Improving Access to Latin American Microfilm LASER March, 2004 Teresa Chapa, UNC Chapel Hill Emily Stambaugh, Wake Forest Univ.

Microfilm is underused  Stats about microfilm holdings and declining microfilm usage in general.  If available, stats about specific Latin American microfilm usage.  Reason for declining usage: what’s your theory?  A wealth of information is going untapped.

How can we improve access? Make the indexes to microfilm collections searchable electronically. Consider the user’s questions: 1. Where can I find newspapers or pamphlets around this time period for this country? 2. I’m looking for a specific title… 3. Diplomatic records related to country, entity, period. - or - int’l relations b/w country X and country Y

Improving access…  Catalog / MARC records / WorldCat  Web. Union catalogs by subject/area studies  Electronic Indexes and Databases  Reference Librarians What tools can libraries use to provide access to content?

Examples of tools  Catalog: ex. Ti=“princeton university latin american pamphlet”  Union Catalog: find in page “latin american pamphlet”  Electronic Indexes and Databases: -UNC-CH LAIR Microfilm Database. microforms/index.php microforms/index.php  Vendor on-line guides -Scholarly Resources on-line guides: -Primary Source Media  Print guides - examples

What direction might we take? Pros  Subject access by conventional LCSH  Accessible through the catalog, a familiar e- tool for the user.  Indexing done by experts (catalogers, microfilm producers) Cons  Some sets lack MARC records  Lack of analytic cataloging – item level access  Does not allow for cross-institutional searching/access  Does not group content for area studies Catalog/MARC Records/WorldCat

What direction might we take? Pros  Serves as a cross- institutional guide. Conducive to cooperative collecting  Maintained cooperatively  Groups subject/area studies content Cons  No subject access, some country level access  No item level access  Access policy to microfilm unclear  Researchers unfamiliar with the electronic location of the union catalog. Web. Union Catalogs

What direction might we take? Pros  Cross-institutional searching  Groups subject/area studies content  May provide item level access  May use MARC records or other metadata standard Cons  Subscription cost may be high  Heavy investment in IT for programming and indexing  May bypass our experts (catalogers) Electronic Indexes and Databases

Possible solution / Question for LASER Shall we create an electronic search tool that allows users to search across microfilm indexes, like an abstracts-and-citations database? One stop shopping: a comprehensive finding aid for researchers to find microfilmed content specific to Latin America.

Discussion Points to consider:  What do you think about engaging in such a project?  Start by monitoring usage?  Involve microfilm vendors? OCLC?  Purchase MARC records with microfilm collections.  Role of our catalogers  Digitization requirements  Level of access and delivery. ILL?  IT commitment  Organizational structure for on-going maintenance