| ==================================================================== FRUSTRATION AND FUN: PROBLEMS IN THE ACQUISITIONS OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS MATERIALS: SOUTH ASIA BY PHILIP F. McELDOWNEY CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA 3 MAY 1993 LIS615 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA-GREENSBORO ==================================================================== AMERICAN'S GROWING INTEREST IN THE ACQUISITION OF FOREIGN MATERIALS South Asia is a fascinating and varied region. It's five country area, [fn.1. Bangladesh, India , Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.] includes peoples of many languages, races, religions, and cultural backgrounds. It provides working models and examples of Third World economic development, and experiments in the political processes of young democracies. Since World War II, selectors of South Asian materials for special collections in United States academic and research libraries have faced several problems. Since 1962, the presence of the Library of Congress' regional offices have dominated the field of acquisition of information materials for United States libraries. Selectors of foreign materials for special collections often face different problems than selectors of U. S. materials. Broadly, these may be political and economic. Both the type of foreign government and the U. S. attitude toward that foreign government may determine the nature and ease of access to purchase materials from overseas. Over time these foreign relationships also change. In the case of Third World countries, economic conditions often determine the state of the book trade. Always a factor is the variation in the rate of exchange of foreign currency. Even locally, for the academic institution, funding for continuing, establishing, or ending a special area studies program changes over time and has a strong impact on appropriate collection development policies and acquisition practices. Two major international events effected the interaction of these three 'actors' (the U. S. government, the governments of South Asia, and U. S. academic libraries), which in turn determined much of the nature, changes, and problems of the acquisition of materials from South Asia. [fn.2. See R. Crane, " Developments in South Asian Studies," and Maureen Patterson, "South Asian Library Development," in South Asian Library Resources: Papers (1975), p. 3-34. Also the author's experience as a student and teacher involved in South Asian area studies programs ince the early 1960s.] These were the Cold War since the 1940s, and the oil crisis from the early 1970s. The first stimulated the development of economic aid programs and the need to obtain information on allies and adversaries in the Cold War. The second brought the need for austerity and the re-evaluation of budgets, not just at the governmental level but also within academia (even library budgets). The end of the Cold War and the economic impact of technological changes will likely produce other substantial repercussions for the 1990s and the next millennium. FUNDING The Delhi office of the Library of Congress just (September 1992) celebrated its 30th year. [fn.3. Lucy Suddreth, "Overseas Opereation to Celebrate 30 Years" (1992), p. 326.] It was founded partly to solve the problem of the acquisition of information materials, especially governmental documents and scholarly writings, from South Asia. Fortuitously, the funding of this regional office was the indirect result of the U. S. program of "Food For Peace," also known as the Dinkell amendment, or Public Law 480 (PL 480). By the U. S. making agricultural commodity loans (mostly wheat) to India and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s, foreign currency (rupee) repayment funds became available, and some of these funds were used to establish staff at regional offices (like Delhi) for the acquisition and processing of documents, books, serials, and other materials. At the same time, other libraries joined the Library of Congress (or LC) as fee-paying participant members. Over the next two decades additional libraries joined the original eleven academic libraries as participants, so that in the mid-1970s there were more than 40, while in 1988 there were 33. [fn.4. Burlingham, "South Asian Collections" (1988), p. 33. Around 1960 other changes were occurring which tended to re- enforce the acquisition and retention of South Asia materials in the U. S. Within the U. S. government, especially the foreign diplomatic corps, Americans overseas were getting a "bad name," partly because of their insensitivity toward foreign cultures and practices and their lack of language skills of the area where they were posted. On the surface, this was dramatically represented in William Lederer's 1958 novel The Ugly American (made into a movie in 1963). [fn.5. William J. Lederer, The Ugly American (1958). Partly as a result, the U. S. Congress established several corrective programs, including the Fulbright-Hays program to encourage scholarly research and exchange between countries and the National Defence Education Act providing funding for foreign language programs and graduate students. Both these program had (and still have) a considerable influence in universities to establish area studies programs with foreign language teaching, active research scholars, and substantial acquisition of library materials. While international circumstances and governmental and academic programs produced a favorable atmosphere for funding acquisition of South Asian materials in the early 1960s, this did not permanently solve funding problems. At two times during recent decades, the LC overseas acquisitions programs have been in jeopardy. Beginning in the mid-1960s and by the mid-1970s, PL 480 funds or rupee loan funds were near exhaustion, and it was uncertain if the LC programs could continue. At a major reassessment of the decade-old PL 480 program in South Asia, Frank McGowan, Director of the LC's Overseas Operations, reported to the Boston Conference (1974) on South Asian Library Resources in North America, I do . . . not know . . . what I can report to you on the PL 480 program except that PL 480 in India is drawing to a close. Its future may be measured in terms of months. [fn.6. South Asian Library Sources: Papers (1975), p. 225.] This funding problem was solved by Congress establishing a Special Foreign Currency Program for the continued funding of the LC's programs in South Asia. A similar crisis occurred in the early 1980s, when rupees could no longer be used and the LC had to turn to hard-currency dollars for the acquisition of materials. With some re-structuring, the LC and participant libraries adjusted contributions and acquisition profiles to meet this crisis. [fn.7. "Developments in the Special Foreign Acquisitions Program" (1986), p. 387-388.] So far the South Asia LC program has faced and weathered two crises. It is uncertain whether funding for the acquisition of South Asia materials through the LC programs will continue to face periodic problems (and be able to solve them) in the future. Two points might be noted. First, the South Asia LC programs are not independent; they are dependent on the support and programs of the U. S. government, on participant support, on the approval of foreign governments to continue to exist, and on economic changes, especially with foreign currencies and their exchange rates. Second, the book trade, vendors, and distribution system in South Asia continues to change and improve. [fn.8. Burlingham, "South Asia" (1990), p. 69-72.] In the future, even if the LC acquisitions program might disappear, with considerable adjustments, U. S. universities would likely be able to maintain approximate levels of appropriate collection of South Asia materials, through arrangements of cooperation, exchange, or individually. LEVELS OF ACQUISITION AND DE-SELECTION Acquisitions of South Asia materials has changed over the last decades, in type, amounts, formats, and coverage. The two major periods may be distinguished as pre-1960 or pre-PL 480, and the period after 1960. [fn.9. Burlingham, "South Asian Collections" (1988), p. 32. She describes these as "stages."] In the first period, university libraries acquired South Asia materials mainly in classical works of religion and philosophy and mainly in English, European languages, and Sanskrit. Works in languages of modern South Asia, such as Hindi or Bengali, were rarely collected. In the second period, while the type of pre-1960 materials are continued to be collected, there has been a much stronger emphasis on materials in the social sciences, literature, and sciences and in all languages of the region. Furthermore, in the last decade the LC has developed a substantial microfilming program, including a project to preserve through microfilm 60,000 monographs published from 1900 to 1950; [fn.10. Suddreth, "30 Years" (1992), p. 326.] it also has continued to collect sound recordings, and has added the collection of videocassettes which have scholarly value. It should be added that, from the beginning in 1962, the LC generally decided not to collect textbooks, juvenile literature, nor most translations of fiction into Indian languages. On the other hand, LC started to acquire maps of the area, and ephemera of pamphlets of research and other institutions and political parties in the 1970s. It has not acquired comic books, commercial films, and other materials. [fn.11. See Frank McGowan's discussion of the LC's Selection Policies of the mid-1970s as part of a survey of South Asian Library Resources in North America: A Survey (1975), p. (16)- (21).] While there have been some changes in the subject type of materials acquired and an expansion of formats, the amounts of materials acquired has also changed. The 1960s might be characterized as a "vacuum cleaner" type of period, in which all published materials in all languages were collected and supplied to participants. By the early 1970s, with the oil crisis and retrenchment of academic library budgets, this overwhelming sheer bulk of materials had began to cause acquisition problems, mainly in "de-selection." At the University of Pennsylvania in early 1971, as Richard De Gennaro describes it in an article titled "Less is More," their South Asia PL 480 situation was "failing badly and heading for a total breakdown." [fn.12. Richard De Gennaro, "Less is More: The University of Pennsylvania Reorganizes its Library Support for Regional Studies," in South Asian Library Resources in North America: Papers (1975), p. 245.] The "PL 480 program was bringing in every year over 7,500 volumes, 3,500 serial titles, and 100 newspapers in 23 languages." [fn.13. Ibid.] The central library staff was devoting 20 per cent of its time processing these materials, much more time than to any other major discipline or geographic area. A growing backlog of 42,000 volumes were only marginally available in a storage area. What to do? De- select. The new policy of June 1971 had them drop or discard materials in several South Asian languages, which the University did not teach nor had any patron interest. Similarly 30 per cent of the backlog was discarded while the rest were retained. [fn.14. Ibid. p. 246-247.] The University of Pennsylvania ended up with "Less is More," in the sense that the less which was retained was appropriately used more by their patrons. Other university libraries continued to acquire, receive, and retain comprehensively in all languages. [fn.15. Richard Martin, "The Development of a Comprehensive PL 480 Library Program: The University of Virginia," in South Asian Library Resources: Papers (1975), p. 233-238.] But even LC in Delhi was beginning to recognize the problem of the flood (vs drought) or feast (vs famine) in comprehensive acquisitions, and that some universities were de-selecting at the point of receipt of shipments. From the early 1970s onward, the LC began to offer choices in receipt of their acquired materials. At first they offered receipt of either comprehensive or basic in each of the languages. Over the next decade or so they continually refined these offerings to include subject breakdowns for non- English languages, and in English materials even further breakdowns (by geographic area) for the history and social science subject areas. Partly as a result of the economic impact of turning from rupee to dollar payments in the mid-1980s, the LC offered a detailed approval plan profile from which universities could select materials appropriate to their unique area studies programs, strength of disciplines, and student and faculty research interests. Some university libraries still retain considerable backlogs from the "comprehensive" days of the 1960s and 1970s. Since some states have laws which require these materials not be sold, but destroyed or somehow retained, libraries have devised various solutions for this problem. The University of Washington gave pre- 1970 Panjabi materials to the Vancouver Public Library; the University of Texas-Austin has sent Tibetan titles to Harvard and the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions at Stony Brook; and the University of Virginia has sent materials in several regional language to the British Library on permanent loan. [fn.16. Burlingham, "South Asian Collections" (1988), p. 36.] SELECTION TOOLS Selectors of special foreign collection materials often discover a lack of adequate bibliographic tools. This certainly was the case for South Asia in the 1950s and before. What national bibliographies and "books in print" existed, were either skimpy and of poor quality or delayed in publication. While quality and coverage has improved, these tools still lack currency. The LC subsequently developed possibly the best solution for this problem, by producing regular, up-to-date Accessions Lists since the early 1960s. The separate country Lists were combined for all of South Asia since 1981. [fn.17. Wells, "Overseas Publications of the Library of Congress: Their History and Use as Reference Resources" (1987), p. 83-84. ] They not only include AACR II information on all monographs acquired by LC, but also separately list serials added and title changes, as well as maps and sound and video recordings. LC produces these monthly or bi-monthly. Each final annual issue has both a cumulative author/title index and subject index. The Accession List has become and remains the best and most current bibliographic tool for reference and acquisition purposes. [fn.18. Accessions List, South Asia (1981-).] CONCLUSIONS Dramatic changes have taken place since World War II in the acquisition of materials on and from South Asia. Most large universities with South Asia programs can point with pride to the depth and breath of their collections. They have wrestled with a variety of acquisition problems - of changes and restructuring in funding, of choices and levels of acquisitions and de-selection, and of developing and using selection tools for foreign acquisitions. These problems and solutions continue. Will funding change and force restructuring as in the past? What are the appropriate levels of special collections, both for individual academic institutions and in other cooperative efforts? Will new and better selection tools be developed or improved? Additional problems or questions remain. As South Asia special collections are so dependent on U. S. governmental attitudes and programs, foreign governments' policies, and university area studies programs, what will be the future of changes within each of these 'actors' and their impact on special collections acquisitions? What also will be the impact of new technology, global computer communication, access to on-line databases, and full-text retrieval? Perhaps Linda Vertrees best sums it up - "Foreign acquisitions: frustration and fun." [fn.19. Linda S. Vertrees, "Foreign acquisitions: frustration and fun: experience of the Chcago Public Library" (1991), p. 75.] ================================================================ BIBLIOGRAPHY Armstrong, James. "The Library's Overseas Offices: Going after the Hard-to-Get." Library of Congress Information Bulletin 49 (8 October 1990): 337-340. Burlingham, Merry. "South Asia." In Selection of Library Materials for Area Studies. Chicago: American Library Association, 1990. Burlingham, Merry. "South Asian Collections: Using Research Resources for a More General Public." Collection Building 9, no. 1 (1988): 32-37. "Developments in the Special Foreign Acquisitions Program." Library of Congress Information Bulletin 45 (24 November 1986): 386-388. "Library Meeting on Foreign Acquisitions." Library of Congress Information Bulletin 47 (13 June 1988): 235-236. Library of Congress. Library of Congress Office, New Delhi. Accession List, South Asia. New Delhi: U. S. Library of Congress Office, New Delhi, 1981-. "Report from the Foreign Acquisitions Semiannual Meeting." Library of Congress Information Bulletin 48 (2 October 1989): 345. Suddreth, Lucy D. "Overseas Operation to Celebrate 30 Years." Library of Congress Information Bulletin 51 (27 July 1992): 326. South Asian Library Resources in North America: A Survey Prepared for the Boston Conference, 1974. Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Company, 1975. South Asian Library Resources in North America: Papers from the Boston Conference, 1974. Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Company, 1975. Sullivan, Robert Coyle. "LC National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloging, Special Foreign Acquisitions." Library of Congress Information Bulletin 44 (28 October 1985): 311-312. Vertrees, Linda S. "Foreign acquisitions: frustration and fun: experience of the Chicago Public Library." In Vendors and Library Acquisitions. New York: Haworth Press, 1991. Wells, Jack C. "Overseas Publications of the Library of Congress: Their History and Use as Reference Resources." Reference Librarian, no. 17 (Spring 1987): 77-91. ============================= E N D =============================== | |
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