Preserving the History of United States Agriculture and Rural Life:

State and Local Literature, 1820 1945 Phase III PA-23445-00 1 Quarter Report July - September 2000
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Staffing Update: Due to his retirement, Wallace Olsen is no longer the Project Director for Phase III. Mary Ochs, Head of Collection Management and Preservation, Mann Library, is serving as the Project Director for Phase III as described in the revised plan of work sent to you in April 2000. However, we did not feel that all the changes in staff responsibilities were clearly described in this document and wanted to bring you up-to-date on these changes. As Project Director, Mary Ochs will oversee the continued implementation of the project. She will be responsible for establishing standards for the project, maintaining contact with NEH staff and Cornells Office of Sponsored Programs, and administering project funds. She will assure progress toward project goals, represent the project in national forums, and direct the work of the Deputy Project Director, Joy Paulson. Mary Ochs will coordinate the work of the participating libraries that are preparing bibliographies, serving as a resource person and maintaining regular contact with the institutional project managers to resolve problems and issues and to ensure that work proceeds in a timely manner. She will oversee the development of quarterly production goals for each project, monitor progress towards meeting the goals, recommend approval of payments to participants, and draft quarterly progress reports to NEH for review and approval. Joy Paulson, Preservation Librarian, Mann Library, will serve as the Deputy Project Director. She will coordinate the microfilming work of participating libraries, serving as a resource person and maintaining regular contact to resolve problems and issues and to ensure that the work proceeds in a timely manner. She will oversee the development of quarterly production goals for each library participating in the preservation portion of the project, monitor progress towards meeting the goals, and draft quarterly progress reports to NEH for review and approval. She will assist the Project Director in maintaining contact with all institutional project managers and NEH. Sharon van der Mark, Collections Assistant V, Mann Library, will provide clerical assistance for the project, such as filing, duplication of material, word processing, data inputting, record keeping, arrangement of meetings, and making travel arrangements. She will assist in communicating with project participants, prepare mailings, and update and maintain the project website. Training Session at ALA Annual in Chicago A training session was held in Chicago on July 6 . The morning session, led by Ann Schwartzel, Harvard University, and Joy Paulson, covered quality assurance in preservation microfilming. Topics, such as collation, target preparation, writing a RFP, choosing a microfilming vendor, and microfilm inspection were covered. The afternoon session, led by
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Wallace Olsen and Mary Ochs, focused on compilation of the bibliographies and the importance of scholarly review. All Phase III participating libraries attend the sessions. Status reports (narrative): All the libraries participating in the bibliographic phase of the project, North Carolina, North Dakota, Michigan, New Mexico, and Kansas, are underway. All the libraries have chosen bibliographic software, identified reviewers, and have hired or are in the process of hiring any needed project staff. North Dakota, New Mexico, and Michigan have begun to compile their bibliographies and are off to an excellent start. North Carolina is ready to begin compiling their bibliography after changes in staff this summer. Kansas has compiled an exhaustive list of subject headings to search and work has begun on compiling their bibliography, although they are slightly behind schedule due to unanticipated delays in hiring a staff member for the project. The three libraries that are microfilming only during Phase III have gotten underway. All three have been pursuing microfilming contracts with outside vendors. Arkansas and Minnesota have written and sent out RFPs and are waiting responses. Iowa is in the final contract negotiations with their vendor. Although we had hoped that all three libraries would have signed microfilming contracts by now, all three are progressing, even if at a somewhat slower pace than preferred. Individual narrative reports from each of the participating libraries follow: Arkansas The first quarter of this phase for us involved bringing the new co-project director, Andrea Cantrell, into the project. Ms Cantrell attended the USAIN workshop "Quality Assurance in Microfilming" in Chicago July 6, 2000. This was a very helpful workshop and identified many informative resources for Andrea to pursue. Andrea reviewed the work completed in the previous phase, especially the lists of materials. We began discussions with the head of the Cataloging Department, Cheryl Conway, about workflow and procedures for the cataloging work of the project. Andrea also worked on development of the RFP and related procedures for obtaining a contract with a microfilming vendor. Personnel involved this quarter are: Michael J. Dabrishus Head of Special Collections and P.I. University of Arkansas Libraries Andrea E. Cantrell Head of Research Services Department and co-P.I. Special Collections Division University of Arkansas Libraries Cheryl L. Conway

Head of Cataloging Department University of Arkansas Libraries Personnel who will be involved in the project during upcoming quarters: Cheryl L. Conway Serials Cataloger Michelle S. King Monographs Cataloger Judith E. Culberson LAT III, Cataloging Department Julie S. Thacker LAT II, Cataloging Dept. Employees who will prepare material for microfilming and inspect completed microfilm will be hired when those tasks begin. Iowa (submitted by Lori Osmus) Budget and Agreements: The Contracts and Grants Offices for Iowa State University (ISU) has signed subcontract No. 369838-6308 under NEH Award No. PA-23445-00, CFDA 45.149, formalizing the agreement between ISU and Cornell University. An advance payment of $24,083 was requested, and an expenditure of $303.51 was made for travel. Prior to receipt of the grant, the budget was revised to accommodate a 10.6% cut along with changes more accurately reflecting the salaries of staff that will work on this phase of the grant. Travel: Co-Principal Investigators Lori Osmus and Ivan Hanthon attended the orientation meetings on th July 6 that were scheduled in conjunction with the American Library Association Annual Conference held in Chicago. Staffing: So far, the staff that have been working on the grant are Co-Principal Investigators Ivan Hanthorn and Lori Osmus, and in the Preservation Departments Reformatting Unit, Library Assistant IV Cindy Wahl and Library Assistant II Bruce Hanway. Bruce Hanway resigned in early August, and his position if being held open pending a written justification that satisfies the library administration. Cindy Wahl has been preparing for the filming by selecting and queuing materials for filming. A cataloger and an additional library assistant need to be identified to work on later aspects of the project. Lori Osmus met with the Librarys Budget and Personnel Officer to discuss procedures for having appropriate staff, students, and supplies covered by the grant. A special code has been assigned to use for any photocopying to be covered by the grant.

Microfilming: Ivan Hanthorn has been pursuing the microfilming contract. A preservation microfilm service vendor, Heritage Microfilms, Inc., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has been identified and we are in the process of final contract arrangements. An extensive sample of materials to be filmed has been sent to the filming agent for review. Kansas (submitted by Diane Farmer) Staffing: Due to unexpected circumstances, the time position to be funded by the grant has not yet been filled. Interviews with applicants are being scheduled. I hope to have an individual hired by October 20 at the latest.

The subject bibliographers have been working on identifying materials for the bibliography. Mike Haddock has just been appointed temporarily half time to the Fiedler Engineering Library. It remains to be seen whether this will affect his work on the bibliography. Roger Adams and Margaret Parks are identifying items from their areas of specialty that should be included in the bibliography. The reviewers named in the grant application, Dr. Homer Socolofsky, Dr. Donald Erickson and Dr. Leroy Page, have been sent a letter informing them of the awarding of the grant. I am in the process of obtaining 2 additional reviewers, one with a background in nutrition. Once I have acknowledgment/confirmation from all I will send you the names of all reviewers and a brief resume for those added. Bibliography: ProCite will be used as the bibliographic software package for the bibliography. A work form for the grant has been created and will be used for all items. A special configuration file was created by one of the librarys programmers. This file allows for the export of bibliographic records from the librarys online catalog and their import into the ProCite program. There is still some editing/proofing required in the process, but it is minimal compared to the work required to cut and paste these records into ProCite. The librarys catalog has been searched by the identified subject headings, corporate headings, etc. created for Kansas. (A copy is attached. This list is being updated regularly.) The resulting export files are saved after loading to ProCite to await the editing/proofing required. Procedures for the export, import and editing/proofing have been written. Guidelines for the manual input of records are also being prepared. Publicity: Little has been done in this area so far. I plan to meet with the librarys Publicity Coordinator within the next month as a precursor to these efforts. Miscellaneous: Meetings have been held with various departments/units within the library to determine and document the workflow and other issues once the filming phase begins. I am drafting an RFP for the filming. I will need the names and addresses of the vendors you mentioned at the July 6 meeting. The Associate Dean will review the RFP and suggest changes based upon her knowledge of the States purchasing process. The RFP should be mailed/issued to vendors by the State in late October.

A copy of the budget is enclosed. Although the names of the individuals identified to receive grant funds were sent to the Payroll Office on campus in July, the payroll records did not get changed until September. The next report should reflect the July and August salary disbursements for these individuals as well as all current disbursements. If you have any questions about anything in the budget or would like to suggest a change in the format, contact me. Michigan Staffing: We were fortunate in that we did not have to recruit, hire, and train any new employees for this projectwe were able to utilize existing Library staff. Jeanne Drewes, Assistant Director for Access and Preservation, is managing the project, with secretarial support from Cecilia Malilwe. One librarian (Anita Ezzo) and one library assistant (Yolanda Rosales) are currently involved in the bibliographic compilation process. Although each is anticipated to commit to the project the equivalent of time for 3 months, the actual time spent has been less this quarter due to summer vacations, conflicting work demands, and various technical problems. Training: Both Jeannie and Anita attended the July 6 training session in Chicago, and Anita has been responsible for training the library assistant in both the mechanics of searching as well as the interpretation of the criteria for inclusion and exclusion. Initially, this involved a thorough monitoring and review of all searches conducted by the library assistant to ensure that search statements were being constructed correctly and that the criteria were being properly applied in the selection of appropriate titles. Compilation Process: We had intended to use Microsoft Access 2000 to manage our bibliographic citations, but eventually settled upon EndNote (at least as an intermediary program) since it has the capability of importing OCLC records specifically WorldCat records. We decided to begin our searching with WorldCat since it reflects holdings of most Michigan libraries. In addition to WorldCat, we intend to search institutional catalogs as needed and consult numerous print bibliographies. The print resources have, for the most part, already been identified and are being reviewed for appropriate titles. Our progress has been impeded by numerous technical difficulties-computers that needed upgrading, software glitches, network failures, etc. Connections to WorldCat have recently become unreliable and unpredictable. The results of numerous searches were lost and we were forced to suspend WorlCat searching until such time as the system began functioning more reliably. Although our connections have improved, we are still experiencing difficulties with the marking and e-mailing of records to be imported into EndNote. Since the latest EndNote WorldCat filter works only for e-mailed records, we are now in the process of modifying the filter to handle downloaded records. We are hopeful that this adjustment will resolve our problems and we can resume and intensify our searching activities. Our bibliography currently contains approximately 400 titles. Publicity: A press release has been written and is currently winding its way through the necessary channels in the university approval process. We expect to receive clearance soon and will be publicizing the project throughout the state. Reviewers:

Our review panel consists of four Michigan State University scholars: Kenneth E. Lewis, Associate Professor of Anthropology; Terry Shaffer, Assistant Curator/Extension Specialist, MSU Museum; Thomas Summerhill, Assistant Professor of History; and David E. Wright, Professor of Resource Development, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. We have recently been given approval to modify our budget and are allocating money for honoraria for up to two additional reviewers who will provide expertise in the area of home economics.

Minnesota (submitted by JoAnn DeVries) Marlys McGuire and JoAnn DeVries, project managers, attended the microfilming portion of the grant workshop held during ALA in Chicago. Immediately following the workshop, we ordered books from the workshop-reading list and began to educate ourselves in the process of preservation microfilming. The University of Minnesota does not have a preservation unit. We do have people on staff that are knowledgeable and we have participated in national microfilming projects in the past. But this is a new area for the project managers. We outlined a work plan and timetable. Staff involved in the project: JoAnn DeVries, Associate Librarian Marlys McGuire, Documents Librarian Marilyn McClaskey, Librarian, Orginal Cataloging Mary Mortenson, Interlibrary Loan Nancy Soldatow, Circulation Bernadatte Corley-Troge, Facilities Management Jennifer Doyle, Student Employee July-August: Filed grant with University sponsored projects office. Set up budget lines with libraries accounting office. Actually looked at a sampling of the books and journals. August-September: Set aside office and staging area space. Set up a circulation patron ID so pieces can be stored yet accessed. Wrote RFP and sent to university purchasing departmentawaiting responses.

Generally speaking, what looks like a clear and simple step on paper, takes weeks to complete, involves multiple functional units, and raises many unanticipated questions. But that is not unique to this project. For best practices we rely on the institutions that have completed their projects. New Mexico (submitted by Tim McKimmie) The New Mexico State University Team officially began working on Phase I of the preservation grant on July 1, 2000. A graduate student in the NMSU history department was hired and began work on August 8. He has begun compiling the database using EndNote software. Project leader Tim McKimmie visited numerous libraries during the first week in August. The reasons for this travel included briefing libraries and historical societies around New Mexico regarding the project, discussing the scope of various library collections, and making contacts for assistance with the bibliography and with eventual interlibrary loan. Mr. McKimmie and Archives librarian Austin Hoover attended the workshop given by Cornell personnel on July 5, 2000. The project is on track and has not had any unusual obstacles to date. Personnel working on the project: Tim McKimmie, Agriculture Librarian Austin Hoover, Archives Librarian Steve McCullough, Bibliographer (1/2 time) Reviewers: Robert Lee Hart, Curator of Interpretation, New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, Las Cruces, New Mexico Louis R. Sadler, Professor and Department Head, History Department, New Mexico State University Lois Stanford, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology/Anthropology, New Mexico State University Kelly W. Alfred, Professor, Department of Range Science, New Mexico State University Tim McKimmie, Associate Professor, Agriculture and Science Reference, University Library, New Mexico State University North Carolina (submitted by Deborah Perotti)

North Carolina State University is participating in the USAIN/NEH rural agricultural grant to identify the material in this area with the ultimate goal of preserving the most important documents. Terry Wittig, Acting Head, Collection Management Department, is the grant administrator, and Deborah Perotti, Preservation Project Librarian, is the grant bibliographer.

Initially, examples of finished USAIN/NEH rural bibliographies from other institutions were examined. A bibliographic software, EndNote, was chosen after consultation with Eric Morgan, Digital Library Initiatives. Currently, relevant references are being imported into the EndNote database, and the bibliography is growing. A problem at first was deciding which bibliographic software to use. Procite, EndNote, and Reference Manager were some of the choices, but we decided to use EndNote. After selecting EndNote to use, we discovered we needed to build a filter for our library database, DRA, to allow EndNote software to bring references into the database. The filter was successful and a number of D. H. Hill Library references have been added to the bibliography. We are planning to advertise the grant and have begun to decide which news vehicles will carry a notice describing the project. We will be contacting other institutions in North Carolina to see what materials they may have that can be included in the bibliography. The project is moving forward into the next phase of building the database and communicating with other institutions to check on items not accessible through the online catalog. We will continue to collect information and track our progress toward the ultimate goal of identifying and preserving rural agricultural material for North Carolina. We have identified the following reviewers: Anne R. Phillips, Raleigh, NC Peter A. Coclanis, Chapel Hill, NC Lu Ann Jones, Greenville, NC North Dakota (submitted by Kathie Richardson) Staff: Elena Knickman was hired as our bibliographer, began work the last week of August, and is currently working for 15-20 hours per week. Elena has had a number of years experience as an indexer for the North Dakota Periodicals Project, as a reference librarian, and an instructor of information technology. Elenas assistance and professional preparedness has been crucial since John Bye (co-project leader) has not been able to spend much time on this project as yet (post flood salvaging, collection moving, and re-organizing, etc.). Kathie Richardson (co-project leader) was also unable to spend time on the project during the month of September, but expended a lot of time in July and especially August, and she plans to do so again during the upcoming two months.

Reviewers: Our reviewer list remains the same as on our original grant request, Although we may need to add another for assistance with plant science.

Bibliography: A list of North Dakota keywords and subject headings for searching was developed, and we have completed searching the major North Dakota library systems. At this point our bibliography includes 1,500 titles. I feel that we are on schedule and anticipate that we will be in the final editing stage by Thanksgiving. The completed bibliography should be ready for the reviewers in January 2001. Software: We are using ProCite Version 5 as our citation manager software. Unfortunately, some editing of our library system records was needed in order for ProCite to handle them-a problem solved by using "search and replace" function on Microsoft Word prior to loading into ProCite. The problem is solved, but time was consumed in figuring out the solution, and in performing the additional editing. Databases searched: PALS library system (includes NDSU and Minnesota Historical Library). ODIN library system (most other North Dakota libraries except for NDSU and the North Dakota Historical Society). Bibliographies checked: North Dakota Bibliography (Quale) North Dakota History: a Bicentennial Catalog The Fruited Plain Farm Women on the Prairie Frontier North Dakota: a Guide to the Northern Prairie State North Dakota: a Human and Economic Geography North Dakota Books and Authors (two editions) History of North Dakota (Robinson) List of References for the History of Agriculture in the Great Plains List of References for the History of Agricultural Science in America Reference Guide to North Dakota History North Dakota Literature (Smeall) Bibliography of North Dakota Authors and Poets Plans for the next 3 months:

We will search the ND Historical Society collection, either using OCLC, or via a site visit or both. We will search other major collections using either RLIN or OCLC. We will continue checking published bibliographies, including the Dictionary Catalog of NAL, some theses, a selection from Cornells checklist, and others that we become aware of. We will also proceed with publicity, edit the draft bibliography, and finalize our list of reviewers. Site visits may be necessary, but will be determined at a later date.