AAU Task Force on Acquisition and Distribution of Foreign Language and Area Studies Materials

CHARGE

This task force will be made up of librarians, area studies center directors and scholars, and government relations officers. It will be asked to develop a four-part strategy for increasing acquisitions of foreign materials and expanding access to them:

• Working in conjunction with area studies groups, develop some measure of needs and priorities for foreign materials by world area.
• Establish specific national acquisition targets, based on area-specific needs and priorities and on additional information provided from current studies.
• Develop models for collection and distribution of foreign materials.
• Develop a plan of action for securing the requisite funding.

Background: Many libraries are facing sharp reductions in their acquisitions of foreign materials due primarily to three developments: (1) the dollar has dropped more than 40% on world currency markets over the last three years; (2) the rising cost of all materials has forced libraries to reduce expenditures on foreign books and materials, and (3) political developments abroad have played havoc with collection strategies--for example, the loss of state subsidies in Eastern Europe has meant that journals formerly obtained through exchange agreements must now be purchased at Western European prices.

The combination of rising serial prices and the increasing need to maintain collections that reflect the rapid and profound political, social, and economic changes throughout the world calls for new cooperative ventures to strengthen our foreign language and area studies centers and expand the access of scholars to them.

ARL is conducting a study funded by the Mellon Foundation to assess what appears to be an inverse relationship between decline in U.S. acquisitions of foreign materials and the explosion in global knowledge. This study should help provide a rational basis for setting acquisition targets as part of a comprehensive national collection and dissemination plan covering the 10 world areas.

Title VI of the Higher Education Act provides a locus for federal funding. Title VI's foreign periodical acquisitions program was first funded in FY 1992 at $500,000. The program is likely to have its authorization ceiling substantially increased and its scope expanded from foreign periodicals to foreign research materials during this year's HEA reauthorization.

Development of procedures for the collection and distribution of foreign periodicals could provide models for more general resource sharing plans.