Special Collections Subcommittee meeting
March 22, 2005

Present: Richard Boursy, Susan Brady, Elisabeth Fairman, Tom Hyry, Ulla Kasten, Susan Matheson, George Miles, Ann Okerson, Martha Smalley, Libby VanCleve, Susan Walker, David Walls, Richard Warren

Guest: Chris Weideman

• Chris Weideman told us about the work of a task force that is seeking to publicize and consolidate information about GLBT resources at Yale. Jonathan Katz, Director of the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale, is working with various library staff members to develop methods of facilitating access to GLBT resources, e.g., an online tutorial, a research methodology course, cataloging guidelines, “aids to imagination.” Chris distributed a form asking the various repositories to report on GLBT holdings. Discussion ensued re. how to define what qualifies as GLBT, particularly in historical collections generated prior to the emergence of GLBT awareness/labeling. Other questions raised included 1) are librarians/archivists being asked to do the work of scholarship in identifying such materials; 2) what if the family or donors would prefer not to have a GLBT designation on the materials. We agreed that further discussion of the issue would be useful. Chris will invite Jonathan Katz and other task force members to join us at a future meeting (probably our May meeting.)

• Susan Brady reported on preparations for the upcoming Special Collections exhibit (SML Corridor cases May-July 2005) Each participating repository can have up to five labels. The text for these labels should be submitted to Susan in the format specified in her email message of 3/23 no later than April 22^nd. Gisela Noack will offer two workshops on mounting materials on April 4 & 7. The exhibit will be installed on April 28-29.
• We discussed possible titles for the exhibit. Martha needs to submit the title, information about the exhibit, and illustrations to Diana Timlin by April 1 for a press release.
  
  
• We began to discuss issues related to Yale’s copyright document in reference to exchanges on the Archives list. Peter Hirtle (of Cornell) stated on the list that certain statements in the Yale document are erroneous, specifically:
• 2B: “All photographs, even those referred to as ‘copy photographs’ are copyrighted.”
• 4: Re. application of foreign copyright laws
• Additional information section: “Works of art are considered to be published when they are publicly displayed.”

Ann Okerson agreed to look into the foreign copyright law issue. The discussion will continue.

Next meeting will be April 19, 2005, 11:00 a.m. in SML 410.