ACRL/WESS Scandinavian Discussion Group

        ALA Annual Conference, Chicago

        July 8, 2000

        The meeting was called to order by the Chair, Richard Hacken , at 11:30.
        The dozen attendees around the table introduced themselves, and described
        briefly their collections.

        John Dillon announced that the May 2000 SASS meeting in Madison,
        Wisconsin had been a big success. Next year's meeting will be in Chicago.

        Marianna reminded us to check the Scandinavian Studies web (part of WESS
        web) of which she is the Coordinator. There are links there to SASS, the
        NORD-LIB discussion group as well as our own WESS Scandinavian Discussion
        Group. The URL is:

        http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wess/scan/index.html

        She is looking for volunteers to help maintain the pages, and would
        welcome contributions such as new links and URLs for individuals'
        Scandinavian pages. She will add to the site a new bibliography of
        sources of information about Scandinavian literature in translation.

        Mariann Tiblin (University of Minnesota) introduced her Scandinavian
        Collections Network Proposal, a nationwide cooperative collection
        development program. In this program, institutions with strong
        Scandinavian collections would be identified, and representatives would
        meet along with an advisory group from SASS to agree on goals. They
        would exchange information about their collections, selector
        responsibilities, approval plans, vendors, serials standing orders,
        cancellations, selection sources for monographs, large sets and expensive
        purchases, and collection policies. NORD-LIB could then be used to share
        information with a larger group. The proposal could be sent to all the
        libraries on the Scandinavian Studies Web, and to additional libraries
        such as the embassy libraries in Washington. There was agreement to pursue
        this initiative.

The libraries at Wisconsin and Minnesota have traditionally had a close
relationship, and they are now developing formal agreements regarding
their collections. Wisconsin will emphasize Denmark, Norway, and
Iceland; Minnesota will emphasize Sweden and Finland. Both will maintain
their core collections, which meet most local needs. The selectors, the
chief collection development officers, and the library directors will
sign off on the final agreement, which will be reviewed annually. The
two libraries also have special interlibrary loan arrangements, which
facilitate the sharing of their collections.

Gordon Anderson has agreed to be the Chair of the Scandinavian Discussion Group next year.

Submitted by Martha Hsu.
 
 

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