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


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


Improving access…: 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: Examples of tools Catalog: http://www.lib.unc.edu, http://library.tulane.edu/index.php ex. Ti=“princeton university latin american pamphlet” Union Catalog: http://lal.tulane.edu/lasermicro.html , find in page “latin american pamphlet” Electronic Indexes and Databases: -UNC-CH LAIR Microfilm Database. http://www.lib.unc.edu/cdd/crs/international/latin/microforms/index.php Vendor on-line guides -Scholarly Resources on-line guides: http://www.scholarly.com/guides/Guidetitle.html -Primary Source Media http://microformguides.gale.com/?psm=guides Print guides - examples


What direction might we take?: 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) Catalog/MARC Records/WorldCat


Slide7: 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


Slide8: 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: 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: 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