Present: Phyllis Bischof, (recorder) Nensi Brailo, Michaelyn Burnette,
Elizabeth Byrne, Jan Carter, John Ceballos, Myrtis Cochran, Carlos Delgado,
Franz Enciso, Gary Handman, Sue Koskinen, Steve Mendoza, Mari Miller, Laura
Prichard, John Roberts (chair), James Spohrer, Allan Urbanic, Kathryn Wayne.
Guest: Dean of Arts and Humanities Ralph Hexter
Minutes of 20 April meeting were approved.
Announcements:
Mari Miller volunteered to record our June 15 meeting, when we will meet
with Katherine Mitchell. Jan Carter will record our July 20 meeting.
One or more representatives to each of the function councils will need to
be elected at our June 15 meeting. Anyone interested in serving on one of
these councils or wishing to nominate someone else, please contact John
Roberts before June 15.
Guidelines for future minutes:
Issuing minutes promptly permits AHC members to be reminded of action items
and thus to work on them prior to next meeting. We will issue drafts of
minutes, revise them electronically, and re-issue them as a second draft
with a short turnaround for any last corrections. Finally, send approved
minutes to allusers and subsequently the web.
To submit to web, send to AHCarch@library
The subject line of this message should state:
Arts and Humanities Council Minutes, May 18, 2000 [state date in similar
form, please].
Send minutes in plain ascii text typed straight into email application or
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fashion, they will file out-of-order.
Function Council Reports:
*Collections Council:
M. Burnette reported that the CC discussed requested electronic titles, and
made preliminary decisions. No announcement will be issued, however, until
these decisions become final.
*Administrative Council:
M. Cochran reminded us of a forthcoming Early Bird with Bob Liu and Elise
Woods on the BFS which selectors are encouraged to attend. Jeff Johnson is
a new hire in Fred Yasaki's office, and Bill Brockett is the new Buyer for
the Library Business Office. Brockett is authorized to purchase items up to
$25,000. Jeanne Fong has worked with a subcommittee to review the
installation of copiers and printer stations in the Library. The
subcommittee recommendations include more planning and communications with
the copy service and the vendor, as well as more publicity, and staff
training. A survey will be conducted to assess the quality of customer
service provided by Library Administrative Services.
*Public Services Council:
E. Byrne and N. Brailo reported that a discussion re equipment and budget
proposals stressed the difference between new and replacement equipment.
Systems asks that requests for replacement should go straight to Bernie and
Ralph Moon. If something new is requested, however, it must be handled
through a budget request. If staff needs sound cards, they may request
them via email to Ralph or Bernie, since orders for them can be
automatically approved if urgently needed. In the future these items will
be standard equipment. Systems has lost three programmers and two work
station support personnel. Thus when requesting urgently needed helpdesk
assistance, state this fact. Systems is working on Pathfinder enhancements,
and an evaluation will be conducted, chiefly by staff on earlier Pathfinder
Taskforce.
*Social Sciences Council:
The SSC met with Isabel Stirling to discuss public service issues at SS
service points.
DISCUSSION WITH RALPH HEXTER, DEAN OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES
Dean Ralph Hexter spoke informally regarding trends and issues in the Arts
and Humanities here at Berkeley, where the definition of the humanities is
quite fluid. For example, Humanities Research Fellowships go to scholars in
many disciplines, including history and environmental design. The arts have
always been an important part of the humanities, but there is renewed
emphasis on them here. The arts, especially the performing arts, may be
said to have been in a shadow. Indeed, some of our sister institutions
would pass around the idea that Berkeley has not been involved in such
things. We are, however, hiring new people in new modes as well, e.g. new
media and art practice. Shawn Brixey, Assistant Professor of Digital Media,
is becoming well known for computer-assisted art design. Art Departments
are making cross-appointments, like a position in Rhetoric and Dramatic Art
and another in Performance and Performance Theory. There is a consortium
for the arts, a lead for an ORU, is already funded, although not
permanently funded. Three of the consortium's applications made the final
cuts in the present ORU competition. One seeks to foster links between the
arts and the humanities. A second proposes a Papyrological Institute which
would have to do with the Tebtunis Papyri, to advance the cataloging and
digitization of this collection. A third would create a Center for the
Study of Sexual Culture in a global context. A trend across disciplines is
an emphasis on more and more fund raising.
Humanities here are very very attractive: no one has said no to a job offer
from here this year, and thus we have exciting new hires. South East Asian
Studies has been funded for two f.t.e. In South and South East Asian
Studies we have made an offer to Gauri Viswanathom, now at Columbia, whose
work is in the literatures of the subcontinent and England -- post
colonialism and beyond. This globalized view studies the impact of the
metropolis, but also comparative interactions going on between India and
the U.K. A second scholar in whom we are interested is Thongchai
Winichakul, author of Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-body of a Nation.
The thesis of this study is that nationalism and the concept of the map
itself fostered national self-consciousness of Thailand. His current
interest is in writing a history of the water buffalo in which we see
interconnections with environmental studies.
Candace Slater of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese will be the new
Director of the Townsend Center. Her work is on Brazil with interests in
development, the humanities, the environment, and economics. There is hope
to hire a Cambodian Minister of Culture, an American scholar whose Ph.D. is
from Paris, who excavates and writes on temples of the 15th - 18th
centuries. To restore East Asia fully to strength would mean adding one
more f.t.e. in Korean Studies and rebuilding Buddhist Studies.
*The faculty supports the Library strongly. The Dean believes books will
continue to be of great importance, with faculty demands that the Library
continue to build world class collections of printed materials. He
confirmed his support for the Visual Arts Library project that would be
sited in the Doe Core.
*In cultural studies writers pay attention to the fact that we are all
citizens in this world. We are in a very complex system in which nature
itself is not without marks of human civilization.
*C.Delgado asked whether we could consider a restructuring of the whole
concept of start-up funds. Dean Hexter responded that while housing is the
most important thing on the minds of incoming faculty, we should try to
elicit from faculty a specific set of requests re needed materials. A
letter could go out to all new faculty jointly from the Dean and the
selector, perhaps in October or November, introducing selectors, expressing
our delight that they are here, and offering to help in any way we can with
their library needs.
*G.Handman asked about ORU startups,including the rold of the VC for
Research. Hexter responded that new ORUs will get some kind of budget,
though likely not what they have asked for. ORUs will be expected to
fundraise, probably not to individual donors, but to granting agencies.
*Eurasian Studies is coming up, with the Ingush Language a new minor in
Slavic Studies. This is healthy, since the study of Russian has dropped
nationally. On this campus we have a Silk Road Reading Group. If you look
at Europe, organizations like the EU are attempts to build bridges that are
supranational. What on our campus is trying to keep up this this? Our Area
Centers tend to be heavy on the social science side. Francophone Studies
takes the approach of dividing the world into language groups. Comp Lit now
offers Northwest European Studies, and some refer to a new international
program as Empire Studies.
*Zoe Strather is a potential new cross/disciplinary appointee in African
Art and Rhetoric, and another potential Art History appointment has a
pre-Pharonic African emphasis.
*J.Spohrer noted that the Chancellor's money for the library is in its
second of a three-year cycle. What will happen subsequently? R. Hexter does
not think the Chancellor's support for the library will diminish. He
mentioned that Don McQuade understands the centrality of the library, and
cited such major building projects as the East Asian building, which
includes a new library, and the Music Library
*Hexter was asked for advice for Arts and Humanities folk re how to deal
with larger campus populations of students and faculty in the sciences.
Even though many of the pre-eminent departments on campus are arts and
humanities units, the investment in support of the humanities must be
defended. The whole world of liberal education used to be at the center, a
center which is now smaller. The thinking which places the university as a
part of the corporate world is a profound challenge to humanists. We are
defending what matters about a university like ours, and we must make clear
why this matters. We need to keep fields alive by purchasing their
literature. As much as it is a cliche, it is true that the world of texts,
e.g. the library, is still the laboratory of humanists. In connection with
discourse about the crisis in the humanities, Cerny's office did a study re
outcomes of Ph.D.s in the humanities. The upshot is that there is not a
great difference between humanities and science graduates as to whether
they hold academic positions after they leave the university.
*J.Spohrer mentioned that a research methodology or information literacy
requirement would be a good thing for the campus, and an area in which the
library could partner with the faculty. Hexter agreed, and added that a
critical thinking requirement could be combined with an information
literacy requirement. L. and S. has now instituted a series of college
courses, and this may be a way to think about teaching such a class. He
could imagine someone devising a course on information which could be team
taught.
The expanded enrollment foreseen for the university will have staffing
implications, and thus there is funding which will come to the library down
the line.
**************************************************************
Phyllis B. Bischof, African & African American Collections
390 Doe Library University of California
Berkeley, California 94720-6000 pbischof@library.berkeley.edu
Tel:510-643-3143 FAX: 510-643-6650
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/Collections/Africana/