
ballography or
hibliographies of the f:aribtean area.
Unless this is already in
existence, it is obviously needed byre, because publicationssome
of them fnirlv obscure jourralsIrre been mentioned which might be
listed in a single publication if someone had the energy, just a
65
little bit of energy to undertake it.
We can talk about that tomor-
row under the general heading of the whole bibliographic control
problem.
Mrs. Shepard.
MS. SHEPARD:
Yes, there were bibliographies on
Latin America, issued in December, 1968, by Scarecrow Press.
They
include the Caribbean but to what extent I am not too sure.
DP. DIX:
Well, I suggest it will have to be a very
brief survey of the resources of this area in the European and
United States libraries.
(AFTER COFFEE BREAK)
Well, let's get right on to our discussion of some of the Euro-
pean depositories.
We are fortunate to have several of the major
areas represented here.
We were unable to have a representative
of the Archives of the Indies in Spain, or anyone else from Spain.
Perhaps someone else can comment briefly on that.
MR. NcDONALD:
We regret to report an unsuccessful
effort.
DR. DIX:
Let's go ahead with Mrs. Bloomfield.
We
are pleased to welcome you as a participant in this conference.
Will
you tell us something about British resources of this area
MRS. BLOOMFIELD:
It is difficult to tell you briefly
because of so many national government departments with material,
and partly becbuse the Caribbean has never been a unified area for
research in Great Britain.
There have been Commonwealth countries in the area called West
Indies covering thr.! islands, British Honduras, Guyana, and the
countries which are included in the Latin American group such as
Haiti, Cuba and Dominican Republic.
Thlrefore, to study the Carib-
66
59
bean, you have to consult first the libraries of Latin America, the
Commonwealth, and specialized West Indies.
At the moment the Latin
American collections are growing most rapidly because they have
special funds for development.
In 1965 the University Grant Commit-
tee recommended that five. centers of Latin American studies should
be established in the Universities of Cambridge, Liverpool, Edin-
burgh, London, and Oxford.
These are universities with a tradition
of interest in the area and they have special funds to develop
these collections.
There is one other university, the University of
Essex, which right from the beginning has had an interest in the
area, but because it was established so recently it was too late to
obtain any special government funds.
In fact there are six major
university collections on Latin America.
A second recommendation of the same committee was that a cen-
tral information office be established and that this should be in
the Institute of Latin American Studies in the University of London.
The Library of the Institute itself is limited to bibliographies for
research and reference work and its main role is to support the
acquisition of materials in other languages.
The major collections
are in the 1) University of London, 2) London School of Economics,
and 3) Institute of Historical Research.
The Institute has a
very active bibliographical l'brary and has produced a guide
to Latin American collections in London libraries.
It includes
the languages of the Hispanic Collection in Hispanic House, the
Foreign Office, the Bureau of Trade, and the Bank of:
London itself in South America.
So this
60
67
quite well covers the area.
In addition, the library is doing a
National Union Catalogue of books and periodical, relating to Latin
America.
It has concentrated initially on the holdings of the five
British libraries which have Special government funds but it is in-
tending to gradually add the holdings of other countries.
At the present time the Union Catalogue is being circulated to
interested libraries, but in addition the library is compiling a
copy of the shelf list of the Latin American section of the Harvard
University Library.
We have information that this will be printed
as a retrospective catalogue with current monthly lists.
As far as
the Caribbean is concerned there is no problem about the Latin
American countries having been included; Cuba, Haiti, Dominican
Republic and Puerto Rico are included.
There was some hesitation
about the others.
I had a discussion with the director before I
left and suggested that my ovn". library 'Institute of Commonwealth
Studies, University of London, est. 1949] include West Indian
material so that this will strengthen the now Hispcxic material in
this Union Catalogue.
In addition to the Catalogue, the Institute
has also assumed responsibility for issuing a list of Latin American
theses.
This comes out once a year and does cover all countries of
the Caribbean.
There are two other universities in Great Britain developing a
forward interest in the West Indies.
The University of Manchester
has a joint program with the University of the West Indies with an
exchange of staff and students, mod is building up a collection to
support this research.
Dr. Jordan has already mentioned the Univer-
sity at Sussex which has a Center for Multiracial Studies, with a
144.
branch there lie Barbados, so that Manchester is building up a
61
8S
political and sociological selection.
The other library is in the
University of Oxford.
I have already mentioned the Latin American
collection in Oxford but this is devoted to the Commonwealth and
is one of the strongest of the Spanish West Indian collections.
I have mentionee Latin American collections first because these
are developing rapidly; but the major historical collections are
the general ones such as the British Museum.
The Department of
Manuscripts and the Department of State Papers have the biggest
collection on the Caribbean.
It is difficult to say exactly how
much.
There is also the World Commonwealth Society which has quite
a large collection, and there is the West Indian Committee Library
which was established in the 18th century by a group of merchants
of West Indian dement and which has built up a strong library on
slavery and emancipation. A subject catalogue of this was published
in 1941 which included quite a lot of rare pamphlets which are not
British but are in the library,c\At the Library of the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies, we are trying to build up a collection of
current material particularly on politics, recent history, and
social sciences and, as I mentioned this morning, to collect
particularly locally published material which is quite difficult to
obtain.
I did make two acquisitions trips to the West Indies and
we have quite a good collection of the documents of the trade
unions and that type of information which vanishes so rapidly if
you don't collect it on the spot.
There are, of course, department libraries.
The Commonwealth
Relations Office and the Colonial Office are the two libraries that
have materials on the Caribbean but these have now changed their
62
69
names and are rather unfamiliar.
The diplomatic service has been
unified and there is now a Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and
the old Colonial Offices the Department Services; but these are
basically the two libraries which are particularly strong on
government reports.
Before the West Indian countries became in-
dependent their publications automatically went to these
government departments and I think they had more complete
collections at that time.
The same is true of the Archives; the Public Record Office, as
it is known, has a lot of unique materials and documents which have
been lost in the West Indies.
Of course, there is a lot remaining
as shown in recent guides to the West Indies.
Most of this material
in the West Indies is duplicated in the Public Record Office.
There
is not at the mment a published guide equivalent to the GUIDE Dr.
Paula mentioned.
The British volume of the RESOURCES FOR LATIN AMERICAN'HISTORY
is still in manuscript.
The editor told mt just before I left that
the text is about three-quarters finished and he hopes it will be
published by the Oxford University Press.
I think what is interest-
ing about this volume is that it covers the West Indies in as much
detail as Latin America proper.
I understand that the American
volume will only cover Hispanic materials, and the French guide till
include Martinique and Guadeloupe but not the British islands.
The
British GUIDE in fact is very strong on the West Indian material
and, as so many of the countries have changed hands so many times,
it includes materials on the metropolitan country as well.
I
just looked through it briefly and there is a section of the
Public Record Office about the Library of Oxford, the Library
63
70
in Cambridge, the University Libraries in Liverpool, and the City
Record Office in Bristol, which is being covered with slavery
collections.
Scotland is covered, business records are being
covered when published.
There was no difficulty of placing this
material.
Until it is published there are still a number of
Guides to the collection notabil in the Caribbean Archives Con-
ference Report (1965) in two volumes, which has listed the
depositories and extent of the records of the Public Record
Office.
So this gives you briefly some idea of the material in Great
Britain, and I think it is gradually being made known.
It is
important to know what exists so that libraries in the area can
obtain microfilms of the documents and I hope possibly there will
be some other suggestions of what should be done.
DR, DIX:
Thank you very much, Mrs. Bloomfield.
Are there additions or questions on the British background? Let's
turn to Mr. Birkelund.
MR. BIRKAUND:
Yes, I have concentrated my report
on the islands that are now called United States Virgin Islands.
The reason, of course, is that these islands for more than two
hundred years belonged to Denmark and therefore we have a lot of
materials; the whole historical background is to be found in the
Danish collections and is fortunately concentrated in the Danish
(Royal) National Archives and the Royal Library and Museums.
I
will not go into details about the national archives, I will
just say that they are the central libraries and central archives
in De-..nark.
You will find deposited and registeredird.the Royal
64
71
Library al,ost 13 million records regarding St. Thomas, St. Croix,
and St. John.
And of course a lot of this material has been used
by Danish scholars.
There is still a lot of material that should
be investigated and listed.
I would especially like to bring to
your attention the newly established branch of the national ar-
chives which is the special archives for business firms or
companies.
These archiveil are now collected and in this special
collection can be found a lot of materials about Danish firms
which had been operating in the islands.
Regarding libraries, there are central libraries of excep-
tional collections for printed material and for what is to be
called manuscripts, letters and so on.
There are libraries, rare
old ones started in the rttb century just at the time when we
colonized the island hele in 1665, and since 1697 we have had
the depository law, which means we have the complete collection
o, all Danish imprints for the last three centuries, books, pamph-
lets, periodicals, and newspapers that have been mentioned.
And
that means printed materials are kept as complete as possible,
including also materials regarding the Virgin Islands.
Of course,
this would also be found in the printed National Danish Historical
Bibliography which covers the whole period and which also lists
articles in periodicals, etc.
It was more difficult to get access
to the manuscripts.
They are catalogued, of course, but not from
the West Indian point of view.
This means that one has to investi-
gate all the private archives which are kept in this collection.
Numerous family archives include letters which were written about West
Indian affairs from the islands to Denmark.
Collections of photo-
65
72
graphs and maps are also found, with very fine materials regarding
the Virgin Islands.
Some of the Danish National Museum picture
collection was exhibited two years ago in St. Thomas.
These will
remain in the islands as a permanent exhibition of all pictures
from the Danish West Indian Islands.
I am sorry to say that
materials found in general collections with any relation to the
Danish West Indies have not been cross-referenced, but this should
be done in the future.
I know in many ways Denmark is concerned about West Indian
affairs and also there is increasing interest here on the island;
so I hope we will meet in mutual interest and determine some joint
or cooperative projects which could place all those valuable re-
sources within easy access for research to the people in the Virgin
Islands.
This is a very brief report, but we hope it will give you
a small picture of what we have collected.
I am sure all Danes
will be very glad to support any proposal to make this material
known and used.
Thank you.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much, Mr. Birkelund.
I
assume there is no one that has anything to add, but does anyone
have any particular observation on this area?
I suspect there is a
serious language problem here.
MR. BIRKELUND:
That is right.
MR. PAULA:
I would like to inquire whether you have
any documents concerning Netherlands Antilles?
MR. BIRKELUND:
I don't think so, I have not investi-
gated this, but Danish interest was on the three islands here.
We
have what we call a normal collection of the Caribbean area and
66
73
Latin America but I don't think our holdings there are quin normal.
MRS. SHEPARD:
This reminds me of the fact that the
meeting on the International Conference on Archives, which was held
last September in Madrid, took a resolution to the effect that the
countries possessing archives of their former colonies should make
an effort to provide their former colonies with microfilm copies of
those archives.
Inasmuch as I have been asked to try to jot down
resolutions, I should be grateful if Mr. Birkelund would draft the
text of the resolution which we might accept at the end of this
conference concerning the provision of microfilm copies of archives
material relating to former colonies.
MRS. PORTER:
In our Howard University Libraries we
have tried to maintain a checklist of scholars doing research.
Very
often they go around the country bringing back in their suitcases
various papers and documents from various countries, and we have
been very successful in pulling out of their handbags and from their
closets notes that were used or unused.
These have gone on micro-
films on deposit there, indexed on some of these working papers.
I
was told that there were 699 documents on the Caribbean area
accumulated by one writer and I wonder what has happened to that
material, what did he do with it.
Did he deposit it in the univer-
sities where he did his major work or did he throw the papers away?
Just by making an effort to secure the working material of scholars
we have come across a lot of information and materials they were
never able to put in books, and sometimes we have used them.
DR. DIX:
I might add that I found this an important
point.
We have made some effort in our library to get these papers
74
67.
of scholars, but we have found them of very little use because they
are not written for Vise by someone else.
The notes are all gobbled
up, someone may find something but, unless he is a particularly
orderly scholar--and most scholars are not very orderly, I wonder
about the value of this even as I wonder about the value of some
manuscripts of published work unless they are the work of literary
significance or a real technical analysis.
Let's move to France.
We have no one here from France, but I
wonder if Mr. Herviea' has anything to say about the resources on
this area in metropolitan France.
MR. HERVIEU:
(Through interpreter)
There exist in
France a large number of documents in the archives about the
Caribbean, dine the French at one time owned Santo Domingo which
was principally a French colony.
One should not forget the islands
which are French today and also the islands which at one time were
French:
St. Croix, St. Kitts, Dominica, St. Lucia, and even
Trinidad and Tobago.
In the National Archives in Paris some
principal papers or documents concerning Santo Domingo are well
catalogued and right now there is an attempt to prepare an inventory
about Martinique.
The first volume was published last year.
There
are also some interesting documents at the former Ministry for the
Colonies which is now a section of the National Archives.
One
should also include therarchives of the French Army and Navy, as
well as the Diplomatic Archives of the Museum of National History.
As for the Bibliotheque Nationale, its holdings are well catalogued,
and notable among them is a good collection of maps.
We must also
mention the legal depository.
Each and every publication coming out
68
75
of the French Antilles must send fix.: copies to Paris, and two are
kept in the country.
All publications are catalogued in the review
periodical which is called LA BIBLIOGRAFIE DE LA FRANCE.
A$ for
private collections, nany of which are about the island of Santo
Domingo, they are little by little being catalogued by Professor
Gabriel Debien, who is presently professor at the University of
Nantes, and who every two years publishes a chronicle biblio-
graphy ia the French review of overseas departments.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much.
Any comments?
All
right, so much for france.
MR. GOCKING:
I would like to see what comes out
when we get into Spain.
We have had Great Britain, Denmark, the
Netherlands and France.
How much of West Indian records are best
preserved in the capitol of those countries, and how great will
be the need in the near future for these small independent terri-
tories to find some means, or to get the cooperation of these
metropolitan countries, to publish Guides, first of all, to their
archives relating to these territories and also to go further in
practice, to coorerate to provide at least microfilms of those
portions of the archives that these developing countries migat
call on them to provide.
You remember yourself, Sir, that the
Americans had to spend a great fortune in going to Britain and the
rest of Europe, to discover what part of their records was there
and to make it available to yourself and your own scholars.
You
are a rich nation.
We are very small and poor, and I wish the
conference would come to some sort of resolution in due course
that takes account of this situation and make some sort of
69
76
recommendation in good charity and good will.
DR. DIX:
Very well put.
I think we must certainly
address ourselves to that.
MRS. SVEPARD:
I'll suggest perhaps Mr. Gocking and
Mr. Birkelund can collaborate and work out a resolution relative
to acquiring the records relating to the Caribbean area from the
former metropolitan countries.
MR. PAULA:
I think of course we don't have Italy
on our list as a colonizing power in the Caribbean, but very im-
portant also is the Archives of the Propaganda FIDEI.
I have been
privileged to spend about eight years in Rome and I know that the
Library of the Propaganda FIDEI contains a lot of information
about this area.
I am not able right now to give you details but
we should not forget that this is a rich source about these areas,
fron missionaries" reports to their bishops, and bishops'reports
to their sees, so we might he very surprised at how many documents
exist in this particular library about not only the Caribbean area
but about all countries of the world.
DR. DIX:
What library was that?
AR. PAULA:
Propaganda FIDEI, or Propagation of the
Faith Library, in Rome.
MISS BAA:
Did you find documents in the Vatican?
MR. PAULA:
Oh, yes.
Not only in this particular
library, but in many libraries of Orders and Congregations working
in this area.
DR. DIX:
Well, about Spain.
Mr. McDonald tried to
get someone from Spain and was unable.
Is anyone prepared to say
70
anything at all about the Spanish resources?
I know the Archives
of the Indies is full of important materials on the former Spanish
colonies.
MRS. SHEPARD:
As far as Spain is concerned, in the
library field itself, I would say a few principal sources are pro-
bably the National Library, the Institute of Hispanic Culture in
Madrid, and the Institute of Spanish American Studies in Seville.
As for archives, there are a number of archives in Spain which have
material concerning the Caribbean as well as of the rest of Latin
America.
These are scattered throughout, I think, five archives,
including the one in Madrid which is the very best organized.
There
are also archives in the Ministry of the Mines, for instance, that
are extremely important because it is not only historical informa-
tion which is important but scientific information recorded by many
Spanish
nests
scientific information which since that time no
one has had any time to bring out or to use, such as measurements
as well as mineral resources and the like.<The most famous of course
is the Spanish Archives of the Indies in Seville and, within the last
year, diplomats from the government of Spain and the Organization
of American States have signed an agreement whereby the Organization
of American States is to collaborate with Spain in completing the
cataloguing of the Archives of the Indies and publishing that cata-
logue.
This agreement was not signed by technicians so it was
necessary to find out what was involved in this collaboration.
I'll
make my story short, in any case I discovered on my way to Madrid
in September to attend the International Conference on Council of
Archives that no cataloging had been done since the 18th century.
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78
However, because of the possibility of this collaboration on the
part of the Organization of American States, electricity is being
installed in the Archives of the Indies, including air condition-
ing and heating.
New stacks are being installed in what was once
a research room in the basement which was the only space in which
the archives could be used in the summer, where the temperature
gets up to about 108 degrees for a couple of months.
This research
room has been conversed into a depository and the rows of documents
which are filed behind will be placed into the new depository, as
well as six thousand Legajos which turned up in the last 20 years
and are completely unidentified.
Despite the fact that this is
perhaps the richest treasure of documents that there is, it is very
frequently said that only certain sectiLas are the ones most used.
The reason, apparently, is that these are the only ones that have
been registered and about which any type of inventory has been
made.
Thls com,rises about 60 or 70 thousand Legajos, which is a
big collection of documents, but the greater portion of that has
not been inventoried.
Fortunately, in the last few months the National Archives in
Washington has carried on an experiment utilizing computers in the
indexing of archives.
By utilizing these technologies of the com-
puter with microfilming (Interfacing) archives may be more effi-
ciently registered and indexed.
One new archivist, Samuel Potter,
who didn't get here to this meeting, is extremely interested in
the AppIitstiofi IbrA..the new technologies and the electricity in-
stalled in the Archives of the Indies at Seville has been under
his supervision; it will permit the use of this electronic equipment
72
79
........-.11111
Alli=1
as_mell as air conditioning in addition to juut merely lighting.
The Organization of Ameiican States has also officially con-
sidered this in the hope that member states would somehow or other
cooperate to pool funds for carrying on this program; but when the
situation was reviewed it was found that a minimum of reliable
information on the subject was available and Moreover it was impos-
sible to determine what the cost would be and how long it would
take to complete the cataloguing.
I felt I was called upon to do
a considerable amount of investigation, and compared a number of
memoranda concerning g-micrefilking needs.
The Spanish government
has been very reludtaot to allow microfilming to be carried out on
its archives and yet historians and archivists feel that it is
useless to do anything; less than a complete series.
Much work has been done, and large sums of money expended from
the United States, by persons and institutions who are trying to
find out what documents JO the Archives of the Indies relate to the
United States.
Moat'of the"Wark has been done by individuals who
have thcir own Ideas about what documents are important, but this
is a variable factorYbaseton the necessity of each individual
project.
So we had been hoping that there would be freer access for
microfilming the Archives of the Indies.
Earlier this Morning, I referred to the need for the liberation
of the archives,including microfilming of whole series of documents,
i
not merely selected ones.
By January of this year we reali ed that
t
we seeded to bring together experti from the National Archi es in
Washington and.the Library of Congress with diplomatic expert from
the Organization:of American States and the government of Spai
in
73
80
order that we may have an understanding of what is involved.
We
had a half-day meeting - -I believe it was in Washington--and shortly
thereafter a Report was prepared of.the findings of this meeting.
On the basis of that Report, a Technical Committee was to be formed
which would meet in Seville with Spanish archivists.
This Techni-
cal Committee would probably consist of 10 persons from the Western
Hemisphere, Latin America, United States and perhaps Canada, two
European archivists who would be named by the International Council
on Archives which has a Special Advisory Committee to developing
countries on what to do about archives, and an equal number of
archivists from Spain.
Many others from Spain feel the necessity of
a meeting, the purpose of which should be to review the present
situation of the archives and, with the advice of experts, determine
what needs to be done.
One thing seems to be most feasible --our next step should be a
pilot study, to take perhaps three years, which will explore more in
depth what is involved and how the archives should be microfilmed
first, and how indexed, especially by use of computer and with the
possibility of a'computer print-out to serve as printed catalogue.
This would make it possible to issue up-to-date printed catalogues
if this is desirable and at least give access. to the information not
only in files, but also stored on computer tapes, as well as micro-
!
filmed copies for distribution with a master negative stored for
security Purposes.
As soon as the report
as completed it was submitted to the
National ETadowment for the Uumanities, requesting a grant of $10,000
to make Possible this meeting in Seville..
It seems quite likely
that,once the meeting in Seville is held, the Council
74
81
on Library Resources would be able to provide the money for the
feasibility study of a pilot project at the end of wh:::.ch we will
know a little more about what is involved in bringing this tremen-
dous treasure of historical material on the Western hemisphere into
completee,usable form.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much.
A very discouraging
picture, but I guess it ell takes time.
Now, that winds up, I
think, our discussion of the European resources.
It has been our
intention to adjourn these meetings at 4:30.
I think we had better
hold to that and defer until tomorrow some discussion of the main-
land United States depositories.
This will take a long time but we
will try to do that tomorrow.
I suggest then that we recess until
tomorrow at nine o'clock pronptly in this room.
Thank you.
(The meeting was adjourned to reconvene the
following morning.)
TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1869,'W.A.n.'
DR. DIX:
Today it is our intention to turn to some
summary of the needs.
We almost finished our summary of the re-
sources that exist.
We have not covered the resources in the United
States and./ would like to start with that this morning very briefly
because we should have finished that yesterday.
Mrs. Shepard, why
don't you say something about Caribbean resources in the United
States.
MRS. SHEPARD:
Well, Irene Zimmerman knows far more
about, this than I do, inasmuoh as the University of Florida at
75
82
Gainesville has distinguished itself especially with the
Caribbean and is the institution in the United States that has been
responsible within the Farmington Plan for materials in the
Caribbean.
She will probably also talk about collections at the
University of Miami at Coral Gables, which in recent years has be-
come concerned with Latin American and Caribbean materials.
I
understand recently that the College of the State of New York has
created an Institute of Puerto Rican Affairs.
As far as I know,
no other institution of higher learning in the United States has
concerned itself especially with this, but I'll assume it wouldn't
be too long before there will be others.
Of course as far as
documentary materials of the Caribbean Area are concerned, the
National Archives in Washington has bean especially interested in
acquiring all of the records and the history of the United States.
They have not only acquired the records of the government itself
but have also made copies of records from the Archives of the
Indies and from elsewhere.
The Library of Congress, too, has a rather large manuscript
collection and archival collection of records concerning the his-
tory of the United States and, as far as the French territories in
the Caribbean are concerned, I am sure they must have received a
rather large amount of records or references because they have em-
ployed an American living in Paris to be responsible for acquiring
W.zrofilm copies of records regarding the history of the United
States, from Europe,
I would think that in Tulane University,
which concerns itself with Central America, there must be also
material concerning the Caribbean area as such.
76
83
As far as the Pan American Union is concerned there was a
time when it neglected the Caribbean area and when I arrived on
the scene they were not collecting anything regarding Puerto Rico.
I changed that immediately.
There are a number of institutions in the United States that
have concerned themselves especially with Mexico, of course, and if
you can consider that part of the Caribbean, there are tremendous
collections at the University of Texas and the University of
California at Berkeley.
I think there are more than 150 different
areas study programs in the United States now, that are collecting
materials from Latin America and the Caribbean.
We in the OAS were
talking about the Caribbean, we are thinking of the countries which
are members of the Organization of American States, but through our
activities with sany we have to concern ourselves with all of the
Caribbean countries, not just: those which are members of the Organi-
zation of American States.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much.
Mr. Alden.
MR. ALDEN:
I think I should speak not only for Boston
but for some of the institutions in New England.
Boston which has
Caribbean materials seems to be less known than it should be.
Let's
face it, there is a tremendous amount of historical material in the
libraries of Providence, Boston and Cambridge.
That is well, I
suppose, because the connection between New England and the
Caribbean began in the 17th century and Continjled well into the
19th.
primary place among New England collections of
Caribbean materials is unquestionably the John Carter Brown Library
in Providence.
One thinks of it as Americana; John Carter Brown's
77
84
concept of Americana is indeed linked with the Caribbean.
I suspect
the best collection of historical materials is at the John Carter
Brown Library.
Tremendous collections are preserved and they will
become richer because through the library they are committed for a
long time to collecting materials only through the year 1800, but
it is now collecting materials especially for the Caribbean until
independence.
This is the John Carter Brown Library, rather great
in scope.
They also seem to have money.
No library ever has enough
money, but John Carter Brown seems to find enough money to carry out
this aspect of their responsibilities.
In Boston the Massachusetts Historical Society is not itself
exclusively devoted to Massachusetts. It has Caribbean manuscripts,
materials which will become known.
A survey of Caribbean manu-
scripts is being prepared by Mr. Ingram of the University of West
Indies at the moment. [He is presently in residence at the Univer-
sity in England.].
The nucleus of. the Caribbean collection at Boston Public
Library was formed by a New Englander named Benjamin Hunt who in
1840 went down to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as a merchant and also be-
came the United States Counsel at Port-au Prince.
He was there in
1840 and I am ashamed to say I am not certain when he left Haiti to
return to the states and to settle in Philadelphia.
He was first
of all a merchant and Counsel.
He was also interested in the
emancipation and collected materials relating to Haiti and after
his retirement he dealt specifically in collecting other materials
of the Caribbean in general.
He brought together a good collection
of materials relating to the Caribbean in general with particular
reference to Haiti, up to the time of Santa Anna.
78
85
How old the collection is I am not prepared to say, I just
think it is very good.
Mr. Combs was kind enough to quote Mr.
Fisher as saying our collection of printed materials is the best
in existence.
I'll take a somewhat more modest stand.
Mr, Fisher
once met my predecessor and I suspect Mr. Fisher is simply ouoting
him, for he had a way of saying his collection was the best in the
world.
This isn't always true, as much as I'd like to believe the
Boston Public Library collection of Asian printed material is the
best; well, I can't quite see any absolute, so I take an objective
stand in this case.
Supplementing Mr. Hunt's collection of materials from the great
Americana collection, and the books relating to the Caribbean parti-
cularly on emancipation are derived mainly from the collections of
two eminent lealers of abolition in New England, William Lloyd Gar-
rison and Wende 1 Phillips.
Garrison and Phillips found in
emancipation in the West Indies stiulus, challenge and accomplish-
ment to keep up their struggles when things were going rather badly.
Emancipation in 1834 was regularly commemorated in Boston until
quite recently.
Having materials, getting materials, is not enough; it is
necessary to let people know that it is there.
This is particularly
difficult in a public library.
The Boston Public Library is a great
research institution, and one of its fields is the Caribbean and the
abolitionist movement.
We are trying to catalove materials as expeditiously and as
quickly as possible.
When I find something remarkable, I send re-
leases off to the Institute of Jamaica so that they can serve as a
clearinghouse for certain tyres of materials.
This, I think, may
79
86
give you some notion that the Boston Public Library cares and is con-
cerned with the Caribbean.
I hope you forgive us for possessing
things in Boston, particularly if we do our best to make it known
to you.
We welcome you with open arms.
')R. DIX:
Thank you, Mr. Alden.
Mr. Alden mentioned
.
the collection of the John Carter Brown Library, and I put on the
exhibit table their booklet entitled OPPORTUNITY FOR RESEARCH,
copies of which you can procure it you wish from John Alden.
I
should mention at this time that we did get a small exhibit table.
Dr. Zimmerman, will you tell us something about what is going
on in Gainesville and perhaps Miami?
DR. ZITIERAU::
I'll begin with current bibliography
on the area.
DR. DIX:
Let me interrupt.
We are still on yester-
day's discussion of resources.
We should be right where you were
starting, but we will come to that; simply give us a thumbnail
sketch of the availability pf resources in this area.
OR. 211MERMAN:
Yes.
Our Caribbean resources don't
begin to 'latch those of John Carter Brown Library or Boston Public
Library.
We started with the Caribbean or West Indian collection
in 1951 and collected under the Farmington Plan, with emphasis on
securing current materials, so we have them.
We have been willing to
build our collection on that basis and we have acquired works suit-
able for scholarly research and broad general subjects insofar as
possible from all Caribbean countries.
The Farmington Plan is simply
a means of acqering materials of local imprint from the areas.
We
buy materials from the Cartbbean, about the Caribbean, and by people
of the Caribbean.
Our collection serves the undergraduate as well
80
87
as graduate courses.
Other libraries in the area, such as the University of Miami,
are well known.
We have had a very good collection of current news
materials and of course we buy retrospective materials as we can,
and work toward the present.
We have been relaxing our effort to
secure Cuban materials somewhat.
For those of you who did not know
the sad fact, Dr. Fermin Peraza, wellknown Cuban bibliographer, died
on January 31st of this year; but his bibliographical work is being
continued
DR. DIX:
Just a summary on resources.
Now, it appears to me we
have repr!sentel here all of the strong collections.
I assume that
in she Lihrary of Cotw
the Hispanic Foundation has a strong
collection on the Caribbean as well as on the rest of Latin America,
but I think we lid welt to cmphasize these particular libraries.
Now, Mrs. 'orter has collected a good deal of material on the
Negro and has been, I gather, broadening her interest as increasing
demands in almost all of the United States have come for this kind of
material.
It is a real renaissance of interest, perhaps long over-
due.
All of un are beginning to look around for materials on black
culture.
I think Mrs. Porter will tell us something about her
collections at Howard University, and anything more she wants to say
on this particular subject.
'IRS. PORTER:
Well, 7 think most of you know that
Howtrd University was established in 1867 to aid and educate the
newly emancipated slave.
The original intention was interracial
education, and the first graduates were four white students.
It
always has been open to both races and we have a yery large inter-
racial faculty.
Whether or not we are able to stay interracial and
88
International, which we are, I do not now know.
However, with the
emphasis hello on the Negro it was natural for us to develop a Negro
collection.
Today I must put "Negro' in quotes.
I cannot use the
term as a rule in Washington, I'll be corrected to say "black".
But back in 1914 a member of the Board of Trustees decided that
Howard University should have a collection on the Negro, and he gave
his private collection of some three thousand items to the Univer-
sity as a start.
This was the first, and it was a basic collection.
But prior to that time, when Samuel 4abis was collecting abolition-
ist material for Cornell and Lewis Phillips was collecting for Boston
Universit, Lewis Tapnan, also a well known abolitionist, was deciding
what to do with his collection.
I read some letters in the Public
Library a few years ago stating that those two men were trying to
persuade Lewis Tappan to give his collection to Cornell, but Tappan
decided instead to give it to Howard University.
With the Tappan
Collection, although tt had been collected in 1873, many years prior
to 1914, Ne did receive a lnrge number of pamphlets, documents, and
manuscripts connected with the slave trade and with the West Indies.
To begin with, in my time at the University I was told that
nothing had ever been done with any of these materials.
The curri-
culvm included American Negro and Africa but for many years no
courses were given on Africa.
I felt that African background was
important and when I began to acquire material on Africa I found that
some thinns relate to the Caribbean.
This follows the course of the
history a slavery in the New World, for which the Caribbean was the
craele.
The first African studies necessitated that I should turn
my intention to the African materials, but now this whole mushroom
growth of black studies has enveloped us.
Our Negro Collection has
89
enveloped us.
Our Negro Collection has been very well described in
articles and in bibliographies which we have issued.
The collection
grew to 3,000 items, this seems a very small collection in terms of
today.
I have catalogued and indexed over 5,000 items; possibly
2,000 or 2,500 are still uncataloguecl by and about the Negro, but
also including the Caribbean.
We have not had a policy of plenty
of money to buy and acquire.
We have not sent people off on buying
projects.
I had to depend largely on gifts and the manuscript
material, of which we have about 50,000 indexed items, has been ac-
quired for the Tost part as lifts.
When Dr. Eric Williams was on the faculty, he
as interested in
Latin America, and with Dr. Mercer Cooke who was interested in Haiti,
I began systematically to le)* toward the Caribbean area.
Dr.
Williams frequently borrowed African newspapers and African materials.
There were no established guide lines for acquisitions from the
Caribbean; but those experienced ren on our, faculty. including Dr.
Raynond Blackman who !las written books on Santo Domingo and Haiti,
urged me to collect Caribbean materials.
So today we have about
2,2(0 boo:s and pamphlets, yhich are catalogued, and which come from
nearly al, the islands of tle Caribhean.
A quick check of the
collection on Cie day before I cane here found 765 titles for Haiti,
250 for Jamaica, 140 for Trinidad and Tobago, and I noticed that a
few of the publications had begun to disintegrate.
However, today I
am trying to collect everything published on the Caribbean.
Now
that: I am getting acquainted with the Caribbean materials, I will
take time from the Afro-American scene to locate items of interest
for those who need them.
It may be recalled that ihe30 or perhaps
before, h th the American CclonizationSociety and the New York
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90
Colonization Society were considering Haiti, Honduras and Central
America better places to migrate to than repatriation in Africa.
There was a good bit of correspondence on this proposal between
Frenchmen in Haiti and those persons from New England, as to
whether or not the American Negro could. be sent to Haiti to work
out such plans.
I have just one letter of which I have put a copy
on the bulletin board.
We do have a number of letters which were
sent by American Negroes who went.te Haiti and, a few, to Jamaica,
besides letters from some missionaries or travellers who went to the
Caribbean for reasons of health.
Early tourists in the country
wrote bee-. to their friends concerning the country, and many of the
letters gave. a -lear description of what was going on during that
time.
I lave hastily gathered together a few pages of some items
in the collectiun and have exhibIted them on the bulletin hoard.
Mr. lervieu notes' that
exhibited a page from the REVIEW OF
COLPNIES.
A friend of his aAked him to try to find a set for hip:.
We have a complete file.
I don't think I even catalogued it, I
picked it up because it has such an interesting photograph on the
title pas( and because of a 19th century map in this book on Jamaican
history.
Perhaps I shoUld attempt to microfilm many of these items.
This is the kind of material which is scattered throughout this
American Negro collection.
The African materials have been kept
separate.
Those of yeti who use the Dewey Decimal System know how difficult
it is to classify these materials from different countries.
I have
made expansions to adjut to Negro materials and materials in other
countries.
We have listed must of our manuscripts and I did note
that a number of them have been written in the Caribbean.
I think we
need to supplement our list of master theses.
I believe that if we
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91
can obtain some help in working with our manuscripts, which I hope to
do in the summer, that we will be able to locate manuscripts from
many of the Caribbean areas.
At Howard the Caribbean materials have not been used extensive-
ly.
Of course the African materials have been, and I can see that
before long peole will be going into this relationship between
Africa and the Caribbean area.
Therefore I am going back to try as
quickly as possible to discover what I actually have of the
Caribbean area.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much.
Are there any ques-
tions of :Irs. Porter/
Obviously, she has a mine of materials that
have not been explored.
Dr. Zimmerman.
DR. ZIMMERMAN:
I think I should supplement my state-
ment right now, I omitted part of our collection as it pertains to
African studies.
This relationship between the West Indies and
Africa was brought up. and ye do have a fairly strong collection in
that respect.
I should mention, that we do have a fairly stronb manu-
script collectiln for a period of Haitian history, a special collec-
tion.
I think :t is ouite possible that our Haitian collection and
Dominican Republic collection, certainly for the more recent
material, may be among the strongest anywhere.
DR. DIX:
Thank you.
MRS. PORTER:
It is obvious that we need many biblio-
graphies so we can check our holding-3 against other collections to
know what we have and what we ought to have.
I don't know what
anyone thinks about union catalogues.
The union catalogue of the
Library of. Congress is helpful, actually, and might locate items of
Caribbean materials.
Whether this can be based in the United States
or in one of the Caribbean c)untries I don't know, but this is one
P5
92
of the things I'd like to see:
cooperative cataloguing of Carib-
bean materials.
Unless we have money for staff it would be very
difficult to acquire materials year after year and never see them
processed.
The university gives thousands of dollars for books, es-
pecially African and Afro-American fields, but they will not give
salaries for cataloguing or for processing.
nR. Din Thct sounds familiar.
I think we must cut
off discussion of the background at this point.
We have had a brief
and super'icial account of the resources that are available for the
study of this pirticular area of the world.
We will now turn our
attention to whlt we ire going to do about it: how we make these re-
sources irmilable, lic we add to them.
It is a good stopping point
and I think, if coffer: is ready, we will take not more than 15
minutes for the coffee break.
:AFTER COFFEE BREAK)
A31 right, let's get on with the discussion.
We are now at the
third session, 'Needs of Caribbean Libraries".
As I said, it seems
to me what we should get to how is what or how we make use of all
this.
Pow do x-e make contact between the man and the book, what do
we need to do to improve this contact?
We have three people who have
beer alerted to say something about bibliographic control.
I think
perlaps, ar. Zimmerman, we ought to start with you.
DR. ZIMMERMAN:
I think perhaps we ought to start
with Mr. Breen to talk about Caribbean bibliography, and then Mrs.
Cardona will talk about some events of the current bibliography.
DR. DIX:
This is all very informal.
Mr. Breen has, I
think, a raper prepared by Mrs. De La Torre of the Caribbean Economic
Development Corporation in Puerto Rico (CODECA), which he is ready
to read.
A6
93
MR. BREEN:
Let me mention one thing about th(.5
paper.
I had to. revise a bit here and there.
It is now our paper.
I think, first. of all, I'll restate what the Caribbean Regional
Library is.
You have heard mention of it yesterday as background,
its history, what it attempted to do and what it did.
It had
another name, The Caribbean Commission.
Today I can say it is a
collection of some 90,000 volumes covering the social uciences.
It
is a depository for United Nations publications and recipient of
government publications of the area.
There is a newspaper clipping
file which is indexed, again,, indexed. to the social sciences.
It
covers newspapers cf the area:.
There is a photoduplicating sec-
tion and copies are made available; and as far as access to the
library is concerned, there are no special qualifications for using
the material in the library.
However, I think there is some
difficulty about lending material for home use out of the library.
That has to do with the question of distances involved, etc.
Now,
with this duplicating equipment, I am sure we can get around this.
Secondly, the library is noted for its off-again-on-again
publication of the.CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY.
For those of
you-not too familiar with it, we will say that it is an index to
items published in or about the Caribbean, covering all subjects.
On that note, Id like to jump quickly into a prepared brief
here on the involvement of the government of Puerto Rico to the
Caribbean Regional Library.
The government of Puerto Rico,
trustee for the Caribbean library now called Caribbean Regional
Library, clearly recognizes the importance of the library to the
region.
In its proposal obtaining the trusteeship of the library,
94
87
4s.
it agrees with the question of Caribbean acquisitions and permits
itself to maintain the library as a separate unit, to maintain the
library for the benefit of the entire region, including the loan
of books by mail and turning out special requests for research.
It
was committed to developing and sustaining the collection along
the lines of spccial Alterest, and' to maintaining it as a source
of reference for student researchers studying conditions in the
Caribbean area.
Tt fitrther.proposee to be responsible for updating
the CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY; to continue publication and
circulation and to utilize rodern methods and
techniques for
information gathering and dissemination in this area; to seek the
assistance of all possible soUrces to decrease the value
deficiency of the service of the library; and, lastly, to issue
clearinghouse information as a library service to all areas
of
government.
These points that are mentioned I'll come back to later, but
I want to make clear that there is an agreement by the government
of Puerto Rico to maintain this library.
We have heard yesterday'
also of the work that has been going on since 1961 in taking some
specific steps to increase communication in the area--to overcome
the problems or duplication and the lack of trained personnel to
carry out library functions.
One or the plans proposed is the
establishment of a bibliographic center in the area, to serve the
area.
Since 1961 there have been a number of attempts to get the
project started and, always because of the lack of
funds, we have
this continuity of effort, then after two or
three years a. burst
of energy.
At this point now, I'd like to bring up the effort of.
Ma,
the Caribbean library to further the bibliographic center concept.
95
The library is an integral part of the Caribbean Economic
Development Cornorattnn in Puerto Rico, which is the successor body
to the Caribbean Organization and custodian of the library.
The
Caribbean Economic Development Corporation considered it desirable
to have this bibliographic center at the library, and began with
contracting a System DevPlopment Corporation to do a study on the
library, on the feasibility of converging the working center, and
to give some sort of scheduled plans plus funding for this operation.
This basic preliminary design for the establishment of the center
was prenared at the time taking into consideration just the known
resnonsibaity of the library.
There wasn't enough time or funds
available to go to each community and find out its problems, its
needs, it; desires.
So CODECA went ahead and contracted for the
study.
At the completion of the study a conference was called in
whia we invited representatives of the eximmunity of the Caribbean
to .examiv2 the nlan, '7xiticlze it.
!ear it apart, and see if we could
come un
ith a hasic design with ,ohlch everyone could agree.
The
con'erence end. d with an ent:orsemlnt for the project and support
for
its continuation.
Now, when. I se.
support, please believe me, there
wasn't a net p ,ssed around.
Everyone, I imagine, was waiting to see
hos, far ie. could get with tae projett, which is understandable.
The
protect itself, as we saw it, was designed to initiate bibliographi-
cal staneards and control through a network linking all libraries in
the Caribbean area.
This integrate(' the regional network and would
allow for current and comppthenslye items of
the area.
We envis-
.
.,,
toned a ooperAtive effort '7hich would influence the produttion and,
diFtribution of local
publications, introduce modern techniques for
x
89
96
our operntions, lnd ensure the availability of scholars, researchers,
and private individunls of interest to the area.
We envisioned a
throe-foc ,! operation covering approl:imately 24 months.
Phase One of
the pro jnet would he directed toynr1 detailed analysis of library
system ane hoottrained structure of each Caribbean community, re-
sul'eing in studies specific to ncnuisition techniques, library
development and hiblioraphi,. standards.
Phase Two was to be con-
cerned with fintlizin mew requirl.ments, standardizing data formats.
finnl des'gni' of the center nnd
if we got through that phase, then
Phase Titr e, wb:ch will be implementation of design and would also
cover pro:rarm:ing necessary sche :ties of new productions that minitt
come abou, but the main point wi
l
he continued evaluation of the
system as it t
an operating.
The .stabllshment of the egional Bibliographical Center wa;
exp(eted
A) ref.ult in standard bibliographic rrocessing, strengthen-
ing of ovtrall ',iblic.;raphic service.
We also planned from this
exp.Tiene! to c)llect cost !taff.l.
information, operation Pro-
cedures. aew tc :bnlnues, etc., to be made available to institutions
or orgnni7ations which are trying to establish similar centers in
different area. -.
e Fully ,xnect tr have written reports in differ-
ent phase; which we 1.111 di:Itribu.e freely to anyone interested.
..
That is what we plannc,l, and now the facts.
The conference was
in :he sTring cf. 1W, I believe.
rAnce then--two years ago--what
we lave 0)ne is to update the library function with the Caribbean
Regional Ubrary so as to produce tLe CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOCIAPHY
on :ipte.
This we do as the most imnortant Dart of our project to
build up experience and sho capabilities, which will prove that the
library can function.
This capability that was introduced into
97
11)
libraries has some characterizations that I'd like to explain to you.
We began to design a standardized worksheet able to contain all ele-
ments of bibliovraphic information now used by the Caribbean Regional
Library.
The worksheet, however, had to be capable of handling
additional elements without major revision.
We were planning this
for introduction into other communities with slightly different re-
quirements for bibliographic identification.
Also, we established
procedures and methods covering all aspects of libraries.
This we
did following the worksheet from the manual reporting of information
to conversion to machine.
We prepared specifications for computer
programming in order to prepare ourselves for actual use of the
computer and, lastly, we finished the program system.
We were aim-
ing toward putting the term "current" in the phrase "current and
comprehensive bibliography".
In order to become comprehensive we
had to have the interaction of the area, but we felt at least we had
taken the first step.
The benefits which we expected from this
capability are, first of all
bibliographic information and the
machinery to perform available computer information.
One point I
should like to make:
we accepted the MARC II format of the Library
of CongresS.
Why MARC II?
well, we consider first tie Caribbean
Regional Library's needs.
We also recognize the fact that the
Library of Congress is one a the largest distributors of cata-
loguing information and, thirdly, the format they have devised
allows for, as far as I can see, just about any descriptive biblio-
graphic information that can be available.
Another benefit from this installed capability is that we
hope to'produce a monthly supplement in the corporate biblio-
graphy reflecting all information required by the library, or re-
ported to the library by other communities.
We expect that the
qi
98
current bibliography can be assembled on a strict annual basis.
The worksheet concept that we have devised was strictly a
general aid.
The introduction of the automated technician staff
has resulted in experience, a factor which is going to prove
valuable to any subsequent work we do there.
One of the librarians
attended the conference in Mayaguez which I.B.M. gave about two weeks
ago; she uas very impressed with the introduction of the program
itself, but explained that she was quite confident that, because of
her experience in the Regional Library, she was not completely lost.
Our plan for internal capability did not call for a computer to
be housed in the library itself.
Through an agreement with the
Universit" of Puerto Rico, we took advantage of their computer com-
plex.
Ve have had much success with acquiring computer time; the
only disatvantale to such a working agreement, where no strict
schedule is kept and no funds are transferred, is that we expected
them to do our keypunching of the material and this proved to be a
handicap.
They themselves une it a period of transition and had
their on problem with keypunching , and as a result we were both in
trouble.
So, al it stands today, COI:MCA has contracted for keypunch
expert service to keep to strict schedules for publication of the
monthly supplements.
We are hoping to stick to strict schedules now, because of our
contracts for keypunching material.
So far the worksheet concept
has taken hold in the library.
The problem that we have is sche-
duling computers to fit in with the working staff.
The comouter
naturally has to be run at night then we are not interfering with
the regular university work.
However, this is just a minor thing.
We feel confident at this point that the library is at the stage
92
99
where it can take the next step, Phase One of the project.
The director has mentioned a few items here about the work of
the past two years, stating that libraries with major Caribbean
holdings are reporting their acquisitions.
The information trans-
forms the CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOCRAPHY into a partial union list.
The record format that we are using utilizes fields that will take
location codes.
We are starting small in this particular area.
We
want to be able to direct questions to the nearest location for
material.
We can see that, if we were able to code location on every
item, we will soon be able th give every community a union list which
will be as good as what they contributesto the project.
The institutions that have participated in the project up to
this moment--when I say project I am thinking in the terms of the
last two vearsvary from year to year with the contributions that
are sent it.
I should make one other point:
these represent
libraries and not governments of the communities, which normally
send their reports to the Library.
We have the University of the
West Indies, the Institute of Jamaica, U.S. Virgin Islands Division
of Libraries and Museums, Dominican Republic, University of Puerto
Rico, University of Florida at Gainesville, Library of Congress,
and Martinique.
This is a partial list, but it represents the
contributors over the last few years.
We also want to say that the photocopying and microfilming ser-
vice that we have now lends support to this bibliographic center
concept: the possibility of copying the hard-to-get item itself
withhut even giving lip service to the legality.
This is readily
done at the Caribbean Regional Library.
I have mentioned the University of Puerto Rico with its contri-
91
100
bution of computer facilities; we have also had a constant working
relationship with the Virgin Islands.
We have had three librarians
from the Virgin Islands come to the Caribbean Regional Library to
get acquainted with our method of cataloguing, with worksheet con-
cept and, well, just to get general familiarity with the Library so
that this was not a strange effort any longer.
Hopefully, this ex-
perience will be the basis for further cooperation; the exact de-
tails I hope we will get to later.
I am also prepared to say that tie have mailed January, 1969
supplements to almost everyone, February supplements are at the
printer, end March worksheets are now accumulated to some 250 items
and we exrect to cut off any day now, because it is getting buikr;,
and will ret the supplements out as quickly as possible.
I shvald like to stop now with this description of the work.
I
third: we have briefly covered exactly what we are doing at this
point.
However
I would lik ! to change my talk from that of a
normal technicicn and librarian to a plea for assistance.
In my
kind of wrk we see quite a few projects of this type wither and die
on tae vine, am' one doesn't like to talk about these efforts after
a while.
We began this propct hack in 1966, and it is 1969 now,
and fe halve yet to start Phase One.
My plea begins with a question
to the conference:
Would it be in order to draft some sort of a
than you to the Governor of Puerto Rico for his support in the past
and for the continued support in' the future?
I think this will help.
In line with this we have just learned that the Boireau of the Budget
of Puerto Rico has approved the concvt of the Bibliographic Center
within Caribbean Regional Library.
They have approved no funds vs
yet.
At least this is a step in the right directior, and
are
C1
101
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WrOr:4,1*401.01003%.#4***fibt~14049000.0410eaktirAgftliok440:44rtetbh
4.
happy to have this; but I think if we can get the attention of a
good working group like this to the Governor, it will give the
Government a little spark to continue with the project.
I think we
need it at this point.
I want to say that Miss Boa has been cooper-
ating with us continually.
We hope to sit down very shortly on
matters confin&. to some specific areas, but we hope that we can
continue to work on the project itself and benefit each other as well.
Yesterday someone mentioned that it was time to update a sur-
vey describing the library systems in the area.
I agree fully.
I
am interested in this project and have some information which will be
of help to the project itself.
I would like to suggest, or recommend,
that maybe some of us should sit down and decide if an extended
questionnaire is advisable.
Not only would this update where librar-
ies are and what holdings they have, but chaps like myself may be
able to get some knowledge of holdings, classifications being used,
staffing problems, backlog, suggestions, space, comments, etc.
This
will be extremely helpful to the project.
We envisioned at one time
spreading people out all over the area to gather information.
If we
can get.people. behind the questionnaire approach it will be helpful.
And, lastly, I again plead foi volunteers.
We have been doing
some preLminary talks on this subject, but we have in mind select-
ing one or the communities in the area to cooperate with the Carib-
bean Regional Library and in fact to act as a network model.
We
envision right now just a three-month test where we would control
acquisition, processing, or any other types of assistance, and then
evaluate the project to see how successful' we have been.
This,
believe, will give us some clue to overall plans regarding indivi-
dual needs.
No system can really be considered advisable and worth-
102
while until it is usable and at this moment we don't know all the
information.
I am using the community libraries themselves.
Be-
fore I break down in tears I want to stop.
I have begun to assoc-
iate with my customer to the point where this project is very dear
to me.
If anyone has any suggestions or comments I would like to
hear then night now.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much.
I see no reason for
tears, this is moving faster than a lot of things on the mainland.
Before we respond to Mr. Breen with questions, requests or sug-
gestions, let's put this whole thing together and go immediately
to Mrs. Cardona and what she has to say on this whole area.
MRS. CARDONA:
I will limit myself to the "Current
Bibliography" which appears in the quarterly journal of the Insti-
tite of Catibbeln Studies, CARIBBEAN STUDIES.
To compile this
bibliography we scan large lists of Caribbean publications, but we
are trying to limit ourselves to publications by universities and
young societies, institutions, etc., in which we'find articles of
interest to Caribbean scholars.
However, we include articles of
general interest, too.
We receive most of the accessions list from
Caribbean libraries, the Central Library of Trinidad, Industrial
Relations Corporation of Trinidad, Caribbean Institute, and then we
also go to bibliographies of other societies, of academies, of the
Caribbean countries and circum-Caribbean countries--because we also
include these in our bibliographies and consider them Caribbean,
such as Venezuela, Columbia, Central America and the Guyana'.
Then
we also list books, of course, because most of you probably know
that "Current Bibliography" includes books, pamphlets, articles,
etc.
For books, we of course have the resources of the General
Library of the University of 'uerto Rico.
Dra. DeRosa is the head
6
103
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of the Exchange Department, and I revise all the new books she re-
ceives in exchange, so we list in that way all the new additions to
the Puerto Rican library.
We also receive periodical lists from
publishers and so we try to be as comprehensive as possible.
But
our main objective is to have it published as soon as possible.
We try to have very accurate bibliographic description, but if we
learn of the book and title and, for instance, we lack the pag-
ings, we list it because we think it will be useful to know of it.
In this way we try to be as up -to -date as possible.
Our journal is
published four times a year, as I said.
Yesterday when I
as
speaking of the Puerto Rican libraries I am afraid I didn't empha-
size the fact that the library has very large collections of
Caribbean materials.
This material has been acquired through the
Institute of Caribbean Studies.
The Institute recommends to the
library books on Caribbean subjects, reports the flow of studies
and research that is being conducted at the Institute, and of course
all these materials are available to all in the Caribbean area so
everyone can learn selat program the library has.
I was told that
there is e. very good program in the College of the Virgin Islands,
and all of you are welcome to learn about it.
Of course you know
the publication of the Institute of Caribbean Studies, the journal
called CAPIBBEAN STUDIES; the CARIBBEAN MONTHLY BULLETIN now will
publish the CARIBBEAN EDUCATION BULLETIN put out by associates cf
the Caribbean Tniversity.
Also in CARIBBEAN STUDIES, we publish
once a year a list of Theses of Caribbean Subjects.
That is our
total contribution.
DR. DIX:
The* you very much.
Dr. Zimmerman.
DR. ZIMMERMAr:
Well, I am going to skim through this
104
fairly rapidly because I want to get through the ali-important pro-
ject of Mr. Breen.
The place for me to begin undoubtedly is with
CARIBBEAN ACQUISITIONS, which we have been publishing since 1957-58,
partly because Mr. Jest was concerned that at the time the CURRENT
CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY had bogged down.
The original idea was that
we would publish CARIBBEAN ACQUISITIONS until the CURRENT CARIBBEAN
BIBLIOGRAPHY got going again.
It is broader, it does cover the
Caribbean as interpreted by our Caribbean Conferences which were held
from 1950 to 1967.
So it included Mexico.
We have now narrowed that
to the Antilles and Central
America.
A possibility is someday to
publish a retrospective bibliography from 1950 to 1956 of what we
acquired during that time.
For general and continued bibliographies which are sources
of
information concerning the Caribbean there is, of course, the HANDBOOK
OF LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES.
It is published by the University of
Florida Press and the Hispanic Foundation, from contributing scholars.
)R. DTI:
Th,nk you very much.
Now, this is a brief
sumrary,
take it, of what was going on, what is going on, and what
is projec.:ed in areas of bibliographic control.
Let me try my hand
for a second it a kind of summary of what adequate bibliographic
control in any region of the worle might be, and then I think I'll
call on Mrs. Shepard to try to pull together what is going on in this
area, to match against this
ideal.
Now, the ideal doesn't exist anywhere in the world, this is an
evolutionary process that we move toward.
National bibliographies
exist for many countries, but this area has greater difficulties
because of the different jurisdictions
involved.
If we could all be
brought together under a current systematic program of reportin
qa 105
everything published in the region, this would be one element.
An-
other element would be more retrospective; that is, producing a
series of union catalogues or lists, something comparable to the
catalog of the Library of Congress.
Again, that is by no means com-
plete, but attempts to list the holdings of the libraries which in
turn, therefore, may become a kind of bibliography of the region
for :,bvious reasons.
We have some elements of all of this in the
United States, but what you would have here is a series for regions
in possession of union catalogs.
Then, as I SE.u. it, we should have
some form of control of government documents.
This gives you a
fundamental basis from which specific subject bibliography could be
compiled and, I think one of the great advantages Mr. Breen has al-
ready suggested, is a machine-readable form of compiling, relating
to the idea of a computer to split off different areas, different
countries, different subjects--specialized bibliographies again- -
and published in hard copies and, it seems to me, this would come
later as a whole series of special bibliographies.
One would also need some kind oE bibliographic sensitivity,
an intellect of bibliography, which could be a reference tool for
putting the consumer in touch with the agency that could help him.
Some system of inter-library loan is probab'y a better form of ser-
vice, in each major depository.
One other thing is possible: an
abstracting service, but this is a little far ahead and too enter-
prising for this region because it would have to be done along inter-
national disciplinary lines.
The basic problem that I see from listening to thege few details
is the problem of financing and, along with this, the need for some
controlling or umbrella organization.
It is very difficult, parti-
cularly for an agency volunteering to do something, to be assured of
some funding to carry it through.
Anything short of an institution
106
as large as the Library of Congress cannot maintain continuing
systematic effort of this kind wlthout some support coming in from
an assured basis for all the people involved, and how to work this
out in an area involving so many different national jurisdictions as
this with physical problems of communication across the water and all
the rest.
But it seems this is what we are addressing ourselves to.
I should like to ask Mrs. Shepard to comment against that in a sort
of generalized manner from what we have heard here this morning, and
what seems to be needed, then go right ahead with the practical
steps we ought to take.
MRS. SHEPARD:
I think that is a very good statement
of the general needs as far as trying to coordinate both the problems
of bibliography of the Caribbean region and the holdings in libraries
of the Caribbean area and to make all of these resources available
to everybody.
We have had a series of meetings, a series of experiences and
cooperative efforts carried on.
There are facilities now as far as
both photocopy and computers apply to bibliographic reporting, and to
reporting of the holdings of the various institutions in the Carib-
bean.
We need an up-dated survey of the libraries in Caribbean
areas, and I might call to your attention Mr. Breen's pamphlet--the
little pamphlet published by Pan American Union, Number 35--which
includes a questionnaire which can be used in Spanish with detailed
questions for the purpose of determining what a library needs to
know about the possibility of reorganization of university libraries.
But you might work with this as a basis to determine what needs to be
added or deleted for the purpose of coordinating the information re-
gaCrding the holdings of the Caribbean area particularly.
Based on
Inn
107
the experiences that we have had, and on the fact that we know
libraries are willing, the meeting that we had two years ago demon-
strated that they were willing to do it.
The big problem is how to
get central funds to make some of these things possible.
Another
problem is the training of the local librarian in how to convert to
the worksheet bibliographic information concerning new publications.
Most everybody is working on very strict budgets and they don't have
additional personnel for this additional step.
The plan which was
discussed two years ago would have provided funds so that training
seminars could have been given.
One of the hopes of utilizing the
MARC II format is that eventually this information could be incor-
porated with whatever the Library of Congress will be providing to
all the libraries all over the world regarding bibliographic infor-
mation on new books coming out and so on.
The Library of Congress
has not yet begun to include in its MARC II computer tape informa-
tion on books in other languages although it was ascertained that
they are doing the work; but it is not being given to the libraries
which are subscribing to MARC II tapes.
One of these days I think we
have to press for the Library of Congress to incorporate material and
information on materials for Latin America and the Caribbean other
than English language material.
I think we do have to press for Eng-
lish material from the Caribbean to be incorporated as soon as
possible on MARC II tapes.
Of course, we have to contend with those
who are especially interested in science technology, who want first
to have this material, science technology, coming from France and
Germany particularly.
We have, I should say, in most of our discussion concerned our-
selves primarily with historical, retrospective material rather
than current material, and in the field of social
]01
108
science rather than science technology; mention has been made of
agricultural, especially tropical agricultural, technical reports.
Up until the present time this has not been a very serious problem
for Latin America because they have not advanced too far in the whole
element of science technology and the application of science.
It is
just a matter of time before this becomes a serious problem.
The findings of TEKTITE at St. John, v.1, an oceanographic ex-
periment in the Caribbean area carried out by the U.S. Government,
would be especially important to people on the mainland as well as
others in this area.
DR. DIX:
Let me then start some discussion here by
asking Mr. Breen:
What is included inyour plans for your current
bibliography?
MR. BREEN:
In this comprehensive program, we hope
that the area will alert the Center on what is being published in
the Caribbean.
I should have mentioned that we had a mailing list
of 1,000 institutions and individuals; we have just with the latest
publication increased this to 2,000 in an effort to find out the
market value of this information.
With new contract costs going
up, we were thinking of subscriptions to institutes outside of the
Caribbean.
This is the scope of our bibliography.
DR. DIX:
And this includes monographs, what else?
MR. BREEN:
Anything and everything.
DR. DIX:
This is, therefore, a national or regional
bibliography that is limited to reoording the current production of
the region itself.
MRS. SHEPARD:
This is what the CURRENT CARIBBEAN
BIBLIOGRAPHY is intended to be.
DR. DIX:
I should think there is considerable market
102
109
or markets around the world.
All libraries buy national biblio-
graphies so that they can make sure they cover in their libraries
publications originating in the area covered.
Let me ask one other
question, let's be very blunt:
Are the rest of you willing to let
Mr. Breen and his organization do this and help support it?
There
is a lot of glory in this, there is also a lot of hard work.
It
just seems to me to avoid competition, a better way to get ahead is
with everybody eetting shoulder to shoulder behind the particular
wheel going in one direction and, if this is the best place to
start, what can we do to help support it?
nits; BLOOMFIELD:
I have two points.
In Great Britain
the national bibliography is cooperating with the MARC II project so
that information on British publications on the West Indies would be
available in machine-readable form compatible with Mr. Breen's
system.
At the top of the 1966 to 1970 Development Plans the French
Government recommends that the Bibliographic Center for the Carib-
bean should be established at the University of Bordeaux.
It pro-
poses that the most up-to-date techniques be used, which I assume
means automated bibliographic format.
If Mr. Breen got in touch t-ith
Prof. Guy Lasserre who is in charge of that program, this type of
cooperation and understanding could be the basis for a workable
international project.
DR. DIX:
One thing is to be said about the MARC II
tapes, a word of caution with regard to them.
You can use them at
the Center in producing hard copy distribution of cards for every
library.
One word on the Title IIc of the Higher Education Act of
1965 in the United States: the Library of Congress is instructed for
the first time, officially, by the government of the United States,
to acquire one copy of every work of significant scholarly interest
110
published anywhere in the world, copy and catalogue it and produce
cards for distribution.
It will probably take a long while but
astonishing progress has been made since then by the Library of Con-
gress; it has roughly doublZed the acquisition of foreign materials
in the last three years, setting up procurement centers we never had
before in a great many parts of the world--not, however, in this
area.
One is in Rio de Janeiro.
These centers are also making use of local cataloging biblio-
graphic information, so that the result is conventional Libr, -y of
Congress catalogue cards available for a vastly larger number of
books than were three years ago.
These cards are in turn converted
into MARC tapes and distributed in that form.
At present we can
get cataloguing on familiar three-by-five cards on these tapes but
they are not in machine-readable form.
That will come later.
Mr.
King, I believe, is a computer mar.
If you want to comment on what
I have just said, am I being too pessimistic about that?
nit. KING:
No, after ten years of working with this,
I share your pessimism.
There are a good many things that can be
done.
Miss Baa and her staff and the Virgin Islands government now
are preparing themselves to become a hub in the network that you
are talking about.
In other words, there is development in the area
of storing, filing and microfilming.
Now, this bibliographic con-
trol through the use of computers and computer-like devices is
inevitable; the government is preparing itself for that and I think
probably they will serve themselves first, it is manageable, we need
to do it, and we should be prepared to be able to interact to send
materials back and forth and to acquire some machinery.
104
OR. ZIMMERMAN:
I think Mr. Gocking might well say
something on Caribbean aspects of it, some sort of sub-plans for
Caribbean materials.
MR. COCKING:
You ask about cooperation:
I be-
lieve that this was the purpose of the meeting in 1967 where we
all went and we are waiting for developments.
In the meantime,
the University of the West Indies covered a very difficult area,
and our major problem is acquisition.
We feel if we can get
acquisition throughout the e-sa, we could receive all the
materials that are actually published, and this is very difficult.
It has not been reported by anyone that any attempt to procure
materials is going to be made.
If we can do that; scratch up enough
effort in the libraries that exist now within the University of
West Indies, then the cataloguing section can present the Biblio-
graphic Center in Puerto Rico and the Library of Congress with
what we have produced, but the business of acquisitions is quite
serious.
It is difficult to persuade people that what they
publish is of interest to us all.
We go around and harangue
them, beg them, and write them, but they still ignore us.
We
are trying to get some funds out of our university to go out
buying more regularly.
This is very difficult to persuade the
university, even though our social science students are demanding
better than we have done in the past.
We started before they
knew what they wanted and, now that they know they want it, we
can't provide them with it.
The business of getting the materials,
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112
even knowing if it is published, is beyond our present resources.
DR. DIX:
Am I not right in thinking that the
only hope of the local agencxis that the ones that are closestt
:
to this should "smoke it out'and report their problems to some
center?
One resolution of this conference may be some
encouragement to correct this kind of thing.
MR. KING:
I am somewhat surprised at the lack
of mechanism for the handling of materials of hard sciences;
I think in a sense this presents a real opportunity now, because
the collection is manageable at this time and, if we were to
borrow some successful techniques that were used in other
parts of the world, we would be prepared because there is a
great deal, a tremendous upsurge in interest in studying sciences
in this area.
Ve could do something.
Hopefully we can start
now with some mechanism so we are prepared to serve
researchers.
DR. DIX:
It seems clear to me in the United
States that the control of this sort of material in the broad
sense is emerging in disciplinary areas with the professional
societies taking the leadership--The American Institute
of Physics, The American Chemical Society--these are not libraries.
They have developed bibliographical agencies and there has been
considerable controversy within our government in the United States
on how this whole thing should be pulled together, not left com-
pletely with uncoordinated free enterprise.
There are those who
think this major task should go to the government, that the Depart-
ment of the Interior should have the responsibility.
There have
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113
official reports that propose this.
The great professional
societies that have the leadership now are feeling that this is not
the way to do it if there is a rival. set of proposals.
This is so
vast that I don't know quite how to tackle it on a regional basis
except to make use of what comes out of this network as it emerges,
pertinent to this area.
It seems to me there is this other
factor--The machine-readable computer-based system allows us to
pull out with some ease things relative to the needs here, at
least emerging from outside.
The problem which we are just talking
about, of how you get local materials in science, for example, is
of considerable value in the descriptive and enumerative sciences.
In other words, there must be important work bGs..ng done in the
islands which maybe doesn't get into international literature.
Once you get it in there it comes hack out again through other net-
works.
'IRS. SHZPARD;
One thing has been done by Caribbean
Regional Library with the assistance of University Microfilm;
the
installation of photocopying equipment there.
So many of the re-
ports, especially the scientific reports, coming out of the
Caribbean area in pamphlet form are very, very difficult to get, and
most government agencies really don't know how to distribute them.
The Caribbean Regional Library has the equipment and potential now
for photocopying this material and I think the University of Florida
is finding itself that it is actually more convenient to purchase
photocopiers or Xerox copiers than to try to spend the time getting
it out of government agencies which don't answer letters.
They
don't even seem to know where they put publications.
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114
MR. COCKING:
A point of information: both
libraries of the University of the West Indies, in Mona and St.
Augustine, have Xerox copying facilities also, and will make this
useful to the area by copying what other people want.
But we
can't get all the publications and get them catalogued, too.
IRS. PORTER:
I would like to know if there is any
person here who feels that there are certain books needed for
college or secondary teaching that are really not available in
multiple copies, if you let me know I'll try to see about the
possibility of reprinting them.
Oi course, this will come from
commercial sources, and they have to have a sufficient number of
them sold.
I would prefer to see some of them reproduced rather
than Xeroxed.
DR. DIX:
This is just a little diversion but I did
want to get it in.
I was talking yesterday with one of the school
librarians in the Virgin Islands, and that very need emerged.
There is nothing we can do about it except call it to the attention
of education publishers of elementary and secondary level that
there is really no material that is locally based; it seems to me
any educational system has to pay some attention to its own imme-
diate environment.
I remember the first conference we had on
Africa which was at the national commission in UNESCO in 1960 at
Boston and one of the French-Africans--we had a number of Africans
there--pointed out that their elementary school standard textbooks
read:
our ancestors the Gauls....
and this is not quite relevant.
So it seems to me that Igo. could encourage--it is not our business
here, but, individually, encourage--educational book publishers to
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115
1.71140wertme.
Pay some attention to developine proper teaching techniques,
materials that draw from the loca' zolor and glory and everything
else rather than talk about animals that don't even exist here.
I think it will be very useful in this region.
'LISS BAA:
May I have a word.
The discussion is
inclined to move away from the topic of sharing Caribbean materials.
I feel somewhat embarrassed sittinz here in this conference because
.
I realize that e, as hosts, shoull have acquainted everyone in
this room with the facilities we are providing at the Public
Library.
We arty meeting here in a conference, talking about photo-
copyinq, duplicating, microfilming.
These are facilities we have
right here in ne Virgin Isllnds and, if we have any additional
discussion about this kind of thing, we should know first of all
what is available in the Islands.
Also, the cooperation that we
have been getting from the Regional. Library in Puerto Rico has
been excellent.
There are no words to express the appreciation we
have for the efficiency and amount of concern they have shown for
our needs, and T hope we in turn will reciprocate.
The same can
be said for the University of Puerto Rico.
As for Title III, I have been trying to avoid talking about
Title III of the Library Services and Construction Act.
It allows
the Virgin Islands, as it does Puerto Rico, to participate.' in
interlibrary cooperation funds and, through these funds, I have been
able to extend the kind of services that I think our neighbors need,
such as necessary consultative services that we have given to the
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116
University of the West Indies in Trinidad.
We sent our microfilms
suprvisor to Trinidad to assist them in their particular efforts
to set up a photographic laboratory.
We are also extending the
same kind of service to anyone in the Caribbean Islands.
We are
offering to train people but at their own expense so far as
living is concerned in this island; but the training is completely
free of charge as given in our laboratory so that thane who are
interested not only in camera work with material on microfilm,
but in actually doing this processing, reprinting, and so on, can
come to our laboratory and we will train them.
We should be dis-
cussing the services that the University of Puerto Rico and the
Regional Library can offer and, of course, the cooperation of all
the other countries of the Caribbean.
This was very clearly
understood at the 1967 conference in Puerto Rico, which most of
the people here attended, and agreed that we needed this kind of
service.
There is another point I want to make in connection with the
CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY.
We have what I thought was
regional current bibliography and our concern is to keep this
up-to-date and regular.
As to retrospective bibliography, we do
not have anything like that and perhaps this is one of the steps
we ought to take.
This bibliography called CARIBBEANA, compiled
by Lambros Comitas, published by the University of Washington
Press (c1968) has just been received by the College of the Virgin
Islands.
This is the sort of thing we need.
For instance, we have
just heard from Mr. Palle Birkelund about materials that exist in
the Danish Royal Archives, and the same situations exist for other
Caribbean countries.
If we can encourage the publication of those
iihikaAstitretviview'rofeataLS-Uiralagollismadailmboadmagerailaaihm4
110
117
bibliographies of materials in metropolitan countries and get
commitments on them we will be forging ahead.
DR. DIX:
The microfilms service you are offering
is wonderful.
There is on the table Miss Baa's CATALOGUE OF
MICROFILMS 1969.
It seems the microfilm collection of the
library admirably summarizes the services that are available.
How many other depositories of materials are able to offer com-
parable services?
Moreover, it does seem to me that what is
sorely needed -,!s an up-to-date directory of libraries, a guide
to libraries in the Caribbean.
It must include a section on
what services are available so we will know immediately how to
get at them.
'tISS BAA:
For instance, when we planned this
publication, I did not know--although we have filmed the entire
shelf list of the College of the NArgin Islands and returned
them a cony of the filmthat they have eight hundred units of
microfilms.
If that is the case, I should have been glad to
include their holdings in this catalog.
So that in picking up
one publication we would have a complete coverage of available
microfilms for the Virgin Islands libraries.
I hope that I can
do this with Mr. Wagner's cooperation when we compile the next
issue.
DR. DIX:
Now that we have lots of discussion
started, the lunch hour has approached.
What do you want to do?
MR. SEAMAN:
Before we appear at the drawing board,
I would just like to inject something.
I wouldn't feel too
pessimistic about all of this at all.
If we remember Columbus,
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118
in trying to discover the East, sailed west, and look what he
found.
DR. DIX:
I think that is a good note on which to
recess, to be back here at two &lock.
(AFTER RECESS)
May we come to order, please.
Several of our key parti-
cipants have overeaten but we had better get started, oz ve will
never get through.
We have with us as an observer Mr. Fred Cross of the Ford
Foundation.
Mr. Cross, will you identify yourself back there?
Mr. Cross is not here on library business, but I have found that
the Foundation people are always interested in libraries, and I
think it is important for us to let the Foundation people under-
stand the library problems to which we are committed.
So we are
delighted that you have had a chance to drop in for a while this
afternoon.
Now, this afternoon, this is what I propose to cover, if we
possibly can:
To finish up our bibliographic control, to pin down
a little more definitely what still remains to be done, to move
into some discussion of the possibility of cooperative acquisition
and processing.
Mrs. Shepard his some remarks on that.
The
problem we mentioned of getting access to locally produced
materials may be solved in part by a certain amount of formal
cooperation, and certainly the identification of material in that
way is a preliminary step to adequate bibliographic listing.
During
the course of this I'll ask Mr. Seaman for any remarks he has to
Is."Nrrftwmaiwames
I
I
make on the special needs of science.
It is very clear to me that
we have been neglecting that in our discussions.
We will have
some brief talk at least about the special problems of preserva-
tion, physical ureservation of materials, which I Rather is a
regional problem here; we have an expert with us in Mr. Alden.
Then we will tall: about the important matter of people, library
training and manpower.
I hone we will get through some dis-
cussion of all that this afternoon, and leave time tomorrow for
some overall summary.
So let us return immediately to right
where we stoppei before lunch, when we had a good discussion
going.
I think I'll ask Dr. Jordan to say what she was going
to say before the lunch recess.
DR. JORDAN:
Yes, I think there were some points
that were being let loose on the table, which I wanted to comment
on.
The major one is the business of CODECA and CURRENT CARIB-
BEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY and the acquisition problem of Mr. Gocking.
I seem to recall that, in 1967, at that conference in Puerto Rico,
one of the items recommended or decided upon was that tht.te
would be a pilot project to try out the acquisition process in
one or more of the British islands.
I wondered whether we
couldn't pursue this, taking up Mr. Breen's plea and the point of
why we couldn't try to follow up that particular recommendation.
The aim is to try out the acquisition process and take each step
after the acquisition process with one particular area now.
I
think Barbados is not too big and not too small and might perhaps
be a good testing ground, for the University has a campus there.
A
I think this might bone way to pursue his particular plea.
This
is the major point I wanted to make.
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120
DR. DIX:
May we stop just for a minute?
I for one
am unfamiliar with what was proposed in the way of acquisition pro-
jects.
This would be a specific designation of authority to a
particular library?
Would you elaborate on that at this time?
DR. JORDAN:
Well, I don't think it was detailed in
that way.
I think the only thing that was decided, as I recall, was
that there would be a team, a committee or sub-committee, that would
carry this forward in concentrating on trying out experiments with
the collections, go for intensive collecting in a given small area
that will be sending people out to wake cooperative arrangements
with the book sellers and librarians, anyone at all that could help
identify the material and actually get it in hand.
The main point
was to see how well we would really get things organized if we con-
centrated on small areas and got it working in every respect, acquisi-
tion being the first concern.
DR. DIX:
And this would be material not produced in
the area only, but materials produced in Britain on Barbados?
DR.JORDAN:
No, .I think it was meant to be current
material being produced in the area at that time.
It could of course
be widened to include focus on material so h td to identify cnd to
get after the time it was actually published.
DR. DIX:
May we stop there and see what comments we
have.
This is a big area and I would like to see it pinned down by
our recorder, who can tell us what we said when she reports back.
MR. VAUGHN:
Vaughn here, I suggest if you are
actually thinking about a place, someone who is represented here at
this session would be better perhaps than Barbados.
Is there some-
one here representing Barbados'
114
MR. COCKING:
Barbados is well represented by the
University of the West Indies, Sir.
We were very interested in, may
I say, the University of the West Indies Library, very interested in
having the area to be selected within that jurisdiction because they
were having such great difficulty getting their own material, and
they thought the CODECA conference recommendations might bring a
pilot team into their area.
I dIfinft think of any particular area,
Leeward Islands, Windward Islands, a small group.
PR. DIX:
Well, we will hold that in suspension, and
tomorrow, along with all the ohher things, what we will hope to do
is to come forward with some specific recommendations for a course
of action.
I don't think we car sit here in this group and say how
this should be initiated.
Maybe you will undertake to do that and
for that you may need a committee.
MR. COCKING:
It is unfortunate that both Mrs.
Shepard and Miss Bea are not here.
DR. DIX:
We will come back to it, that is the reason
I want to cut off that discussion.
Will you go right ahead?
DR. JORDAN:
The other thing I want to mention: we
talked about a questionnaire and need for surveys; I wanted to say
there are three questionnaires in my dissertation--one for public
libraries, one for special libraries
one for school libraries--and
for what they are worth, perhaps there might be another question-
naire designed for bringing the information up to date.
I'll put
a Xerox copy of the thesis on the table which can be looked at.
This will be published by the Scarecrow Preis sometime later this
year; I don't know what date yet.
1 1 5
1:22
The third thing I wanted to mention is that the SALALM reports
are in the nature of bibliographies.
The SALALM reports themselves
are an excellent source of bibliographic information, and I don't
think anybody brought it out in those terms.
There is actually one
SALALM paper which is a bibliography of all the bibliographies that
have been quoted in SALALM to date, a very useful source following
on Mrs. Cardona's presentation.
There is also an article on bibliography and documentation and
terminology which covers the British area, enumerating all the
various lists that come out of the different libraries, which can
be used for checking.
There were one or two other points which I think I should men-
tion, one on the discussion of reading materials; I wanted to say
without knowing, without going into any details, the University of
the West Indies does have programs for producing some educational
materials.
It hasn't gotten very far yet but this is another
matter.
I think Mrs. Porter also said something about reprints and
what reprints are needed; I want to follow this up, as there is
a reprinting program going on in England and a fair amount of re-
printing being done right now.
Some of the things the people
wanted, and this answers partly what you were asking.
That,
is my list of poits that I had to make.
DR. DIX:
Let me at this point put in a word on
this.
In the reprinting business, as we are all certainly aware,
being librarians having to do with acquisitions, they are
tremendously accurate now and do not seem to require large editions
for the publishers to undertake them.
Making them aware of the
needs, and certainly the slightly different areas, commercial
116
123
"714,111.3"erramemes.
I
microfilm publishers are looking for collections to microfilm and
offer for sale.
Dr. Zimmerman, are you going to respond to some-
thing said, any comment on what Dr. Jordan said?
DR. ZIMMERMAN:
Well, on reprints, there is a very
good Cambridge Catalog of Reprints published last spring, listing
current Caribbean and Latin American materials and ones in process,
and I just had to check that.
Quite a number are still in prepara-
tion, but it is still the best listing that I know of o.i the
subject.
MRS. PORTER:
I think American libraries--those of us
who have Negro collections, four or five of es--find there is no con-
sistency in what the reprint companies offer us, and we are constant-
ly wondering what we should require.
Some offer you nothing but
free copy.
There is no uniformity, some pay you $50.; another, 10%
of the royalties.
One thing we should do is to get together and
iron out some principles whereby we should have some uniformity,
and insist that these companies give it to us.
This varies according
to the size of the printing companies.
Some very large ones are
making a great deal of money, others are starting today to publish
titles and they have merely three or four titles; we haven't gotten
into the money matter, but since the libraries need these Negro
collections, we are facing this problem now.
I don't know how soon
you will be facing them.
DR. DIX:
May I comment on this for just a moment?
We
are faced with this in other areas, too, and a little group of us in
some of the continental United States libraries such as Harvard,
Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, generally and essentially arrive
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124
at an agreement of common policy of this serious matter.
We think we
are being victimized for commercial profit on the one hand and, on
the other hand, we understand and recognize that the reprint business
is going to be a boon to libraries.
So we by-and-large agree a fee
of $25. per volume will be fair, plus bibliographic safeguards--for
example, reproduce the title page; some of them try to avoid this,
as you know--and proper care of the material and so on.
If you are
interested I think the best document I have seen on this is the one
Harvard is now using.
I am told that it is just being revised and
probably not quite up-to-date at the moment; but if you write to
Harvard and ast them for a copy of that statement of reprint publish-
ing, you might find it useful if you are faced with this problem of
dealing with commercial reprint publishers.
Mr. Wagner?
'IR. WAGNER:
I was going to ask if we are all fami-
liar. with University Microfilms out-of-print publishing program, in
which the, will publish a single :opy of any book for about four
cents a page.
R. DIX:
This is publication on demand, rather than
additional publication.
There is general agreement that some of us
need a published edition rather than a Xerox copy.
Mrs. Bloomfield.
MRS. BLOOMFIELD:
Well, I would like to say some-
thing about acquisition.
DR. DIX:
Yes, when Mrs. Shepard gets back we will
ask her to talk about acquisition.
Go right ahead.
MRS. BLOOMFIELD:
Aow, Dr. Zimmerman this morning
mentioned some books specializing in Caribbeana: there is a
new bookstore in London founded by John R. Rose, called New Beacon,
which isstes Caribbeana, and it has started to issue a publi-
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125
cation called NEW BEACON REVIEW which reviews West Indian material.
In the first number there is a very good review of all the West
Indies by Professor Devine.
I think it is a publication of very
high standard.
In addition there are a number of booksellers in
the area in Jamaica, who issue lists of local publications.
The
Micro Book Shop in Guyana lists publications, and there are others.
I should like to suggest that in addition to a survey of
libraries, we also recommend that there should be an up-to-date
list of booksellers.
DR. DIX:
Thank you.
Now, I think as I said, we
have neglected science.
I wonder, Mr. Seaman, if you have anything
you might like to say about the whole question of bibliographic
control
scientific information?
SEMIAN:
That is the subject I am not very well
acquainted with but, if I can give an example of personal exper-
ience, it might be illustrating my feelings somewhat on the
subject, and this is a local thing.
I am with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services attached to the
local government, and I have been working here for 20 years and I
am supposed to put out quarterly progress reports every three months.
Well, if you get a paper and pencil and are mathematically inclined,
you can very easily figure out the number of progress reports that
I am supposed to have put out over the last 20 years.
Now, I am
not saying that these progress reports contain the best information
in the world, but I am saying I feel the future veneration might
find something in them of interest and they should definitely be
represented in our local library.
Now, I'll say offhand there are
50 of those reperts that I have sent down slid the distribution Oat
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126
they have receives; is probably limited to the Atlanta office in
Tashington.
This is absolutely no fault of the local library service:
the distribution of these reports is a government responsibility.
I
send the original and a few copier, and the mimeograph people are
supposed to distribute them to various departments which they feel
might be interested in things like that.
I think that, if Miss Baa
has 10, she has a lot.
But that is neither here nor there.
7
have just been asked to popularize these reports into one volume,
that's my next assignment and I think a very good one, since we
will have all tie information obtCned in one volume.
nR. DIX:
How will that volume be published?
'IR. ;;EAMAN:
That is a very good question.
And I
an a little embtrrassod that I am not quite sure just how.
I
have the manuscripts that I have beerTorlang on and it will be sent
to the Atlanta office.
Perhaps it will be published by that
office.
DR. DIX:
This appears as a United States Government
document.
MR.
SEAMAN:
Very likely.
MISS PAA:
I will speak on the distribution of
government oub:ications.
When you make a report yo',_ send it it Lo
your office - -I mean to whomever you report in St. Thomas.
This is
the same as all departmental reports.
These are eventually
deposited in the Government Secretary's Office.
Then we have to
wait until the Government Secretary's Office allows us the copies.
The Public Library has functioned as the depository agency that
receives governmental reports, after they are released by the
12C
127
Government Secretary.
If we know of them we will request the
Government Secretary to give us conies and this has been our ever-
lasting struggle.
I mentioned yesterday that we require the en-
forcement of the depository laws and, as a. state library, if we are
state, we should be able to receive all departmental reports and
studies, not by asking but at a matter of automatic procedure.
This is not the case, however.
When your reports are submitted,
we request 30 copies for distribution, because we have what we
think is an active exchange agreement with many libraties in the
Caribbean as well as in the flnited States, and this
lur reason
for requesting :10 copies.
When we receive those copies, we distri-
bute them immediately to all of the main libraries with which we
have agreements.
lb addition to that, we retain two copies for
our documents section.
If we have enough copies we send a copy
to each of the other libraries in the Virgin Islands.
But to be
sure I'll ask Miss Lindqvist, who is our Virgin Island equivalent
of 'keeper of the books", to tell me if we have any representation
of Mr. Seaman's reports.
MISS LINDQVIST:
We have quite a number of them from
1950 to date.
MISS BAA:
We didn't get them from the Government
Secretary.
So this is our basic trouble--depository and distri-
bution.
DR. DIX:
This is not unique to this area.
All
librarians know that.
I wonder if there is a point where this con-
ference adding to its list of recommendations a general appeal to
the governments of the region to do something useful with their
documents.
What about some of the other areas--the British areas,
for example
What haplens to your government documents'.
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128
MR. COCKING:
They used to come out regularly;
since the 1-hange to independent government we have been very uncer-
tain as to what to do about annual reports coming from departments.
Sometimes they (lever s..:e the light of day, other times they have
been received and when the time comes to publish them, we spend a
lot of tire searching for them.
DR. DIX:
Are there depository laws setting up
official depositories'
MR. COCKING:
Yes, the University of the West
Indies, for instance, tried its best to convince the then co/onill
government that they should all amend their depository laws to
make the University of the West Indies a depository library.
Some
did after some persuasion, Others didn't.
When the federal
government came along, it immediately made the University of the
West Indies a depository for all publications of the Federation.
That was for five years, from 1956 to 1962.
Then the Federation
broke up and the laws were no longer in force, and we went back to
the old arrangement by which we got some.
DR. DIX:
I guess I am trying to go a little too
far forward towards specific recommendations.
The statement that
we represent. the major libraries in the areas, and that we urge
this recommendation, in the interest of supplying all the people
with information, call upon the governments of the area, either by
government regulations or by probative law, to take steps to make
sure that the official documents issued by those in government
are sent in suitable quantities to be deposited.
Once we did this,
it would lead tower 1( some consistent listing from a central agency.
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129
DR. JORDAN:
There is a rider to this, and that is,
to have laws, which is one thing, and quite another thing to get
them enforced.
In Triridad we al: have depository laws but all we
get so far are songs, !...ecause people think "depository" means
that when they (1eposit their songs they are thereby copyrighted
and they want nobody else copying their songs.
DR. DIX:
We nre really talking about two things,
let's don't confuse them.
We are talking about a depth legal,
which,
because of copyrighting or some other reason, requires the
Printer or publisher to deposit every document with a designated
offile.
The other, depository law, we have in the United States,
whereby certain libraries in each state are declared official
depositories of government - issued documents.
But they are both
important.
Let's tali: about the second one a minute: the deposit
of government- produced documents.
Is there any reason we
shouldn't repeat, or urge to keep saying, to this government quite
clearly who is receiving all the recommendations we come out with.
Probably a variety of people, but we can send one directed to Her
Majesty's Government somewhere.
Now, the depet legal I am wonder-
ing about.
Personally, I am against licensing printers.
I think
printing ought to be free.
It reaches a lot of people.
The govern-
ment is trying to control printing--I don't want to get into that
terrible thing one way or the other.
Mrs. Stephenson.
MRS. STEPHENSON:
In Guyana no legal depository is
designated; one copy of everything printed should be registered with
the Registry but I am afraid this has not been observed.
DR. DIX:
Mr. Seaman, sorry to interrupt, go ahead.
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130
MR. SEAMAN:
This has been very educational in what
we are all talking about.
I like that phrase that Dr. Jordan used,
hidden people.
I have been a hidden man here so long.
There is a
professional need for science.
I like to think of Columbus as the
first scientist in this new world.
We know that his discovery not
only revolutionized the old world, but it destroyed the theory of
the extended flat surface from which one would fall if he ventured
too far.
On this first voyage he dared to persist on his course in
the face of grave and threatened mutiny.
His persistence was not
just blind determination.
It was based on nature signals.
He
recognized the type of vegetation on the water, and the bird life
flying overhead.
He saw birds going by in flocks which to him
looked very much like land birds that he had seen in Europe.
His
determination was strengthened and therefore the great discovery
was achieved because of his scientific acumen.
What he did not know then was this very interesting ornitho-
logical lore.
Those birds were gold and black belly plovers (gre-
garious long-legged wading birds).
You see, the New World was dis-
covered sometime in October, we celebrate the twelfth, just about
the time when these plovers leave their arctic home for wintering in
South America.
Incidentally, the migration of plovers is one of the
most interesting phenomena in the world.
Imagine, if you will, a
little bird weighing eight or nine ounces flying non-stop, jumping
off from Newfoundland, nonstop to the West Indies, to northern
South America, twelve thousand miles; then return again another
twelve thousand miles in a few months, say, roughly twenty-five
thousand miles in four months.
Imagine the endurance and the stored
124
energy required when that source of energy is only fat::
Anyway, he saw plovers go by and, together with these
plants floating in the sea around, that made him certain that, if
he could encourage his crew to hang on, he would find land, and
we know the story.
To my way of thinking, there is a great need for updating
information that we have on the various scientific aspects of West
India.
We need more general as well as intensive research studies
in the fields of ornithology, botany, geology
zoology, meteorology,
etc.
Of course, today we have equipment we neyer dreamt of years
ago, such as these deep sea probes that we have -..for taking pictures
at 20 thousand feet below the surface, and outer space sciences and
explorations, moon walking, etc.
We learn about the weather, we
learn about geology, and we learn many other things that previously
were inaccessible to us and we are revising a great many of our
static ideas about this globe in which we live.
I am sure we are experiencing a population explosion, but we
are also in the midst of an explosion of publications, of air and
water pollution, and a psychological revolution of man and ideas.
Libraries everywhere are devising newer methods of storing and
using these materials.
If we are io judge from his impressive
gathering of librarians who must serve students today, you are pre-
paring your libraries for the future which you foresee.
But what about today?
The pace of life we are living, our
commercial and industrial needs sometimes impinge upon nature and
wipe out some species, or lay waste areas which are necessary to
health and well being.
There are times when nature's ways are so
affected as to cause a dangerous imbalance.
Fire is a case in point.
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i32
It is the greatest enemy of wildlife and, from the very beginning, a
great number of interesting species, particularly amphibian and rep-
tilian, were destroyed; but we are lucky fit that many of the islands
have satellite cays around them and, these not being suitable for
economic purposes, have been largely untouched.
These cays are tre-
mendously interesting because they are reservoirs for the flora and
fauna which are not found today en the mainland anymore.
For instance, on the tiny island of Anegada, the "down island"
as it is called, there is a particular specie of iguana.
It is not
a tree-climbing iguana, but a specie of iguana, Cyclura.
It is found
only on Anegada.
Because this island is flat, being only 30 feet
above the sea, the entire island of Anegada could serve as an inter-
national :airport.
This is precisely what it was determined to do
and clearing was hemin.
Since this iguana has become adapted to this
climate and environment, and the rrea is being cleared, one can see
what is going to happen to tlem.
I don't believe that there are 30
left in t,le woLd, an
they are only found in Anegada.
This is a
very sad thing; but fortunately, and appropriately enough, the
College of the "irgin Islands is doing something about this.
They
have sent several men to take pictures and to collect some of the
iguanas and will try to re-locate them on similar islands nearby.
We hope tley will survive.
Very often wildlife species are extreme-
ly specific in their requirements and what human beings may think is
a wonderful habitat for some of them (say lizards) to live, another
lizard might completely reject it and perish as a result.
This is
a typical example of ;That is taking place at an extremely rapid
pace throughout the West Indies.
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133
For instance, the parrot of the West Indies is unique, and has
a very interesting evolutionary history.
The Caribbean is a group
of tiny islands separated sometimes by no more than 50 miles of
water. but each island may have a specie of parrot which is entirely
different from its neighbors.
How can we explain this?
The consen-
sus among those who know is that all of these parrots originated
from one specie of green Amazon parrot.
The West ladles parrot
roughly began with the Granada parrot.
It was the only parrot,
originally, but with the evolutionary process which took 100,000
years; -maybe more than that--parrots developed differently because
of the environment in which they found themselves; so that today
islands like St. Lucia and Dominica and Puerto Rico and Santo
Domingo each have a different parrot.
Studies are being made of
the Puerto Rican parrots of which there are probably only 50 left
in the world, and they are found in only one little area of Puerto
Rico.
We have all wondered, since they seem to be in a very good
habitat and ;There is a lot of food available, why do they continue
to decrease in number?
This is a fact, they are decreasing very,
very rapidly and it is questionable whether they can b:p saved at
all.
Another study is also being conducted in Dominica.
On that
island lives a particularly beautiful, very large parrot, called
the imperial parrot.
A Canadian lumber company has gone into
Dominica, cutting in the jungles, and naturally one wonders what
effect this will have on those beautiful parrots.
Let us take crabs.
Most of us who live here in the Virgin
Islands know these so-called land crabs.
These ugly-looking things
are delirious to eat.
The fact is, they are a delicacy and in
327
134
places like Puerto Pico the supply is far less than the demand, so
that this crab Is practically disappearing from many of the islands.
No. there is no reason to believe that this crab could not be bred
commercially since each female lays maybe 50,000 eggs; and if anyone
were enterprising enough, or intellectually curious, he could dis-
cover the entire life history of this crab, particularly in its
early stapes.
lie would not only contribute to science, but he could
become a millionaire, because it is possible to sell hundreds of
crabs in Puerto Pico and other islands on a constant market.
While we know n great deal of the life history of this crab, we
know nothing of the first stages from the egg to when it first
starts looking like a crab, and this involves five or six stages.
A female crab lays her eggs in the ocean, they float around in
little microscopic dots and come hack looking like minute crabs;
that stage we know nothing of today.
I have written to the Univer-
sity of niami, which is engaged in these projects, and the reply I
get is that Doctor So-and-so is writing a thesis on this particular
subject.
We have an abundance of food here in the ocean.
You can
use trite expressions but our population is exploding and the sea
is becoming more and more a source of food, but it is also becoming
hopelessly polluted by human and industrial wastes.
OR. 1)1X:
You have given us, it seems to me, a whole
series of perfect illustrations of the importance of local studies
of the region.
Our job of course as librarians and bibliographers
is with books shout them.
'Dave you something else to contribute on
this subject:
Plense identify yourself.
YISS OLIVER:
Pat Oliver.
It seems that information
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135
on these scientific subjects exists to academic cirles, and the
responsibility of librarians is to acquire it and publicise it
through various media to make it useful to the potential users.
DR. DIX:
It seems to me what should emerge is a
science information center.
I wonder if Dr. Caron has anything to
say about science technology information is this region?
DR. CARON:
Well, my feelings are the other way
around.
It is the responsibility of the scientists to publish
worthwhile works in wellknown journals.
I don't think it is the
responsibility of librarians alone to look out for unknown publi-
cations.
Powever, the important journals should be made available
in the libraries.
I have seen many scientific works done, reports
of research from the British islands or from Perto Rico reported
in wellknown journals.
There is an explosion of publications today
in the scientific field.
Obviously one man can't read everything,
not
so some of the material goes unnoticedAbecause it just isn't worth
reading and I think there has to be the process of elimination.
I
dont think everything can be kept.
It is just taxing the human mind
too much and, if worthwhile articles come out in print, they will be
read.
I have a different point of view:
I am a user, not a keeper.
DR. DIX:
This is true in all fields.
My impression
is that there seems to be scientific data collected locally from
around the world and from various regions which doesn't reach
national or international channels of communication.
Is that true
at all?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER'
I don't know if it is the
responsibility of the librarian to gather this material, and I don't
1.29
136
know whose responsibility it is, but I have the impression that
there is need for a well-equipped communication and science infor-
mation center.
DR. DTX:
Well, this is, it seems to me, the
responsibility or the librarian.
I am using librarian loosely here,
to make sure that you understand that libraries and librarians have
sources which sunniv and keep one informed constantly, with all of
this information through international channels for scientific
information, such as documentation centers.
We have got to move ahead.
MISS BAA;
I think we have neglected to observe that
there are centers, for example, the University of the West Indies.
which issue certain scientific nublicatioss; we should know about
them and we should stop to check them for articles and to make sure
that we have them.
The JOURNAL or CARIBBEAN SCIENCE published by
the University of Puerto Rico at 'fayaguez is certainly another local,
publication providinv information of this type, and it carries in
every issue a very 5,00d science bibliography.
The Netherlands
Foundation for Scientific Research in Surinam and Netherland-
Antilles and other Caribbean Islands. in the Hague, is Another agency
where one can rind information and bibliographies on scientific
subjects.
DR. DIX:
Well, I'll come back to that land crab.
The
fellow who starts a land crab farm is going to do something useful
for the economy of these islands.
I was offended the other night at
dinner to be told the only fish I could get was South American lob-
ster tail.
Well, let's move ahead, to the cooperative acnuisitions
and processing; Marietta, do you have something to say on that?
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310
1TF. SHEPARD:
Veil,
E have actually tried to summar-
ize n paper I gnye nt a meeting of agriculture librarians in the
first week of December on the elemert of cooperative acquisition,
attevpting to describe the activities particularly in the United
States in recent years in cooperative acquisition of Latin American
activities.
At one time, the 111TLLETIN OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, a bulletin of Spe-
cial. Libraries Association had a very fine statement on cooperation
which I think T131 rend to you.
Cooperation might be said tc have
become the creed of librarians in recent years.
On every hand, at
every conference, in every professional journal, we are urged to co-
operate in .:his worthy lob or towards solution of that ragging
problem.
1:n are urged even to cooperate in urging further coopera-
tion amone our colleagues, and this is good for librarianship.
A
library cannot exist except through the cooperation of many efforts.
If ever we lost sight of this fact, then we should have lost our
effectiveness ns librarians.
Of course, library cooneration isn't any new concept to this.
group, nor should we dwell ever long on the tremendous amount of
material that is coming out in print these days.
We doni want to
trink about the million and a half significant articles that are
published every year in science and technology, or even of the
1I0,n00 titles of BOOKS IN PRINT, sunposedly in Spanish, that are re-
ported.
Naturally no library can possibly think of trying to collect
everything that has been printed and, even if we had an unlimited
budget--and most libraries don't--ii simple terms, it is a matter
of cooperate or drown.
¶e don't have very much time to devote
either, to all of the efforts towards cooperative acousition
which the United States have had in Latin America, Europe, and else-
:
1 31
138
where; and certainly we don't want to waste any time theoretically
on the principle of acquisition.
All of this is beyond us, or he-
,.
hind us.
We are more concerned: with how it is done and how things
can be done, and what are the important ingredients of cooperative
acquisition.
Well, we know one of the most important ingredients
discussed here before is the combination of union catalogues and
union lists and then having programs of ac4ition which will make
it possible to be assured of having access to the most important
work in libraries somewhere along the lines.
Perhaps as far as Latin America and the Caribbean in general
are concerned, the activities which have had the longest history
lists of
have been thora in combination with unioncperiodicals.
Needless
to say, a knowledge cf what is presently available in libraries is
necessary for us to determine what it is we should have, in order
to base our future activities on what we have already had and what
has been done in the past.
One thing we have discussed here at
this meeting -two things, especially- -have been books and docu-
ments, records and manuscripts and so on.
If we come into the field
of pure and applied sciences, journals are frequently far more im-
portant than the books and certainly more important than records or
manuscripts.
But, in order to produce union lists or catalogues,
-
you have to have some agreednent among librarian, as to how you are
going to describe these things.
You must have cooperation from
libraries to establish uniform bibliographic descriptions in order
to be able to even compile union lists of materials.
So, uniform
entries, standards for the entry of title and other bibliographic
material, must be adopted.
This has been especially difficult in
1.32
139
Latin America, especially Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking
countries. because they have net had the tools that exist in
English.
1%101 they have the tools, it will be difficult for
them to establish uniform rules fer entry.
As a matter of fact,
we were just translating, ir the Pan AmericaL Union, the ANGLO-
AMERICAN CODE into Spanish.
It is being typed up, and I don't
know how it is to he published, but we don't have any funds for
that.
However, we didn't have any funds to get it translated
either.
We will come to that when we get it typed up.
There was at one point a bibliography issued by the Library
of Congress in 1064 called UNION LIST OF SERIALS, a biblio-
graphy which was compiled by Ruth Freitag.
But to my knowledge
there doesn't exist an" listing of union lists or union cata-
logues in the Cp.ribhean or Latin American areas, which might he
a cood research nroiect for a graduate student of library
science or of Latin American affairs.
However, Mrs. Bloomfield
mentioned before that the Institute of Latin American Studies
began in 1n66 to compile Union Catalog holdings of the British
libraries in the field of Latin American studies, meaning cata-
logues of all books and pamphlets relating to Latin America.
It shoul::' he pointed out that the National Union Catalogue
of the Library of Congress services in a certain way as a union
catalogue of the holdings of Latin American and Caribbean materials
in the United States.
133
140
We have not had a very long history even in the United States
of cooperative acquisition.
By the early'30's there had been a
couple of reports done on attempts in the United States to achieve
cooperative programs of acquisitions; but it was really not until
Wotld War II that this became a serious problem in the United States,
and it was found during that time in history that American libraries
were not really adequately able to provide all the needs of the
defense combines in the United States.
It became abundantly clear
after World War II was over that the prewar procurement effort in
the United States certainly wasn't sufficient for the needs of
the postwar informational wants of the United States.
So the Library
4k
of Congress took the initiative and called a meeting whicWas held
at Farmington, Connecticut, to discuss what could be done about
this.
To make a short story much briefer than Mr. Dix probably
would, if he had the opportunity, by 1947 the Association of Re-
search Libraries agreed upon sub#ect allocations for libraries in
the United States and preparations were put into effect to begin the
"Farmington Plan" waich was named after the place where it was held
originally, by covering publications which had been issued in 1948
in France, Sweden and Switzerland.
There have been a number of
reports on the Farmington Plan--chiefly by Edwin Williams and
Robert Prosper--and many of you NNW have probably read every word
of these reports on the Farmington Plan.
Cooperative efforts for the Acquisition of Latin American
Library Materials by American libraries, -however, even antedated
the Farmington Plan.
In the early 1930's the American Library
i6sociation had a Committee on Latin America, which was succeeded by
e
an International Relations Committee, of of whose concerns was ac-
quisitions.
All of this was before World War II and after.
At the
same time an organization called Inter-American Bibliographic and
Library Association had been created with aid from the Pan American
Union.
It was formed chiefly by a group of persons interested in
Latin America and in Latin American Bibliography, chieflyjsersons
from the United States.
In fac t, Pan American Union published
some of the bibliographies that were a result of this Association's
efforts.
The Association held a number of meetings concerning
Latin American studies at the time when most people of the United
States didn't know where Latin America was.
At the same time, the
Pan American Union began a study, in the early 1930's, which now
has reached the number 51.
Among private efforts to increase
availability of important Latin American publications in libraries
of the United States was the grant made by the Carnegie Corpora-
tion of $250,000 in 1947 so that four university libraries of the
United States could acquire necessary materials to support area
study programs in Latin America.
Area study programs antedated nu,
I might say.
I had courses in Latin American history, Latin
American literature, Latin American geography, and Latin American
economics; but they were all isolated programs before most in-
stitutions in the United States had heard of Latin America and
certainly before the area study .programs came into being.
Officially, the government of the United States had taken
seriously the commitment it had made in one of the Inter-America
Conferences in 1933 on American bibliographies, and a number of
cultural conventions it had signed; so by mid-1940 the Library of
Congress, particularly, through the Hispanic Foundation, had begun
"5
142
the publication of several series of bibliographic publications
on Latin America.
One of the studies began about 1936, I believe.
Another was the series of Guides to Official Publications of other
American Republics.
In many instances, these still remain, 30
years later, the only guides that have ever been done of the offi-
cial publications of Latin American nations.
The Hispanic Founda-
tion has been very active in bringing libraries closer together;
for a number of years it has invited principal bibliographers to
come and work with them, and so on.
It also took the lead in en-
couraging exchanges between Latin America and United States librar-
ies of books, periodicals and official publications, and was one of
the first institutions to establish an active Hispanic exchange
program.
Although a number of universities in the United States for de-
cades had offered courses in Latin American literature, economics,
and so on, as 1 said before, the creation of area study programs was
a post-war development.
A recent count of such centers shows well
over 130 universities in the United States which have centers for
Latin American Studies, or Institutes for Inter-American Studies, or
something similar.
There are now some eight regional councils of
Latin American Studies.
These councils are composed not only of
university professors but of local scholars in the field of Latin
American matters, business people, research people and so on.
They
have local memberships, and some of them are already filed with the
Latin American Association which was created about three or four
years ago and which has attempted now to bring into its order some
of the regional councils.
There are now six local groups of univer-
136
143
sities that I know of, which form part of the large group for the
purpose of Latin American and Inter-American Studies.
One late development that I mentioned was the creation at City
University of New York of an Institute on Puerto Rican Studies.
As
a matter of fact, this started before the Puerto Rican college; stu-
dents began to demand such an institute because I think I had been
talking about the possibility of an institute for Puerto Rican
culture for two or three years.
Interestingly enough, it was the year 1956 which was signifi-
cant in all kinds of Inter-American and library matters.
The federal
government of the United States that year passed its first Library
Services Act, which was to provide about seven million dollars for
rural public library services in the United States.
Ih 1956 a nation-
al standard was approved by the American Library Association.
An
International Relations Office was created by American Library Assoc-
iation, at that point from a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Council on Library Resources was born that year from a grant from
the Ford Foundation.
Also in 1956, the International Inter-America
Cultural Council, a specialized council of the Organization of Ameri-
can States (OAS), called upon the Congress of OAS to initiate a
library development program and insisted they should have budgets
separate from that of the library of Pan American Union.
At the same
time, in 1956, an International Advisory Committee was named to aid
in the creation of an. Inter-America Library School in Mid-Colombia
University of Antioquoia, Medell(n, Colombia.
Plans were made in
1956 to open the new school the following February.
It was in 1956,
too, that Stanley West and I talked about what the University of
Florida needed.
He had been trying to do something in the acouisi-
137
1 44
tion program and decided they needed a new help maybe, and I had
been at it a little bit longer than anyone else (I always seem to be
at something a little longer than anybody else).
Pan American Union
said they would be happy to help the University of Florida.
I went
down to spend a week or so there looking at what they were doing, in
acquisitions and exchange of publications, and we agreed that we
were ahead of most people at that point and that there were a lot of
people in the United States who had experience.
We needed to pool
our experience to see how we could all come out better than we were.
So we agreed there was a need for small conferences representative
of people who were concerned with Latin American Studies--not only
librarians, teachers, professors, but the people involved in the book
trade, because, after all, libraries couldn't exist without the book
trade.
I don't know if the book trade could exist without us or not,
especially in children's books, because they tell me that 91% of all
children's books published go to libraries.
But at least we know
that we are quite dependent onhe book trade.
So that year we de-
cided we would hold a meeting representing these various interests.
Fortunately, the University of Florida had a small estate at Chinse-
gut Hill, Brooksville, Florida; so we held our first Seminar on the
Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials (SALALM) there.
Some
20 working papers were prepared by, specialists in all kinds of things:
periodicals, maps, government publications, and everything else.
We
thought that we could get together for three days and resolve all the
problems.
That was 14 years ago.
The problems, we thought, were in,
about three large categories.
One was to know what had been done,
what was in issue; two was how to get what is needed for particular
138
145
1IMMINVENCIftwIPVIKIIMin
libraries; and three, how to process and preserve the material ac-
quired.
We had invited 26 participants and six observers.
Although
this meeting was only two days we didn't take quite so long to re-
solve the problems.
War, this was called ostensibly to consider
the problems in finding, buying and controlling library material
relating to Latin America, and all that we - -although we considezed
that we have done very well in those two days - -had to do was to
extend, to explore a little bit further and a little more in depth
some of the complicated problems which turned up at that meeting.
Well, I suppose we might have expected that, like Parkinson's
Law, the problems increased at about the same rate that we dis-
cussed them.
Every time we got one problem resolved another five or
six turned up.
So we didn't hold just one meeting, but we have held
13 of them; but from the first meeting of the Seminar on the Acquisi-
tion of Latin American Library Materials we have given special
attention to the Caribbean.
And as Irene Zimmerman told us before,
we have had annual reports on Library and Bibliographic Activity,
some given by Enid Bea, some by Cepeda and some by others who know
what has been going on in the Caribbean in libraries and bibliograph-
ies.
One of our principal interests has beenche development of this
Pilot Bibliographic Center for the Caribbean, and our interest has
been very great in the Caribbean Regional Library in general.
We
have felt that considerably more funds were needed to be able to
achieve what we knew could be achieved, and where all the elements
were actually in existence for it to be achieved.
By 1968 we entered another period.
We found that there was
an awful lot that needed to be done, that the Seminar working as an
informal group of people that got together once a year by virtue of
4theeistle .A4.#441.6.
146
the little bit of money which Pan American Union devoted to publish-
ing the annual reports that there were other things that needed to
be done.
This takes a long time to work out so we organized, or we
incorporated, the Seminars last year, and, by January of this year,
we had formal recognition in the District of Columbia.
We have felt there were a number of publishing activities we
r.2eded to carry on, and I must report that one of the practical
things we have done since incorporation was the presentation to the
National Endowment for Arts and Humanities of the proposal for
cooperation with the Archives of the Indies.
The United States
Government would not have given a grant to Pan American Union as the
General Secretariat of an international organization, but as a govern-
ment agency, it could give it to a private non-profit corporation;
so the proposal for funds of $10,000.to hold a meeting of specialists
in Seville was presented in the name of the Seminars on Acquisition.
DurinA the first 13 meetings of the Seminars some 182 working
papers have been prepared.
This represents the greatest sources of
information on the book trade in Latin America and on Latin
American bibliography.
If anyone wants to study the problems of
the area and the accomplishments of the area, I think this is where
they will find the greatest treasure house of information.
We have published final reports of each of the seminars, many
of them are still in print.
Those which aren't in print are
available on microfiche by Microcards.
We have issued nine semi-
annual prints of NEWSLETTERS.
The semi-annual NEWSLETTER is an
attempt to find out who is doing new things in microfilming.
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117
This isn't any attempt to list all the microfilming because micro-
filming is listed by the Library of Congress Center.
Whim we first
started we were somewhat overawed by the Association of Research
Libraries and by their Farmington Plan,
for it took us two or
three years before we could tell the Association of Research
Libraries what we thought they should do as far as Latin America is
concerned.
And then there was a sub - committee that was formed to
revise the Farmington Plan in regard to Latin America.
Of course,
the Farmington Plan never aimed to do more than provide or be
assured of one copy in the United States of all important publica-
tions all over the world.
That one copy naturally was not going to
be sufficient to 130 different institutions maintaining Latin
American Studies programs, saying nothing of other research
institutfans.
So the problem was how to get current material, as we were
so concerned with retrospective material, how to be aware of
what was currently being published in Latin America; and there were
many institutions of course.which had been sending buyers L9 Latin
America to buy current publications on a one-time basis.
This didn%
always remain a continuing effort.
So at one point we suggested
that there should be some kind of cooperative acquisition agent that
would be sent to Latin America.
So the Library of Congress took the
cue and sent William Kurth to Latin America, and some 11 or 12
libraries contributed to paying his travel expenses in 1958.
Well,
he got so much information, and he also got so much cooperation on
I
the part of the book trade and sch9arly associations and institutions
publishing materials, that we decided that one of the most important
things was to maintain a cooperative acquisition agent in Latin
America.
All that is fine, except that libraries and universities
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i41
are not set up to pay salaries of other people to travel around
Latin America.
So we combined these two things, one the necessity
of having a cooperative acquisition agent, and two, the interest in
the book trade itself in providing service to libraries.
We decided
the most natural thing wo_ld be to ask Stechert-Hafner, Inc. to main-
tain a cooperative acquisition agent in Latin America.
We got them
at an unsuspecting moment, I guess, and they agreed to make an at-
tempt to do this.
We all felt it would cost a lot more money for
the first two or three years before they even made their expenses
much less a profit.
The first person sent to Latin America from
the Secretariat for the acquisition project was Dr. Nettie Lee Benson
from the library of the University of Texas.
Well, the University of
Texas couldn't lend her to a profit-making organization, so she was
actually contracted by the New York Public Library and she spent six
months, and her contract was renewed for anot%er six months, visiting
book publishers and other publishing enterprises in Latin America to
establish continuing relations.
And as a result of her going down
there, Stechert- 1nfner finally agreed to do this on a continuing
basis and they described the Latin American Cooperative Acquisition
Project (LACAP) in the following terms in their brochure: LACAP is a
cooperative enterprise which provides its participants with a steady
flow of printed material,: currently published in all the countries
of Latin America.
LACAP was organized in 1960 by the University of Texas, the New
York Public Library and Stechert Hafner, Inc. as a result of the
deliberations and recommendations of the Seminars on the Acquisi-
tion of Latin American Library Materials.
Stechert-Hafner, Inc.
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149
assumed the complete financial responsibility for the project for
the first several years.
LACAP was fortunate in securing services
of a leading Latin American librarian of the United States who could
travel throughout many countries to make necessary contacts with the
book world in Latin America, establish the basic organization pattern
for continuing services, and acquire what other publications were
available at the time.
By 1962 LACAP established the first regional
office in Bogota, Colombia.
A second office was opened in Rio de
Janeiro in 1967 to function in coordination with the Library of
Congress Title He program.
Well, by mid-1968 the number of subscribers to LACAP stood at
38, principally libraries in the United States, Australia, Canada,
Colombia and England.
The total number of imprints received for
1966 had increased about 102 over those of 1965, or slightly fewer
than 4,000 titles included at cost of slightly less than $18,000.
Now, they are assured of getting one copy of each of the new
titles LACAP imports from Latin America.
However, any library
which wishes to procure titles but not all of the publications
45-
which LACAP has to offer, or libraries which have well)established
exchange programs, can use the list which Stechert-Hafner pub-
lishes periodically, known as LATIN AMERICAN BOOKS, a listing of
current and retrospective materials.
An oft-eXpressed hope has been that LACAP would do more in the
Caribbean area, and that Stechert-Hafner Company cooperate with the
Caribbean Regional Library and libraries in the Caribbean to make
this possible.
In the conversation I have had with Dominick Coppola, he has
agreed or-is willing to consider any kind of assistance which
librarians in the Caribbean feel is necessary.
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The cause of cooperative acquisition of research materials on
Latin America received assistance from the federal government be-
ginning as early as 1958, with the passage of the National Defense
Educational Act (NDEA) which permitted grants to libraries for the
teaching of foreign languages.
In many foundation grants, and in
many selected universities of the United States, special Latin
American study subjects were set up in both NDEA funds and in
foundation grants.
To stimulate wider dissemination in the United States libraries
of works published in Latin America, the Hispanic Fehndation of -the
Library of Congress obtained a grant from the Ford Foundittion a few
years ago for the development of a national acquisition plan for
Latin America.
Stanley West was contracted by the Library,of Con-
gress to submit a national acquisition plan, and he did submit Vim
or three of the original plans.
One of the latest-efforts has
been the inclusion of a new title in the Higher Education Act,
which is called Network for Knowledge.
We have had some discussion
with the research branches of the federal government of the United
States Office of Education for the development of colOperative pro-
grams or information networks in Latin America.
We have been
hopeful that the federal government will actually give assistance
to the American Library Association for holding a national cotton
ference on information networks.
But at least the Office of
Education is fully aware of the effort of the American libraries to
acquire materials from Latin America, and they are aware of the
necessity of developing a network of information centers in the
United States on Latin America.
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7+7"..amairge
L
Another thing that has kept me busier than I might have been
otherwise has been the passage of the Bi-lingual Education Act,
Title VII, of last year's Elementary and Secondary Educational Art,
which permits the expenditure of millions of dollars to create bi-
lingual schools in the United States for Spanish-speaking school-
children.
The moral support of SALALM to the Library of Congress in
gratitude of the:Association of Research Libraries in promoting the
expansion of the: Higher Education Act to include Latin American
acquisition and cataloguing were expessed in resolutions of the
10th Seminar in 1965 and, as I mentioned before, the Library of Con-
gress has opened an office in Rio de Janeiro for the purpose of
IV
acquiring more materialWom Brazil.
In 1966 we opened. the office;
in the next six or eight months, two thousand Brazilian titles were
sent to the Library of Congress.
Brazilian libraries now are cata-
loguing this information and sending cards to the Library of Congress.
The conclusions of all this are the mere enormity of the prob-
lems of vastly increased production of all kinds of publications
and the higher costs of publication, the difficulty of cataloguing,
of bibliographic control of both old and new, and of a larger and
more exacting public to be served by libraries.
All this has
forced libraries in the United States into cooperative efforts
whether they want to or not; in order not to drown in the need of
publications
they have learned not only to swim themselves, but to
apply life-saving techniques to others.
The cooperative acquisition experiments and continuing programs
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in the United States not only can be used to advantage by librarians
in the Caribbean, but the experience--the success or failure - -in the
United States can be applied to similar programs in this area.
The
greater restrictions among libraries in the Caribbean in terms of
financial, bibliographic and human resources, make cooperation with-
out any question a basic requirement.
OR. DIX:
Thank you very much, Mrs. Shepard.
Any
you familiar in detail with any part of the history of cooperation
---
in the United States know how brilliant a jobMiS:Shepard has done,.
---
because it is a ing_and--tS'iiibly complex story.
Now, I think the
question here is what all of this has to do with us in this room.
In other words: is there anything this conference ought to say about
cooperative activities, further cooperative activities in this area
of acquisition and cataloguing? We have talked about the general
principle of ench island being centrally responsible for collecting
materials originating there.
The possibility of the Bibliographic
Center of the Caribbean Regional Library and its publication,
CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHYis there more that should be dis-
cussed here?
MRS. SHEPARD:
I am not sure whether anybody has a
copy of a report of the meeting held for the-Caribbean Regional
Library two years Igo.
That report designated which were key librar-
ies and what would be their major responsibilities, didn't they, Enid?
MISS BAA:
Yes.
?IR. BREEN:
Yes, I think in the original concept we
had a local agent having responsibility which we didn't spell out.
We were going to leave it up to the community to select one most
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important local agent.
MISS BAA:
I think one of the main difficulties with
this particular area has been simple lines of communication.
We
have been unable to communicate with each other.
Perhaps we should
try to make it easier for people to do this. If we can set up a
network of Telex-connected libraries it might speed up communica-
tions.
I think perhaps several people in this room from various
parts of the region may have these facilities near or at their con-
venience but are not aware of it.
I, for example, found that I can
use Telex or Telex equipment right in my department and this was only
evident two weeks ago.
I believe that the University of the West
Indies at Jamaica has Telex, and perhaps the Trinidad campus may
have it, too.
We can do a whole lot more in the way of tommunication
than in conventional writing of letters and waiting for the mailman
to bring them.
The telephone is also a speedy and worn efficient
medium.
DR. DIX:
I know nothing about the existence of any
Telex network in this area.
MR. McDONALD:
I can speak of their efficiency in
Connecticut, as we have an eleven-library teletypewriter pystem.
The
five academic libraries on the system have taken a further step in
the presence of teletype, and have gone so far as to fund the posi-
tion in the Yale library, which is the largest library on the network.
We feel we can approach our girl, let us call her that, there freely
for interlibrary loans and reference service.
The four libraries
that contribute to make this position available at Yale are the
University of Connecticut, West End University, Trinity
College and Connecticut College.
You can see
01.
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154
we are all very much smaller than Yale, have a great deal to gain by
this association and, yet, under this arrangemenewe are not impos-
ing as heavily as if we should be coming to them tithout this quid
pro quo.
Of course, we are a small area and the cost of Telex there
would he small compared to what it must cost here. Nevertheless, I
think it is. important to know what equipment alrerAy exists in the
region, as Miss Baa has said, and to learn how it could be used to
advantage.
DR. JORDAN:
I have investigated ttis, I know Telex
exists between St. Vincent and St. Augustine.
I mentioned to Miss
Baa that we will explore what is possible.
I certainly endorse Miss
Baa's point of view.
if we could maintain closer contact, it would
enhance cooperative efforts an awful lot.
1
MR. McDONALD:
It is ineVable that you will each
have some unique resources that the other will occasionally want.
But
we are finding Telex communication is good for library purposes.
You
get, for one thing, a written record you can't get by telephone, and
this is valuable.
It can be more accurate than something that comes
from word of mouth.
I don't know how fast your mail service is, cer-
tainly telecommunication would speed up that process of communication
and transfer of information.
DR. DIX:
Well, I think something like that must be
included in our recommendations.
Let us move on to the next topic.
I should like to stop on time.
We have a little less than 20 minutes
left.
Obviously we are not going to get library training and man-
power in, just as well take that in the morning.
None of these things can happen without people.
People are
important and are at the core of the whole thing: I don't want to
slight that.
On the other hand, I think if our recorder Mrs.
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Shepard does her work well late tonight, everything will be in gooi
order for tomorrow.
Let's devote a little time to preservation of
books and records - -Miss Robinson.
MISS ROBINSON:
May I just add two things to supple-
ment what was said about the Institute of Jamaica.
There are several
important things in the Botany Department of the Institute of
Jamaica I forgot to mention earlier, since scientific information
on natural history seems to be a little short in the area.
The
Institute has in addition to these microfilms special collections
which I mentioned.
It owns 75,000 specimens from all over the West
Indies, not just from Jamaica, but also from mainland zountries
around the Caribbean Sea.
It lends these specimens to accredited
institutions or researchers in other places.
We also have two very
important botaiical indices.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much.
All right, assuming
everything we have talked about works, we have the books --some of
the books that we need in some of these libraries and we have the
bibliographic apparatus for making it known and machinery for
getting them to the reader.
We turn our attention now, briefly,
to the problem of preservation of this material.
If the fungus
attacks it, it is no good eventually to anybody.
Mr. Alden has
special interest in this problem, and I have asked him to say a
word at least about the importance of preserving the original
material in answer to the microfilm people who want to film every-
thing.
This is one way, but there are some things that need to
be preserved in their original format.
Mr. Alden.
MR. ALDEN:
I am going to be brutally brief,
perhaps brutally frank.
To begin with, I hope.
that all of you
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in the process of collecting materials won't get discouraged just
because of the difficulty in getting the things that you think you
want.
Librarians should have a certair amount of humility, I think.
They should have the ability to envisage the needs of 50 years from
now.
If it is in print and you can get it, get it and don't say it
isn't worth keeping.
One of Mrs. Stephenson's impressive statements
is that she goes to the printers.
If it is in print, it is going
to be sociologically and historically valuable, and it is not for us
to make value judgements of this sort.
May I remind you tha4 t the
history of printing is a valid form of study and research ilAts own
right.
There are other fields of learning besides history, socio-
logy, science and literature.
There is also the history of
transmission of human thoughts in its own right.
Going on to the technique of book preservation, Actually the
problem of the Caribbean is not really different from that of the
rest of the world, there is a difference of degree.
Everything is
just a little more exaggerated in the Caribbean.
So, it is imperative that all librarians know something about
.
scientific techniques of book preservation that we have explored
and which has been so well set forth in the past 30 years.
Typical
of the problem is what Mr. Wagner pointed out about the exhibit
cases.
The fluorescent tubes will perhaps destroy materials because
of ultra-violet waves and the heat which the tubes in the cases give
off is destructive to materials.
That ie just a typical example.
I.
hope that Ann Richter will find someone to bring out a new recision
of LIBRARY CARE OF BOOKS which will give you the guiding principles.
I have brought down from Boston Plumbe's book on THE PRESERVA-
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TION OF BOOKS IN TROPICAL AND SUB-TROPICAL COUNTRIES.
I can't
really recommend it, it is simply a series of expedients, solving
one problem while ignoring aother.
To have a research collection
in the tropics these days and not to have air conditioning is a
contradiction of terms.
Air conditioning is absolutely essential.
So much has been said of photocopying reproduction and Xerox
here that I find it necessary to refer to an article on the subject
of photo-reproduction and preservation in the LIBRARY JOURNAL for
November 1, 1966.
I am afraid, in using photo-reproduction, librar-
ians are frequently. naive.
it is very good to put a book, magazine,
or newspaper on microfilm but, let's face it, microfilm is no more
permanent than a well-printed book on decent paper.
It is a mistake
to use the master negative as a reading copy, all reading should be
done from a print from the master negative and the master negative
itself preserved in specified conditions of temperature and humidity.
We should be careful not to use rubber bands around master negatives.
We forget there is sulphur in the master negative and this will des-
troy it.
We go on to talk about Xeroxing.
Anyone who is experienced
with Xeroxing of material knows that you can make direct Xeroxing of
a book without damaging it.
It is naive to think that making Xerox
copies will serve as reproduction and preservation because, unless
you use proper paper, your Xerox copy is going to fade.
I will say
that University Microfilms uses prints that have some life.
As librarians we are humanists and too frequently ignore the
g
findiw of scientists, but the time has come when people have to
defer to the scientist to do their own job better, and to respect
scientists for their knowledge.
DR. DIX:. Now, suppose we hear Mr. Rervieu's comments
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on this subject and discuss the two together.
HR. HERVIEU: (Through interpreter)
The title of the
paper is "The Conservation of Books and Documents in the Antilles".
The conservation and preservation of books and documents in the
Antilles demands more attention than in most other geographical
areas in the world since one has to deal continually with the ef-
fects of the tropical climate, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
The prevention (i.e., conservation and preservation) and, if
necessary, the cure (i.e., restoration) are the two tasks of the
librarian or archivist in the Antilles.
I will examine both aspects
and will describe the method used in Guadeloupe for restoration.
1. Preservation.
A. The matrix (composition of the written or printed document).
It will not be necessary here to discuss papyrus and parchment which
cannot be preserved in the Antilles unless exceptional precautions
are taken.
The Archives in Guadeloupe include only two documents on
parchment.
Thus, only paper is of interest.
Paper is basically made
of cellulose obtained from various vegetable sources such as rags
(linen, hemp, or cotton), tree bark, special grasses, or wood (coni-
fers or other trees such as the elm).
The resistance of paper to aging varies with its composition; it
has been shown that paper containing mostly cellulose (cellulose which
is insoluble in a solution of 17.5% sodium hydroxide) is much more
durable.
A high humidity causes paper to hydrolize and to crumble.
Thus, it is important to be able to control and lower the relative
humidity; in other words, to air-condition.
Moreover, the degree of
acidity of paper affects its durability.
Modern paper is by and
large fairly acidic, which results in lower resistance to aging.
15?
159
One should also worry about the acidity of the ink used.
In
the second part, the importance of acid neutralization in the
restoration process shall be pointed out.
B. The enemies of books and documents: the destructive agents.
Man is probably the most destructive agent but, in the Antilles,
one is mostly concerned with the fight against humid heat and its
direct consequences, insects, and mold.
The humid and tropical climate of the Antilles which, in
general, means temperatures higher than 72° F. and a relative
humidity of more than 65% (sometimes reaching 95%), causes a
physical and chemical deterioration of paper as a result of the
hydrolysis of cellulose.
In addition, one has to face a biological
deterioration in the form of mold.
Finally, paper is attacked by
insects such as termites, silverfish, cockroaches, and boring
worms which, from my experience in Guadeloupe, seem to be more
dangerous than termites.
The best preventive measure against all these enemies, as is
well known, is air conditioning which brings the temperature down
to about 70° F. and the humidity down to 50%.
Of course, the use
of insecticides is also necessary, ethylene oxide in an autoclave
is both insecticidal and fungicidal.
I can offer two practical
recipes for leather bound volumes:
1) Always use a glue containing
an insecticide and 2)
Maintain the leather with a special cream,
Creme 212, manufactured in Paris.
Other animals are also dangerous, such as rodents; but only
when the archives are left untended for a long time.
One sheuldn't forget fire which, in the past, has certainly
been the most destructive agent of books and documents, not only of
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itself but mostly by the water used to combat it.
In Guadeloupe,
the fire of 1955 in the Archive Department was not very destructive;
but employees spent later nearly five years drying the documents.
One should use dry chemicals against fire, such as sodium bicar-
bonate and, as a preventive, metal shelves or treated wooden
shelves.
Finally, hurricane, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions have
caused grave destructions in the Antilles, particularly in the
French Antilles.
Protection by architectural means will be used
against the first two.
2. Restoration.
Paper deteriorated by insects, humidity, mold or fire, if not
renovated, must be at least protected against all future attacks.
It must therefore be restored.
There are various restoration processes, some classic and
traditional, using a starch paste as adhensive to repair the
damaged docUment and others more modern, involving plastics.
However, paste is sensitive to humidity and, in general, plastics
do not age well.
This is why current methods used by librarians
as well as archivists-call for materials which have long proven
their stability and innocuousness (i.e., cellulose acetate and
tissue paper).
There exist other well proven restoration processes
but they are expensive; the best known is the Barrow process.
Un-
fortunately, it calls for equipment which is too expensive for the
archives or libraries. of the.Antilles, where financial resources
are generally limited.
Only one method, the "Indian method",
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161
which involves lamination at ambient temperatures and which was
developed in India by M. Y.P. Kathpalia, appears to be suitable
because of its low cost.
Its usefulness was demonstrated by M.
athpalia and M. Y. Perotin (see BULLETIN D'INFORMATION SUR LA
PATHOLOGIE DES DOCUMENTS ET LEUR PROTECTION AUX ARCHIVES DE FRANCE,
no.1, 1961, p.32-34).
This method, as well as the former one by
Barrow, assumes that the document to be restored has been previously
neutralized.
There are several neutralization methods; at the
Archives of. Guadeloupe, we use a single bath in a solution prepared
by adding 40g. of magnesium carbonate per 20 litres of water (or one
pound per 55 gallons) and through which carbon dioxide has been
bubbled.
After having been bathed and dried, the documents are then
sandwiched between two sheets of cellulose acetate and two sheets of
tissue paper.
The sandwich is then dipped in acetone through an
apparatus with rubber rollers powered by an electrical device.
This
process was developed in Paris at the Archives of the Department of
Seine ( "India 7").
The acetone dissolves the cellulose acetate
which brings the document and the tissue paper in contact.
Finally,
all that remains is to place the restored document in a press be-
tween two sheets of transparent paper.
It should be noted that it is easy to restore books in this way
since one many initially prepare sheets by uniting two pages in the
same sandwich.
DR. DIX:
Thank you, Mr. Hervieu and Mr. Caron.
I
think we shall recess for the day, and I remind you all of our
social engagement tonight.
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162
MARCH 19, 1969. 9 A.M.
DR. DIX:
I think we must. get started.
To reassure
any of you that have plans to catch a plane and so forth, I pro-
mise that we snail adjourn at twelve o'clock no matter what, give
or take a few minutes.
Today we will move right in to the one
item left over yesterday: manpower and training.
I hope that we
can finish this by coffee break.
Mr. Gocking, will you start
right in?
MR. GOCKINGY
I was asked to be ready to speak
about manpower and training in relation to libraries in the West
Indies which I have interpreted to mean in the territories served
by the University.of the West Indies, and formerly grouped under the
name of British West Indies.
There is really no apt term to describe them as a group
any
longer and perhaps they are no longer a group in any proper sense
of the word, which indeed is now a major consideration for them and
for the. University in their mutual relations.
First, a word about terms.
Terms can have very devious pro-
perties
you have just seen me stumble over nue.
Two others that
I have been obliged to use cause me to stumble also, but for a dif-
ferent reason:
"manpower" and "training".
Occasionally I use them
both myself but recognizing and grudgingly acceding to defeat,
particularly in the word "manpower'.
After two centuries of indus-
trial revolution, we have become habituated and unconsciously use
the word "horsepower" as an index for the amount of power man has
been able to generate.
Training is inseparable from manpower and vice versa.
If man-
power is to be a unifi-input and output, it must be reasonably
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163
constant at least in specific functions.
Man must be trained to
perform particular kinds of functions, up to predetermined and
measurable standards satisfactory for the time being.
There is
much sense in this, and also something dangerous; because training
cannot denote a system of securing a desired response by exerting
a kind of force other than by winning consent and understanding.
I do not think or believe, myself. that these two terms can
be honestly dismissed as mere trickery or personal idiosyncracies.
The library can go no further.
The library is essentially a human
institution and it is important that we speak in humane terms of
the library and the kind of education librarians should hive, that
they be fit to render service.
They continue to speak about the supply of librarians in the
West Indies and of their professional education.
I think you will
understand me well enough.
May I say heie that, continuing in the
context in which libraries are said to be, I have thought of tell-
ing you if there had been time of something of the human efforts
made in the British West. Indies in the last 25 years, patticularly
to bring their libraries up to modern standards and even to cast a
very quick glance back to one hundred years ago to see where they
started, with what limitations.
I think I might have to forego that.
DR. DIX:
Don't forego very much.
MR. GOCKING:
I thought, too, it was quite a de-
liberate and unusual opportUnity for exchange of information.
Perhaps it wouldn't come'amiss if I very briefly--from my own
personal knowledge, not documenting the paper--gave you historical
1 57
164
documents of libraries of the West Indies.
This is where the man-
.power needs to be rooted in this area.
The much criticized colonial system brought public libraries
to the West Indies almost simultaneously with the libraries in
England.
The Barbados Library was established in 1847, and Trinidad
Public Library in 1851.
Libraries in Jamaica were founded about
the same date and, during the second half of the 19th century,
most of the islands in the Eastern Caribbean had their own little
public libraries.
Of course, they were not public libraries in
the modern sense, but subscription libraries, very modest, sup-
ported from public funds.
They existed frankly for small educated
elites able and willing to pay them a modest subscription fee for
the kind of service they provided.
Their minute funds hardly sufficed. for a limited number of
fashionable magazines, anti some novels and biographies and the
like.
Nevertheless, in the course of their existence, they
managed somehow to gather certain bodies of local West Indian
material, since becoming greatly valuable, although they took
insufficient means to preserve them.
They were staffed with
only one person, often a poorly educated one in relation to
modern education, thus a sort of janitor.
On occasion, there
was one better.
They served a useful purpose through
individual. devotion and public spirit, and they
I SR
165
C
began to employ not only one person but two, sometimes three, even
four.
That is manpower.
This state of affairs continued to the outbreak of World War II,
but about a decade before that, problems intervened.
Unremarked at
the time as usual, and in an unexpected guise, it took the form of
a ghost or spirit
Andrew Carnegie,
the great benefactor of
libraries.
You all know about benefactors in the United States
and the United Kingdom; but there was also a Carnegie Corporation
of New York, which was responsible for other parts of the British
Empire which then existed.
Somehow they got to hear about the West
Indies and, very discreetly, got the Colonial Office in London to
agree to their sending somebody to investigate the libraries in the
area.
It was Dr. Ernest Savage who departed on December 31st,
1932,
for the West Indies, and went through them very carefully and des-
cribed the condition of the libraries.
He wrote a report to the
Carnegie Corporation which is a basic reference book for the
British West Indian libraries.
This report was given to the Library
Association in London in 1934.
It is called THE LIBRARIES OF
BERMUDA, THE BAHAMAS, THE BRITISH WEST INDIES, BRITISH GUIANA,
BRITISH HONDURAS, PUERTO RICO, AND THE AMERICAN VIRGIN ISLANDS: A
REPORT TO THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION OF NEW YORK.
After a great deal
of difficulty the Carnegie Corporation sent $70,000 to put this
scheme into effect.
DR. DIX:
Thank you very much, Sir.
That was a
very admirable summary and projection of needs.
Will you go right
ahead with your summary, Dr. DeRosa?
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166
DR. DE ROSA:
Puerto Rico, an island in the Carib-
bean with an area of approximately 3,421 square miles and a popu-
lation-of 2,739,000 inhabitants is in an upsurge of social,
intellectual and economic development.
For this conference, our
prime interest is the problem related to library services on the
island.
University and College Libraries.
Our government and some
private institutions are aware of the great demand for better
institutional library services and the professional personnel
needed to maintain them.
The existing institutional library ser-
vices may be classified in two groups: governmental and private,
The governmental institutions--the University of Puerto Rico with
its main campus in RI° Piedras, one campus in Mayaguez, and
another in San Juan--had to organize three regional Colleges, in
Humacao, Arecibo and Cayey, each one with a well-organized library.
Plans have been made to establish at least two additional regional
colleges; their locations have not been decided as yet, but pro-
bably one will be in the San Juan area and the other in the Ponce
area.
Among our private universities
and colleges we can mention:
Catholic University of Puerto Rico, with its main campus in Ponce
and regional colleges in Bayamon, Arecibo, Aguadilla, Caguas,
Guayana and Mayaguez; Sacred-Heart University College in Santurce;
Inter-American University with its main campus in San German and
branches in Hato Rey, Aguadilla, Arecibo, Bayamon, Cayey, Fajardo,
Guayama, Barranquitas, Las Merles, Humacao, Ponce, Ramey Field
(Aguadilla) and San Lorenzo; and the Puerto Rico Junior College in
Cupey, Rio Piedras'Yilth branches in Caguas and Rio Piedras.
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1 r
As universities and colleges open and expand, the logical con-
sequence is that libraries will have to
strengthen their resources
and personnel and that new libraries will have to be established:
This has created and will continue to create a great demand for
professional librarians, as well as non-professional personnel.
There is no problem with the non-professional group as our univei
sities are graduating an average of 5,000 students annually.
Of all university libraries, the largest one is'the General
Library of the University of Puerto Rico, R10 Piedras campus.
For
that reason this is the place where the majority of professional
librarians are working.
They have faculty status and equal
salaries.
The number of professional librarians is more or less
the same today as it was in 1961.
On the other hand, the number of
students on the three campusrs has increased 59%, and 14 new
graduate programs have been established.
We have to consider also that just now we are expanding and
remodelling our General Library in Rio Piedras, with the aid of
federal funds and at a cost of $4 million.
This project will triple
the capacity of our stacks and seats as well as personnel.
The Inter-American University in San German and the Catholic
University in Ponce will have new library buildings in the near
future.
The Catholic University's library will cost about $1.3
million.
They expect their building to be ready for next summer.
The Inter-American University's library will cost between $2 and
$2.5 million, the definite date for its opening is still unknown.
In other words, the whole panorama of the university libraries
system is one with great manpower needs, needs that ought to be
fulfilled for the benefit of the whole library system and for the
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168
benefit of the whole library system and for the benefit of the edu-
cational program of the island.
School and Public Libraries.
Mrs. de Cardona has already
given you the statistical development of public and school library
systems as administered by the Department of Public Instruction.
The requirements for certification for school librarians are
these:
experience as a school teacher for at least two years and
accumulation of 15 credits in Library Science.
With these qualifi-
cations they obtain a certificate as school librarian.
A high
percentage of our school librarians have this certificate; few of
them have the master's degree.
Standards should be raised and
incentives should be provided so as to encourage these persons to
pursue advanced studies.
If the Graduate School of Library Science
at the University of Puerto Rico, Rfo Piedras campus, opens, this
will be an excellent opportunity for those interested in contin-
uing advanced studies.
The development of public libraries has been more rapid than
the school libraries, as we have already said.
They have taken
advantage of the financial federal aid to promote organization of
libraries and strengthen their collections.
The problem of
personnel is the same as we find in the school library program.
The highest percentage of non-professional librarians is fouglek in
these libraries.
The only requisite to apply for a position in
these libraries is to pass a test given by the Office of Personnel
of Puerto Rico.
Some of the categories of these non-professional
'librarians require the bachelor's degree, but in other cases not.
Standards and salaries should be raised also in the personnel of
the public libraries so as to improve the services rendered.
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169
School lliorary recommendations:
1. The establishment of 50
school libraries per year.
2. The creation of 50 positions of
school librarian per year for the next 12 years (to 1980).
3. The
creation annually of 25 positions of school librarians' assistants.
They will work Efter the regular class periods until 9:30 P.M.
Public library recommendations:
1. The establishment of 10
public libraries annually for the next four years.
2. The creation
of 10 positions of library assistants annually until the pro-
fessional personnel is available,
Besides these recommendations, the four years program also
provides for an annual increase of 6 libraries in public housing
projects, 60 in rural libraries, 12 in special libraries, and, for
bookmobiles, one per year for 1969-70, 1970-71, 1971F72.
The
total recommendation of the different types of libraries is 138 for
the first year and 139 for subsequent years.
Spacial libraries:
Our next topic of discussion will be that
of special libraries.
This type of library is scattered all over;
we find them in private commercial associations and organizations,
such as banks, publishing firms, conettEitien companies, government
agencies, municipal, insular or federal, and professional or social
associations and organizations.
As a general rule, although there
are exceptions, they are small libraries, specializing in certain
subjects of interest, and usually librarians working in them (in
Puerto Rico) are non-professional.
Salaries paid are too low and
they cannot compete with other libraries.
Some of the government
libraries are among the exceptions.
They are in a much better
position than the rest of the group.
Their book collections are
larger, they have more personnel; some have profeseional librarians
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170
and salaries are higher.
One of the most important special government libraries is that
of the Caribbean Economic Development Corporation, usually called
CODECA from its Spanish name: Corporation de Desarrollo Economico
del Caribe.
This library is well known among all those interested
in the Caribbean region, for its valuable resources in Caribbean
subjects for study and research.
The library is under a profess-
ional librarian, Mrs. Paulita Maldonado de la Torre, who was to
have participated in this conference but for reason of illness is
not with us.
As most of you already know, we had the privilege of having
Miss Enid Bea, Director of Libraries and ftseums of the Department of
Education, Virgin Islands of the United States, and one of the mem-
bers of the cnnference planning committee, as director of CODECA's
library, too.
Both of them, Miss Baa and now Mrs. De la Torre,
backed by Pan American Union, have worked hard in trying to estab-
lish a Regional Bibliographic Center for the Caribbean in this
library.
This Center, if established, can be the answer to many of
the problems of the Caribbean libraries and others..
Other libraries worthy to be mentioned in this classification
are the ones of the: Supreme Court, Economic Development Administra-
tion, Government Development Bank, and Legislative Assembly of Puerto
Rico.
Most of them are in great need of professional librarians and
some need additional non-professional personnel.
One of the main
obstacles to their development is this need for trained professional
librarians; but, before this can be solvel, measures will have to be
adopted to revise the salary scale provided by the government.
Marie,* are too low and there are no incentives for the professional
group working in the libraries
Other private organigations-or-aa00410;19P4 haVing outstand-
ing
.
special libraries *rep loleen deAlogidoiaS::fterto Rico,
Associati6n Medica de PuertO Rico, Atent0 PuertOrriquela
and the
daily newspaper, RL MUNDO.
Training.
One problem common to all of our libraries, as we
have seen, is the lack of trained personnel.
In Puerto Rico, per-
sons interested in obtaining their professional degree usually go
to the United States.
Every year our Department of Education has
been uabla to find qualified available candidates to take generous
scholarships offered for this purpose.
The general outcry has been
to try to establish a Graduate School of Library Science in our
University of Puerto Rico, Rfo Piedras campus.
Universities and Colleges.
The College of Education of the
University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, has been giving for
some years a program of 18 credit hour courses in Library Science, at
the bachelor's level.
Our Department of Education grants a certifi-
cate of school librarian to teachers who have completed at leaSt 15
hours of credit.
The majority of our school librarians have this
certificate, although there are a few.with the master's degree.
Besides what the University of Puerto Rico is doing on the
Rfo Piedras campus, the Mayaguez campus and some of the regional
colleges are cooperating also in upgrading the status of school
librarians.
In the Regional College of Humacao, the basic courses
for school librarianA certificate have been given for some years.
Because of the lack of professional librarians this training was dis-
continued.
At present, these courses are given on the Mayaguez
campus and in the Regional College of Arecibo.
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172
The Mayaguez campus has also sponsored conferences, lectures
and seminars.
Just recently a small group of librarians had the
opportunity to attend a seminar on automation.
Automation is the
key word for future library development.
The Mayaguez campus has
great plans on this subject and has taken the lead in it.
Private universities and colleges share with the government
university the task of preparing school librarians.
The Catholic
University in Ponce has a program of seven courses, with a total
of 21 credits in Library Science.
The personnel of this library
also offer counseling on library matters to those interested in the
subject.
The Sacred Heart University College in Santurce, an institution
at university level, gave during past years six courses in Library
Science.
The purpose was to prepare school librarians also.
This
program was discontinued last year.
The Puerto Rico Junior College is very active in the training
of librarians.
It is a coeducational college and was the first of
its kind to be established in the island and in the Caribbean area,
in May, 1949, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico.
It offers two.different
programs: one leads to an.A.S. associate in Science) and the other
is a three-year educational program by which the student can work as
a teacher in the. elementary schools, or as a school librarian.
Students taking this last program can complete their bachelor's
degree in education or study advanced courses in Library Science.
The program for the Associate in Science is a two-year program,
and it gives the student a w411-rounded cultural background and also
the specialized courses in Library Science.
The curriculum pre-
pares the student for positions as library assistants in public and
private libraries.
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173
Department of Education 65 Puerto Rico.
The Library Services
Division of the Department 67 Education bas a special practical
training program for public librarians before they start to work.
As we have said before, they are non-professional librarians, most
of them having the basic information needed to fulfill their duties.
School librarians also have a special training before they
take xharge of their libraries.
By means of conferences, lectures,
seminars and workshops they are trained in the different library
techniques.
It is a continuous educational program as library
problems arise.
General Library of the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras
Campus.
To meet the demand for professional librarians, the General
Library has been sending persons to the United States to study for
their master's degrees.
Usually they send two non-professionals,
members of their staff, and the University of Puerto Rico gives them
scholarships.
This program has been in effect for many years and
the great majority of our present professionals have benefited from
this program.
The other campuses of the University of Puerto Rico
have similar programs.
Our Library has also sent members of their personnel to attend
special seminars in the United States and other countries, especial-
ly those seminars related to automation.
At present we are not
mechanized but we are studying the whole situation and making plane,
especially for ordering, circulation and cataloguing.
In a preliminary step for our Graduate School of Library
Service, the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus, started
in January, 1968, to give some courses in Library Science at the
graduate level.
This was made possible by arrangements between our
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174
Director of Libraries, Miss Josefina del Toro, and the Graduate
Library School of-the University of the State of New York at Albany,
New York.
This made it possible for two visiting professors from
Albany to come to our University ^u give the courses.
This program
was continued with great success during the summer of 1968.
Institute of. Library Science.
An initial step to the creation
of this school was the organization of an Institute in Library
Science for 25 participants, in late August.
A proposal was sub-
mitted to the U.S. Office of Education, recommending to offer an
itititute in Library Science at a graduate level, to 25 participants.
The proposal, with a total budget of $211,358, was approved.
The
program started in August, 1968, and will be finished in July, 1969.
Each participant receives $75. weekly plus $15. for each dependent,
if any.
The regulations for this Institute are the same as for
other accredited library schools.
The Institute ,requires a program of 36 advanced credit hours.
Of these, 30 must-be in post-graduate courses in Library Science
and the other six electives, which will supplement the subject
specialization of the student.
Participants of the Institute have had the privilege of having
as lecturers distinguished personalities in the library field.
To
give you an idea of the lecturers and the subjects discussed, we
will include a list.of the lecturers that have been or will be
speaking:
October 30, 1968 - Library Problems of Multi-Campus Universi-
ties, by Dr. Michael Reynolds, formerly
Director of the Regional Campus Libraries,
University of Indiana.
December 2, 1968 - Professional Status of Librarians, by Dr.
Robert B. Downs, Dean of. Library
Administration, University of Illinois.
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175
January 16, 1969
February 19, 1969
- University Libraries of Latin, America, by
Professor William V. Jackson, Library
School, University of Pittsburgh.
- International Aspects of Librarianship,
hy Dean Nasser Sharify, Pratt Institute,
Sbilool of Librarianship (formerly Head of
Office of International Librarianship,
State University of New York).
March 16, 1969 -
Education for Librarianship in the United
States, by Dr. Lester E. Asheim, Director,
Office for Library Education, American
Library Association.
March 19, 1969 -
Library Developments in Federal City College,
Washington, D.C., by Director Robert T.
Jordan, Office of Media Services,
Federal City College.
April
, 1969 - Mrs. Marietta Daniels Shepard, Associate
Librarian, Pan American Union.
The Institute is under the able leadership of Dr. Thomas E.
Benner, ex-Chancellor of our University and now assistant to the
President
the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Jaime Benitez.
Participants of the Institute will get a certificate accredit-
ing the graduate studies they have done in Library Science.
Eventually, when the Graduate School of Library Service is estab-
lished, these certificates will be considered for confirmation as
an equivalent to a master's degree.
Sociedad de Bibliotecarios.
The Sociedad de Bibliotecarios de
Puerto Rico, organized in 1961 by a group of enthusiastic librarians,
adopted as one of its main objectives, to promote the establishment
of a Graduate School of Library Services.
Recently--March 7 and 8,
to be exact--we had our annual convention.
We had the privilege to
have with us our Honorable Governor, Mr. Luis A. Ferre, and our
Secretary of Education, Dr. Ramon Mellado.
In their messages their
interest in the promotion of libraries was received with great en-
thusiasm and ptide by the members.
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176
The Socity's activities and attainments for such a short
period of existence are surprising.
Besides promoting the estab-
lishment of a Graduate Library School, the Society has sponsored
conferences, workshops, brief talks and lectures; it was responsible
for the study made by Miss Mary Gaver of Rutgers University, and ex-
President of the American Library Association, and Mr. Gonzalo
Velazquez, Director of the Library Services Division of the Depart-
ment of Education on "School Libraries of Puerto Rico".
It is re-
sponsible also for organizing a very active committee for the
betterment of libraries in Puerto Rico, for creating a fund for
scholarships for graduate studies in Library Science, and for pub-
lishing a Bulletin (although its appearance is irregular).
It
prepared and published a guide to the libraries of Puerto Rico; it
has revised zgaary scales and position classification schemes for
the Departmen't. of Education and the Puerto Rico Junior College, and
it has promoted library legislation, among other things.
The Graduate School of Library Service.. The establishment of a
Graduate Library School in Puerto Rico has been promoted by several
worthy friends of the cause.
Among them we should like to mention
the valuable help that Pan American Union, especially Mrs. Marietta
Daniels Shepard, has given to the organization of the school.
Also
we can mention the untiring help of Dr. Thomas E. Benner, who never
knows the words "no" or "impossible"; Dr. Robert Burgess of the
State University of New York, for his valuable work as advisor, and
equally important, our Director of Libraries, Mies Josefina del
Toro, who has worked really hard on this project.
The proposal for the establishment of the Graduate School of
Library Sertice has been presented to the University's authorities.
170
177
S
Although then. is not a definite acceptance of it as yet, plans have
been made to open the School by August, 1969.
Right now, applica-
tions for admission are being accepted.
Without too much advertise-
ment, already we have received applications from as far away as
Ecuador and India.
I have brought some of these forms; if anyone is
interested in having one, please see me after the meeting.
The basic requirements for admission are: 1) a bachelor's de-
gree in arts or science, 2) a minimum average of 2.5 (scale A-4,B-3,
C-2,D-1,F-0) and 3) to have demonstrated an interest and capacity
for library work.
Candidates must be able to understand and read
the English and Spanish languages.
Classes will be given in Spanish,
but most of the textbooks to be used are in the English language.
In our University, the language of instruction is Spanish, as
our first lat,scage is Spanish.
But also we have to understand and
read the Engliah language.
Many of our faculty members are English-
speaking, and most textbooks used are in the English language.
Some
courses are given in the English language; it all depends on the
language mastered by the professor, and if students all speak and
understand the same language.
Regulations are flexible in this
respect.
It will not be possible for our Graduate School of Library
Service to put into effect this plan as there are limitations of
teaching personnel in the beginning.
The School's faculty will be two full-time-professors and the
Director, who will have a part -time teaching job.
In the future
the staff will be increased.
The School will be located in a new
annex that has been built adjoining the General Library of the
University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus.
DR. DIX:
Thank you.
Miss Bea.
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178
MISS BAA:
In regard to manpower and professional
training in the Virgin Islands, when we consider the personnel
shortage on the continent, I figure that we are very fortunate
here in the Virgin Islands.
First, because of the climate and
people who like to come to this climate to work, we can get the
benefit of many librarians who come from the United States to re-
side here.
So, with a population of 64,000 more or less, and a
school population of some 13,000 or 14,000, we find that we have
a surprising number of trained librarians, and one in each of the
school libraries.
In the public libraries we have already five or
six trained librarians which I think is an exceedingly good pro-
portion.
Perbat-s we also have potential for additional trained
librarian, because I have a number of applications from mainland
librarians who are very anxious to come here even before they have
completed Library School.
DR. DIX:
This is a good point that occurred to me.
As I see it, up in the cold climate
o some of us live, we see
people paying enormous amounts of money to enjoy their vacations in
this beautiful area.
You have something working for you there.
MISS BAA:
That is one reason, and the other is
that our salary scale for librarians is practically on the same
standard with national scales.
DR. DIX:
I think we perhaps better take our break
here.
Now, Mrs. Shepard, I know, will have something later on
specific recommendations, a summary on this library training and
172
1
C
manpower situation.
So, let us take one moment for our coffee
break and come backend address ourselves to this summary.
(AFTER COFFEE BREAK)
May we come to order,
please.
Now we come to the heart of
the matter, the moment of truth when we find out what we have
said.
Let me put what we are and what we are about to do in the
proper context.
This body, of course, has no status.
It is an
ad hoc group, it wasn't convened to make recommendations to
anyone.
On the other hand, some record of the matters is very much
worth reporting and passing on to the appropriate people that
should receive it..
I'll ask MrsShepard to read theie conclusions and I'll ask
each of you to interrupt to ask to speak if you think some
different interpretation should be put upon what was said lo,tre,
any amendments or additions, and when we get all through, Y will
simply attempt to find out if the group as a whole is prepared to
say we agree on these points.
That seems like a fair ground
rule.
MRS. SHEPARD:
I would think it might be well for
youyou to jot down any modification that you consider should be
incorporated into a final set of these resolutions as far as
wording or contents is concerned.
Also, I am suggesting that you
let me know if you want to receive information on SALALM.
I have no pride of authorship so, if I have misconstrued
what some of you have said,
I hope you will let me know.
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180
1. That each institution in the Caribbean strive to maintain a
maximum of self-sufficiency in library resources in accordance with
the purpose of each institution, that it give special attention to
the collection of local materials, and that it share its resources
with other institutions and their users by engaging in cooperative
projects aimed at making maximum use of existing resources and by
providing inter-library loan service.
2. That the benefits of modern technology and automation be
utilized to the fullest degree which is feasible to bring theft
holdings of libraries and archives into a better state of organiza-
tion, preservation and utilization.'
3. That efforts be made locally to get the support of law-
makers for the passage of legal deposit laws wherever necessary,
and for the deposit of official publications in key libraries of
the region and elsewhere; that improved programs be put into effect
for the international exchange of publications as well, and for
national and local planning for improved library services; and that
libraries cited for legal deposit make increased efforts to achieve
enforcement of such laws as well as current bibliographies of such
materials.
4. (a) That renewed efforts be made to carry out the recom-
mendations of the 1967 conference on the Pilot Bibliographical
Center for the Caribbean, so as to assure the continuance of the
Caribbean Regional Library to serve that function and to coordinate
'cooperative library and bibliographic aCtivities;(b) to experiment
with and assess the results of automation in the regular and up-to-
date production of the CURRENT CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY (CCB) in
machine-readable form for publication and for the preparation of
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181
specialized and national listings of data stored; (c) to train
librarians for regional cooperative programs of locating, record-
ing, and cataloging local materials for inclusion in the CCB; and
to provide photocopying services for Caribbean current and retro-
spective materials.
5. That funding agencies be encouraged to provide. adequate
financial support for bibliographic projects and other cooperative
activities in the Caribbean to make maximum use of available re-
sources.
6. That recognition be riven to the Government of Puerto Rico
and to CODECA for their support of the Caribbean Regional Library
for study and research purposes, and that hope be expressed that it
extend its financial support for the purposes for which the
library was entrusted to Puerto Rico.
7. That steps be taken to initiate the Pilot Acquisitions
Project restricted to the area of the English-speaking Caribbean,
as proposed at the 1967 conference.
8. That the means be sought to carry out a new survey of
library and archival resources of the region, whether public or pri-
vate, business, ecclesiastical, family, personal or other types,
which would seek not only usual directory information but, data on
special collections and special types of materials such as archival
documents, manuscripts, theses, microfilm and other types of
reproduced materials, serial holdings, newspaper clippings, local
materials, special reports, old maps and prints, drawings and sur-
veys, photographs, autographs, incunabula and rare books; and
identify the areas of specialization of each institution.
1 7 '
182
9.
That the SALALM Committee on Acquisitions add to its list
in prom-els of second-hand bookdealers the names of booksellers in
the Caribbean and elsewhere handling both current and retrospective
materials.
10. That librarians and scholars unite to prepare guides to the
location of Caribbean materials in repositorieSof the region and
elsewhere, to complement the guides to archival materials in Europe
and North America, and that the Pan American Institute of. Geography
and History be invited to give special attention to the Caribbean
area.
11.
That the conclusions of the forthcoming conference on
public libraries sponsored by CODECA and the. Virgin Tslands Public
Library, and the Conference of University and Research Librarians
to he held in Mav/June, and the pre-SALALM meeting of Caribbean
librarians in June be transmitted to the participants of this
conference.
12.
That academic librarians or the region make their needs as
well as their activities known in such conferences as the recent
meeting of Pectors of Caribbean Universities, so as to ach!.eve
increased status and support for library services.
13.
That librarians collaborate in the creation of local and
regional union catalogues of holdings of libraries in the Carib-
bean area f:o facilitate inter-library loan or photoreproduction of
materials needed for research, and that attention be given to the
subject as well ss author approach to the materials.
14.
Phat wherever possible centralized cataloging services
be provided by key libraries in the Laribbean as a means of over-
coming the cataloguing manpower shortage and of increasing the
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183
efficiency of the libraries involved, as well as achieving an
increased stamlardization of cataloguing information.
15.
That Caribbean librarians cooperate in drawing up
various kinds of lists, such as a list of the principal subject
fields of interest to them, such as slavery and emancipation,
interracial relations, plantation life and problems, tropical
agriculture, oceanography, fishing and other regional industries,
political parties, trade unions, tourist trade, and similar topics.
16.
That librarians in the Caribbean area cooperate with the
SALALM Committee on Acquisitions to compile a list of regular
library accessions of local materials and those of the Caribbean
region to supplement current bibliographies of the region.
1U.
That funding agencies be encouraged to provide adequate
funds to assure the continuance and expansion of the CURRENT
CARIBBEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY in machine-readable format as well as in
printed form acid to permit the Caribbean Regional Library at
CODECA to continue to experiment with automation so that its re-
sults may be useful in similar projects in other areas of Latin
America.
18.
That the individuals and institutions compiling biblio-
graphies of the Caribbean area on a regular basis be commended for
their work and requested to keep them as up-to-date as possible,
current and comprehensive.
19.
That Caribbean libraries seek to achieve better relations
with commercial and institutional publishers of the area so as to
improve local collections of local materials and to provide biblio-
graphic information as well as copies of local material in original
or reproduced 6orm for other libraries and regional centers.
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184
20.
That Ciribbean librarians collaborate with the SALALM
committees and aub -committees in identifying collections of nonbook
materials such as newspaper collections, card and manuscript
indices to them and to such materials as parliamentary records, as
well as unpublished bibliographies in card and manuscript form of
interest to the region.
21.
That recognition be given to the St. Thomas Public Library
in the publication of its MICROFILM CATALOGUE, that other libraries
. be encouraged to follow its example and that the support of all
libraries be given to this institution in its willingness to serve
as a promotional and training center for cooperative and local
microfilm activities and to keep up-to-date and disseminate infor-
mation on photographic facilities of the Caribbean for copying
purposes; and that Caribbean librarians and technicians take ad-
vantage of the technological services offered by Virgin Islands
libraries in building their respective services for a) microfilm
processing, b) consultative technical services, c) training in
microtechnology and other photographic services.
22.
That the national and other archives of metropolitan
countries of Europe consider presenting to their former colonies in
the Caribbean microfilm copies of documents relating to the history
of former colonies, in accordance with the recommendation of the
1968 International Conference on Archives.
23.
That the OeganizIttion of American States be commended for
its agreement to collaborate with the Government of Spain IT) com-
pleting the cataloguing of the Archives of the Indies in Seville
and the publication of the record of its holdings, as well as for
its plan for archival development as part of the new regional
cultural development program of the OAS to parallel the present
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Library Development Program.
24.
That librarians and archivists of the area be alerted to
the potential value of personal archives and notes of scholars and
to the wealth of information to be found in unpublished research
projects, and that they seek to absorb such materials into their
collections.
25.
That the Library of Congress be encouraged to include
in its MARC II. tapes bibliographic information on materials in
Spanish and Portuguese emanating from Latin. America, Spain and the
Caribbean; to accept the collaboration of Caribbean libraries in
providing bibliographic information from the region; and to
cooperate with the French Documentation Center at Bordeaux so that
its French Caribbean materials may also be reflected in the
Library of Congress MARC II tapes.
26.
That materials in special need of attention be, identified
in the Caribbean area in a cooperative effort of the librarians and
archivists, anitthat the services of'such commercial enterprises as
University Microfilms and G.K. Hall be invited to copy unique
library and archival collections for the purposes of preservation
and of making more widely available their contents.
27.
That libraries of academic and research institutions
develop oral history collections to take advantage of personel
recollections such as the tapes being made of former slaves, now
centenarians, by the University of Guyana.
28.
That authors, publishers, librarians and educators give
special attention to the need for locally based educational and
library raiterials for school and library purposes in the region,
i"
186
as well as for materials useful for the study of the Caribbean in
the United States and elsewhere.
29.
That all modern communications media such as Telex be
utilized to the fullest to speed up the request for and dissemina-
tion of bibliographic information both for bibliographic compila-
tion and for inter-library loan purposes.
30.
That in the construction of new buil&-.gs for archives
and libraries special attention he paid to the need for the
installation of air conditioning for the preservation of books,
documents, and other library and archival materials.
31.
That librarians of the Caribbean area strive to develop
a plan of cooperative acquisitions on which to base further
cooperative efforts.
32._
That librarians of the Caribbean area strive to collect
comprehensively all local materials without regard to the con-
sideration of value judgments as to the intrinsic value of each
item.
33.
That a more consistent effort be made to seek informa-
tion concerning the collection of Caribbean materials in libraries
of the United States, Europe, end elsewhere.
34.
That, for the satisfaction of professional manpower
needs, fervent hope be expressed for the success of new pro-
fessional library schools in the British West Indies and Puerto
Rico and that attention be paid to the training of paraprofessional
technicians and assistants required.
DR. DIX:
Are there any other things?
I note that
President Wanlass has just come into the room.
I would like him
to be present when another, different resolution is presented.
187
Can you take a minute or two--I think he wants to say a word of
farewell.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Docking.
MR. DOCKING:
This resolution is one which I am
sure we will all join with no dissenting voices.
Don't be
alarmed.
It is one of thanks to our hosts, the people who called
us together, the Cbllege of the Virgin Islands, and who have done
so splendidly and given us the opportunity to meet with each other
once more.
The generosity with which this has been done, the care
given to it, and the different facilities provided, we do not know
how to properly express our thanks, our very deep gratitude for such
a job performed so splendidly.
I speak on behalf of all present
here and say to him and to his subordinates our very deep sincere
thanks, our very warm thanks for your kindness.
DR. DIX:
I am sure that resolution is accepted by
acclaimation.
President Wanlass.
PRES. WANLASS:
We don't suppose to rival in the qual-
ity of our farewell, but we do say--and I am speaking for all Virgin
Islands residents, I think--that the people who go from the Virgin
Islands always come back and, as you think about your few days here,
I think you should p'an another return, another visit, another meet-
ing.
Certainly there is a sense of welcome as you go and E am asking
you to come back.
It is that welcome of return which is part of
what I want to leave with you.
In addition, I want to express my thanks to the committee that
was responsible for the meeting and I won't mention them by name, but
they will know.
You see, the President really does very little and
what is important to be done, and has been done, has been entrusted
to an important group of people.
They know I am thankful and ex-
press the thanks of all of you to them as well.
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188
,11. ncDONALD:
T am not accustomed to having the last
word, if indeed It turns out that 7 do.
But I must thank all of you
for your willingness to come long distances and to gather here,for
your thoughts and efforts informing us all about your library, your
problems and your interests.
To those of you that prepared papers,
our great thanks.
whether you got to deliver them in full or not, be
assured that I want them so they can be made a part of the record
of
the conference.
Thanks has been expressed to members of the commit-
tee for their effort.
I would like to repeat that, to thank Ernest
Wagner for his help and service; Miss Baa has rendered tremendous
service, rs. Shepard, and all.
I want finally to express my great
appreciation and sense of indebtedness to Bill Dix for chairing this
conference so masterfully.
I promised you at the beginning you will
feel that we had chosen the right man for the job, I am sure you can
all agree with me that we did just that.
Thank you.
PR. DIX:
It is the prerogative of the chair to have
the last word.
Let me make a personal observation of how much I am
impressed by what is going on here, and by the energy and
foresight
of this College in initiating this conference.
It seems to me the
benefits of a conference of this sort rests only in small part in its
series of recommendations; in a large part, it is the sense of
people getting together, as people sharing their common experiences
and needs.
I think we have made one more step on a fairly long
ladder.
It has gone on, it will go on into the future.
I am im-
pressed by the quality of librarians in this area, the way in which
you are aware of the needs and have been working for them.
So with
that note, I declare this conference. adjourned.
*
*
*
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