RESEARCH LIBRARY COOPERATIVE PROGRAM

LATIN AMERICAN COLLECTIONS STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

University of California at Berkeley • Stanford University • University of Texas at Austin

The combined Latin American collections of the Library Systems at the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, and the University of Texas at Austin offer an extraordinary intellectual resource of major research value not only to their students and faculty but to the scholarly community in general. All three institutions are well known for their long-standing commitment to Latin American studies and to the important research contributions of their faculty.

This agreement attempts to rationalize our acquisitions activities as they relate to our Latin American collections. It aims to extend and deepen the strength of our library collections by focusing acquisitions and development efforts in complementary areas. This cooperative undertaking will allow our libraries to build more extensive collections more systematically, and yet collectively, cost no more to each library than would be possible individually.

Each institution commits to maintaining the level of purchasing power needed to satisfy the depth and extent of collecting for the areas and genres specified below.

Each institution commits to holding harmless the parties to this agreement in the case of fiscal duress or necessary programmatic change by:

1. notifying the other parties as soon as possible about any problems which would affect that institution's ability to fulfill its obligation,
2. maintaining the needed level of spending on the program for a period of twelve months following notification, in order to enable the other parties to adjust their programs and their own spending levels to changing circumstances; and,
3. agreeing to build up in its own budget over time an escrow account large enough to cover spending on the program for the twelve-month letdown period.

Each institution will notify the other parties if it wishes any change in their areas of collecting as defined by this agreement.

We all recognize the need for each institution to acquire general study and teaching resources from all of Latin America. We also acknowledge the importance of sharing responsibility for in-depth acquisitions at the research level. Cooperative agreements are facilitated by the development of communications technology which makes it possible to share bibliographic information and accelerate interlibrary lending.

A document delivery component, as defined in the broader agreement signed by the University Librarians in December 1997, is also part of this agreement. It stipulates that interlibrary fees will be waived and that individual participants will be able to generate non-mediated interlibrary loan requests.

Collecting responsibility will consist of several components:

A. Mexico:

1. Mexico is the Latin American country of most interest to U.S. scholars, as demonstrated by the number of publications listed in national and regional databases. Responsibility for in-depth collecting from Mexico among the three libraries will be distributed according to states. The University of Texas at Austin will concentrate its building efforts on the northeastern and some southern states; Stanford University on the southern states, and the University of California at Berkeley on the northern states. This will include monographs, serials and government publications. State distributions are listed at the end of this document.
   
   
2. Mexico State and the Federal District will be treated as special cases, given their importance to the three libraries. None of the libraries will assume sole responsibility for these areas. Nevertheless, in order to increase in-depth collecting, each library will expand their collecting efforts of NGO publications, which are notoriously difficult to identify and acquire, within this geographical area. Each library will focus its efforts to acquire NGO publications in three subject areas. New areas may be added as interest in them develops. NGO subject areas and libraries responsible for them are:
   
   

   a) Culture/popular culture:	Stanford
   b) Economic/development:	UT Austin
   c) Environment:	Stanford
   d) Human rights:	UC Berkeley (Bancroft)
   e) Indigenous groups:	UT Austin
   f) Labor:	UT Austin
   g) Politics/political parties:	UC Berkeley (Bancroft)
   h) Religion:	UC Berkeley (Bancroft)
   i) Women Studies:	Stanford

   
   
3. Central public administration reports, i.e. presidential messages and cabinet level reports, will be collected at the research level by the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California at Berkeley, Bancroft. Stanford University will only collect them selectively.
   
   
4. Responsibilities for publications from decentralized administrative entities will be divided among the three libraries. Examples of these entities are Petróleos Mexicanos and the Instituto Federal Electoral.
   
   
5. The Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley will maintain a microfilm copy of the Diario Oficial. It will also acquire the index to this publication on CD-ROM. The University of Texas at Austin will maintain a paper version of the Diario Oficial and the CD-ROM Index. Stanford University will only acquire the CD-ROM index.
   
   
6. The University of California at Berkeley will collect publications of the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática (INEGI) selectively. Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin will acquire them at the research level.

B. South America, the Caribbean and Central America: Responsibility for South America and the Caribbean will be distributed by region or country according to the list at the end of this document. Central America win not be included in the agreement for the moment. Both Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin will continue to collect intensely monographs and serials from Brazil.

C. Official Publications:

With the exception of Mexico official publications will not form part of this agreement at this moment.

The circulating collections of each library will be available for lending to program participants either through on-site visits or through interlibrary loans. These loans will include the non-rare Latin American collections of the Bancroft Library and the Benson Collection. Borrowers will observe all relevant regulations of the lending library.

Document delivery will follow the stipulations agreed upon by the University Librarians on December 15, 1997 as stated in the document: "Research Library Cooperative Program, Statement of Principles." These will include fee waivers for interlibrary loans, and a standard borrower's card accepted by all three libraries. Card holders will have the same circulation and service privileges afforded to graduate students and to academic staff and faculty at the lending institution. The Circulation Units of the three libraries win define relevant regulations and procedures.

Partners will compile and distribute annual collection development related statistics. These should consist of at least: 1) the annual number of monograph records added to the local databases, 2) annual expenditures for monographs by country, and 3) the annual total expenditure for Latin America including serials. This information will give a clear understanding of collection strengths. Methods will also be developed to determine levels of duplication. Recent efforts in studying Argentine collections using data provided by a common vendor can serve as a model. Interlibrary use statistics will be examined in order to determine use patterns among the three collections.

Selectors from the three institution will meet during the annual SALALM Conference and share information concerning the implementation of the agreement. This will be the forum to discuss and solve issues that need to be addressed in order for the agreement to work properly.

Selectors will develop cooperative digital projects of benefit to the three libraries and the Latin American academic community in general. They will specifically attempt to develop projects that include partner libraries in Latin America.

Implementation of this agreement will start on Fall quarter 1998.

Areas that need further detailed discussion before including them in the agreement are the collecting of government documents and audio visual materials and the division of responsibilities for Central America and Brazil.

Rationalization of collection development in the context of cooperative agreements is an important way of addressing the reality of decreasing resources for library materials. This agreement is an attempt to ensure, well into the future, adequate research materials in the field of Latin American studies. The University Librarians are committed to making this agreement work by providing for budgetary adjustments when needed.