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The majority of the damage from the fire on April 30 involved periodicals and journals similar to these seen during a tour May 12 of Zimmerman Library.
The majority of the damage from the fire on April 30 involved periodicals and journals similar to these seen during a tour May 12 of Zimmerman Library.

Journals lost in blaze not easily replaced

Some ethnic studies articles not available in online system

by Riley Bauling

Daily Lobo

The fire that tore through the Zimmerman Library basement April 30 damaged journals that can't be found in UNM's online journal database, said Camila Alire, dean of University Libraries.

While the majority of the journals damaged in the fire are available through Journal Storage, or JSTOR, Alire said some of the ethnic studies journals located in the library can only be requested through Rapid - an interlibrary journal delivery service that sends requested articles to a person's e-mail from another university library that is subscribed to Rapid.

Alire said the request takes no longer than 24 hours to be filled by another Rapid library. She didn't give an exact number of libraries that are subscribed to the system, saying only there are many Rapid members, and that UNM professors and students are familiar with the system because the University has been subscribed since the fall 2005 semester.

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Included among the ethnic studies journals that can't be salvaged were journals in the areas of Native American Studies, African American Studies, Iberian-Latin American Studies and Chicano Hispano Mexicano Studies.

Some of the older publications that were damaged should be replaced because those are pieces of history rather than simply journals, said Finnie Coleman, director of African American Studies.

"A lot of the newer publications come out in both (online and hard copy). That makes sense then to replace the newer ones digitally," he said. "Replacing the hard copies that are older is more about them as artifacts. I would encourage them to replace copies for those kinds of things."

Coleman said his department has copies of most of the African American Studies research material housed in the library. If Zimmerman needed some of those materials, the department would not have a problem sharing those, he said.

Alire said the library is going to rely on faculty input to decide which publications need to be replaced and which can be made available only online.

Tiffany Lee, an assistant professor in Native American Studies, said replacing publications in an online format would solve problems in the future if something like a fire occurred again.

"I would tell them, if they asked me, to continue to make things available online, which is the easiest method, especially when you have situations like this," she said.

It's been difficult to do research for some professors because access to items such as microfilm have been limited, said Felipe Gonzales, chairman of the sociology department, whose research includes an emphasis on Mexican Americans in the Southwest.

He has had to suspend his research because of the unavailability of microfilm he is accustomed to using, he said.

Gonzales said he's willing to help the library in its recovery process by encouraging people in his department to donate materials to Zimmerman.

"What I'm getting ready to do here, as soon as I get word from the library, is put an announcement out to my whole department that if they have journals just lying around, if they would be willing to give those to the library," he said. "If we have any of those to put in, we'd be glad to do so."

Alire said there haven't been any complaints about accessing any of the ethnic studies journals that aren't available through the online journal database. She said the Rapid system covers any of the journals that can't be found in JSTOR, and the response to Rapid has been positive.

It doesn't matter whether resources are accessible online or in hard copy provided that access isn't limited, said Nancy Lopez, an assistant professor in the sociology department who focuses on race and adversity in her research.

"I haven't heard any major complaints from my students," she said. "As long as they are available in some format, that would be the ideal situation."

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