Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Data Center Records
BANC MSS 99/329 c
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
The Bancroft Library
Title: Data Center records
Creator:
Data Center (Oakland, Calif.)
Identifier/Call Number: BANC MSS 99/329 c
Physical Description:
395 linear feet
(314 cartons, 2 boxes, 5 flat boxes, and 3 oversize folders)
Physical Description:
1.6 GB
1 website capture
Date (inclusive): approximately 1950-2005
Date (bulk): 1960-2000
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information
on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Language of Material:
English
.
Collection is open for research process.
Conditions Governing Access to Audiovisual Materials
ARCHIVAL AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS RESTRICTED DUE TO FRAGILITY. Audiovisual materials must be reformatted for research access.
Inquire with Bancroft Public Services regarding the creation of reading room viewing copies of archival audiovisual items
in the collection.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The Data Center records were given to The Bancroft Library by the Fred Goff in 1998. Additions were received from Fred Goff
in 2015.
This history is taken verbatim from a 1995 history of the Data Center provided to The Bancroft Library by Fred Goff in 2000.
The history does not include details about the Data Center after 1994.
Note on language: The Data Center is also called the DataCenter by the organization itself. This finding aid (with the exception of the transcribed
history below) uses "Data Center" because it is the Library of Congress authorized form of the name.
The DataCenter was founded in 1977 to provide strategic information services on U.S. political and economic issues to those
working for social justice.
The DataCenter was originally created by the west coast office of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) in
response to years of requests from the public for access to its valuable research library. The DataCenter was to maintain
and expand the NACLA library and open it to the public. When NACLA consolidated all its operations in the New York office
and closed its west coast office in December 1978, the DataCenter became financially and legally independent. Due to its NACLA
roots, much of the DataCenter collection dates back to the founding of NACLA in 1966 (and in some subject areas, covered by
other donated collections, material dates to the 1930's).
Working in affiliation with the DataCenter since its inception has been Information Services Latin America (ISLA), a reprint
and indexing service providing copies of daily newspaper articles on Latin America from major U.S. dailies. ISLA was founded
in 1970 by the president of NACLA to provide a systematic monitoring of U.S. press reporting on Latin America.
Since its founding the DataCenter has received over 30 specialized collections donated by individuals and organizations including:
Paul Jacobs (writer and investigative reporter), Intemews, Earthworks, San Francisco Study Center, and the Southeast Asia
Resource Center. These donations, plus extensive clipping and collection development by the DataCenter staff, have broadened
the original scope of the library to include all major aspects of the U.S. political economy and its impact at home and abroad.
Significant developments in the DataCenter's history include:
Spring 1977: move to present location with over 4,000 square feet of space centrally located in downtown Oakland; create Board of Directors,
incorporate
(under the legal name Investigative Resource Center), and open to the public.
September 1978: receive tax-exempt status from the IRS.
January 1, 1979: become administratively and financially independent after NACLA-West closes its office.
September 1979 - July 1980: work on two major research contracts providing Corporate Profiles for what becomes the best-selling Everybody's Business
Almanac (Harper & Row, 1980) and for the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations. Out of this experience we
launch the Corporate Profile Project. with grants from the Stern Fund, the Shalan Foundation, and Youth Project.
Fall 1979 - Spring 1980: Two DataCenter staff members coordinate the production, promotion, and distribution of two study-action guides published
by the Episcopal Church Publishing Company: Must We Choose Sides? (127 pp.) and Which Side Are We On? (172 pp.).
1979: Establish the Search Service, a contract research service to provide photocopied information from our files to those unable
to visit our library. Originally created to handle research requests from immigration attorneys defending Central Americans
from deportation, it is subsequently expanded to cover all aspects of our focus on political, economic and social issues.
1980: Major contract with the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations providing information for a computerized data base on direct
foreign investment in Latin America.
Fall 1980 - Spring 1982: In response to requests for information on presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, publish The Reagan File, a 640-page collection
of articles (press profile), followed in 1981, after his election, with four 100-page press profiles on Reagan's policies
on labor (100 pp.), El Salvador (105 pp.). foreign policy (105 pp.), and military policy in Asia (100 pp.).
Interest in the New Right's growing prominence under the Reagan Administration leads to the creation of the New Right Project,
beginning with the production in 1981 of the
four-volume New Right: Readings and Commentarv (600 pp.) and two subsequent excerpted editions. This is followed in the Spring
of 1982 by the launching of two new periodicals: the semi-annual New Right Monitor Update (150 - 200 pp.) which is suspended
in 1984 and the monthly Neoconservative Monitor (which becomes a quarterly publication of 150 pp. in 1985 and is suspended
in April 1987).
Fall 1981 - Winter 1982: In response to information on the recession's growing impact, establish the monthly Steel Monitor (50 pp.) covering the
massive restructuring of the steel industry (this service ends in December 1984). This is followed by the publication of the
four-volume, 520-page Understanding and Combatting Plant Closures and a 100-page excerpted version. In January 1982, with
a grant from the United Presbyterian Church, launch the monthly Plant Shutdowns Monitor (60 pp.).
Spring 1982: Under a·grant from the Arca Foundation, produce a three-volume, 480-page press profile on toxics in the environment, Toxic
Nightmare, for free distribution to 50 leading environmental organizations working for legislative and regulatory reforms.
Follow up with two semi-annual updates in Fall 1982 and Spring 1983.
Spring 1982: In response to growing restrictions on access to information, begin organizing the Right to Know Project, and help launch
and sponsor the Northern California Coalition for the Right to Know.
Summer 1982: Within a week of Bechtel President George Schultz's nomination as Secretary of State, publish a 385-page press profile on
Bechtel providing the most complete publicly available collection of articles on this privately-held company; sell it to all
major TV networks, many embassies, and numerous public policy organizations.
Fall 1982: Begin training minority, low-income students from the Zapata Street Academy (Oakland; work with this program through 1984).
February 1983: As U.S. involvement in Central America escalates, launch the Central America Monitor, a 100-page bi-weekly providing articles
on the region as published in over 120 magazines covering a wide political spectrum--a useful complement to ISLA's coverage
of nine newspapers. (Cease publication in December 1990).
March 1983: Publish a press profile, Nuclear Proliferation: A Moral Dilemma for the American Churches on contract to the Committee for
Social Justice, Merced, California (30 pp.).
October 1983: Within three days of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, publish and distribute Grenada: Background and Analysis, a 150-page press
profile documenting the buildup to the invasion over the previous five years.
October 1983: Publish a collection of clippings, No More Concessions! for the Labor Notes West Coast Conference, to benefit the Plant
Closures Project (62 pp.).
October 1983: In response to growing interest in the investment community in monitoring portfolios for social criteria, and to provide
updated information to others writing on the subject of corporate social responsibility, start publication of 100-page monthly
Corporate Responsibility Monitor (change to bimonthly in January 1992 and cease publication December 1992).
November 1983: Produce 500-page background collection of articles on the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), a neoconservative lobbying
organization which had launched a public campaign against various public policy positions of the National Council of Churches
and the World Council of Churches.
Spring 1984: DataCenter staffers Tom Fenton and Mary Heffron's Third World Resource Directory (284 pp.) is published by Orbis Books aml
wins citation from Choice library magazine as one of the year's outstanding new academic reference books. In Fall 1984 a follow-up
project, the Third World Resources Project, is set up as a DataCenter affiliate to publish a quarterly newsletter (first issue,
Spring 1985) and a series of 9 specialized 160-page resource directories over the next six years (in cooperation with Orbis
Books, the Maryknoll publishing house):
Asia and the Pacific (Winter 1986)
Latin America and the Caribbean (Spring 1986)
Women in the Third World (Winter 1987)
Food, Hunger and Agribusiness (Spring 1987)
Africa (Fall 1987)
Middle East (Spring 1988)
Human Rights (Summer 1989)
Transnational Corporations and Labor (Fall 1989)
Third World Struggle for Peace with Justice (Fall 1990)
Fall 1984: As background for upcoming elections, produce two-volume retrospective press profile on the Reagan Record (Foreign Policv
100 pp., and Domestic Policy 88 pp.).
November 1984: IRS completes five-year review of the Investigative Resource Center and confirms tax-exempt status.
Winter 1985: Publish Religious Values and Economic Justice, a 60 page press profile, under contract with the Center for Ethics and Social
Policy and the Graduate Theological Union.
Spring 1985: Publish two additional press profiles in ongoing series on current public policy issues: The Sanctuary Movement (70 pp.),
and Jamaica at the Crossroads (115 pp.).
July 1985: Information Services Latin America (ISLA), completes 15 years of monthly publishing, providing the full text of over 100,000
articles.
July 1985: DataCenter begins hiring and training low-income, minority Oakland public high school students to work in the office and
library, via the Dowelling Jig program.
August 1985: Right to Know Project receives $10,000 from the CS Fund to produce a press profile on the right-to-know and distribute it
to Congress and activists.
November 1985: Publish two press profiles: The Right to Know (179 pp.), and Terrorism: A Closer Look (62 pp.).
December 1985 - January 1986: Publish the first Plant Shutdowns Monitor annual directories of closures (1983, 34 pp.; 1984, 30 pp.; 1985, 42 pp.).
January 1986: Contract with Fern Tiger Associates (Oakland, Calif.) to undertake the DataCenter's first major promotion campaign, including
research of client needs, new logo design, production of brochures and other materials, and assistance in marketing plans
in conjunction with the DataCenter's 10th Anniversary (1986 - 1987).
March 1986: Publish The Contra File (30 pp.) in response to upcoming Congressional votes on U.S. aid to the rebels in Nicaragua.
Summer 1986: Right to Know Project is instrumental in establishing a national group, the Coalition on Government Information (Coon, advocating
more public access to government information.
January 1987: The California Secretary of State approves a change Qf the legal,
tax-exempt name from the Investigative Resource Center to the DataCenter.
February 12, 1987: Celebrate the DataCenter's 10th Anniversary.
February 1987: Publish The Pat Robertson File (45 pp.) to provide background on his presidential candidacy.
May 1987: Major contract negotiated with Everybody's Business for use of the DataCenter library to revise the bestseller book Everybody's
Business: An Almanac which was originally researched in 1979-80 at the DataCenter.
October 28, 1987: Receive the Meritorious Achievement Award for Community Journalism from the Media Alliance, the Bay Area association of
media professionals.
November 1987: Under a $3,000 grant from the World Council of Churches' Urban Rural Mission division (WCC/URM), launch a Pro Bono Fund
to subsidize discounted DataCenter services to low budget social justice organizing groups. The Pro Bono Fund is subsequently
replenished with an additional WCC/URM grant of $2,500, by a $5,000 donation from an anonymous donor, by a $7,000 grant from
the Max and Anna Levinson Foundation, by six grants totaling $100,000 from the North Shore Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program
(over a period of six years, 1988-1993), and by a $15,000 grant from the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation.
January 1988: PeaceNet begins offering our Third World Resources (TWR) quarterly full text on line (in January 1993 PeaceNet adds the
ability to do free text searching of all back issues of TWR). As of March 1988 TWR is also available electronically through
the federally funded ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Clearinghouse on Social Studies Education (via Dialog).
And in June 1989, Gale Research contracts to index every review of books, periodicals and pamphlets in TWR in its bimonthly
Book Review Index (also available online through Dialog). These three developments offer a unique opportunity to bring progressive
publications to the attention of librarians, researchers, teachers, and writers.
April 1988: Begin offering our search service clients access to on-line commercial databases.
August 1988: Receive a $120,000 two-year grant from the Tinker Foundation to produce 19 volumes of the ISLA index, thereby bringing it
up to date. Receive two additional $30,000 grants and one $20,000 grant from the General Service Foundation (1990, '91, and
'93) to complete the project.
November 1988: Publish The Right to Know, Vol. II (224 pp.).
March 1989: Fire set by arsonist destroys store below the DataCenter but the center itself emerges with only smoke damage, cracked windows
from the heat, and doors and skylights destroyed by firemen. DataCenter closes 2 weeks for cleanup and repairs.
October 1989: Survive the 7.1 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake with relatively minor structural damage. Reopen to the public within ten
days.
November 1989: Merge the Plant Shutdowns Monitor into an expanded Corporate Responsibility Monitor.
August 1990: Publish The Right to Know. Vol. III (265 pp.) including cumulative index for all three volumes. Hold book party and open
house for intellectual freedom community in October 1990.
September 1990: With funding suport from the HKH Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Rockefeller Family & Associates, and the
L.J. Skaggs and Mary
C. Skaggs Foundation, launch Corporate Feasibility Project to further develop DataCenter's strength in providing the corporate
social and environmental record.
January 1991: Launch multi-year Institutional Development project to secure a long range vital role for the DataCenter in the social
justice movement. The project, which coincides with the celebration of the organization's 15th anniversary, will create a
long range plan as well as upgrade the following infrastructural support systems: internal management structure, computerized
financial reporting and control systems
(including an audit), and fundraising (including a capital campaign feasibility study). Initial funding for this project is
received from Applied Research Center, the Pequod Fund of the Tides Foundation, and The San Francisco Foundation.
January - April 1991: In response to war in Persian Gulf, publish and widely promote three volume press profile of commentary and analysis (over
8,000 copies distributed):
Background and Analysis (64 pp.)
Iraq under Fire (58 pp.)
The Media and Our Right to Know (78 pp.)
These are subsequently updated by the DataCenter's Data Pak: News from the Alternative Press (May/June 1991, 84 pp.) and The
Persian Gulf War Update (published in January 1992 on the anniversary of the Gulf War, 56 pp.). The initial three volume series
is funded in part by the Cook Brothers Education Fund, the Funding Exchange, the Harburg Foundation, and the Public Concern
Foundation, as well as individual donors.
April 18, 1991: Receive James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists,
the largest organization serving and representing American journalists. The organization award recognizes DataCenter "for
its sponsorship of Right to Know and other projects designed to protect the First Amendment". Project founder, Zoia Hom is
honored "for her pioneering work in developing research projects and coalitions identifying the barriers to Freedom of Expression".
September 1991: Launch the Cuba Project in response to information requests from the emerging second generation of leadership in Cuba as
they seek to chart their nation's course in the years ahead. The project is funded by two $25,000 grants from the Arca Foundation
and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation [and subsequently by grants from the MacArthur Foundation in 1992 ($50,000)
and 1993 ($57,250)]. Having expanded from its initial format, the project delivers a monthly 400-page information packet to
35 public policy, academic, and government institutions in Cuba. Taking advantage of the recently-passed Berman Amendment
making such information exchanges legal, the project helps break the Cuba embargo and assists in normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations.
Spring 1992: Reference Services Review, a quarterly reference journal designed to assist librarians in developing specialized collections,
publishes 20-page article "Corporate Citizenship: Sources for Tracking the Social Performance of Corporations", co-authored
by DataCenter's corporate research director, Andy Kivel. An updated and shortened 15-page version is published in the Winter
1993 issue of the Business and Finance Bulletin, published by the Business and Finance Division of the Special Libraries Association.
June 1992: Publish The Right to Know, Vol. IV, (260 pp.), including cumulative subject and author indexes for all four volumes.
April 1993: Under a $25,000 grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation launch Freedom of Expression Project and CultureWatch, a new monthly
publication.
CultureWatch is an annotated bibliography on culture, art, and political affairs monitoring the people, organizations and
issues in the spreading "culture wars." Originally conceived as a resource for arts groups and others countering freedom of
expression attacks from the right, it also serves a wider audience concerned about the right's efforts to shape American culture
and the way we govern our lives. CultureWatch is also made available online via Arts Wire through Internet. The grant also
funds an expansion of our holdings on the far right and establishment of a pro bono fund to underwrite DataCenter research
for groups under attack from the far right.
April 28, 1993: During Congressional debate on the North American Free trade Agreement, DataCenter Executive Director Fred Goff testifies
before the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management on our plant
closures data. The hearings confirm that our Plant Shutdowns Monitor is the only source tracking company-specific layoffs
and plant closures. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics begins referring inquiries on plant closure data to the DataCenter.
November 1993: With capacity building grants from the C.S. Fund and Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation ($10,000 each) launch a project
to develop our
individual donor base. As part of this project, board member and nationally known grassroots fundraising trainer Kirn Klein
begins working with us on a one day a week basis.
March 1994: Third World Resources project publishes first edition of its 800-page encyclopedic Third World Resource Directory with Orbis
Books. The directory will be updated biannually.
October 1994: DataCenter hosts first annual open house attended by some 150 guests and featuring the west coast premiere of a striking
photographic exhibit assembled by NACLA. The exhibit, presenting the work of 14 photographers, includes 36 photographs taken
in Haiti from 1986 to the present. Along with the exhibit, Elizabeth Farnsworth, a DataCenter board member and correspondent
for the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and Pierre Labossiere, a Haiti activist and steering committee member of the Bay Area Haitian
American Council, speak about their recent visits to Haiti.
August 1994: Two DataCenter staff, Fred Goff and Andy Kivel, conduct a full day workshop on "Research Methods for Community Activists"
at the Community Strategic Training Initiative sponsored by the Western States Center in Portland, OR. Using case studies
and both hard copy and electronic sources, the workshop examined how to research a company, an organization, an elected official
and a landlord. This is the third year DataCenter staff have conducted the CSTI workshop (first in Berkeley and twice in Portland).
November 1994: DataCenter is one of the founding member organizations of a new North American human rights organization, the Canada/U.S.
Human Rights Information and Documentation Network. The Network was established on November 5, 1994 at a three-day conference
convened and sponsored by Amnesty International, the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and HURIDOCS (Human Rights Information and Documentation Center). Tom Fenton, co-director of the DataCenter's
Third World Resources program, represented the DataCenter at the historic convention in Washington, DC.
November 1994: With startup grants from HKH Foundation, the Winston Foundation for World Peace and CarEth Foundation, totaling $35,000
of a total $185,000 being sought, DataCenter launches the Library Conversion and Network Preparation
Project. The goal of the project is to upgrade and computerize library systems to make the DataCenter's resources more accessible
to the general public.
December 1994: DataCenter joins with Citizens for a Better Environment in a Petrochemicals, Money and Politics Project funded by the Florence
and John Schumann Foundation. Working with grassroots toxics activists around the state, the project will be doing research,
training and organizing, focusing on the influence wielded by the oil industry as a resul of campaign contributions.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Bancroft staff utilized Archive-It to conduct a web capture of the Data Center website: http://www.datacenter.org/ on February
16, 2022. It is viewable online throught the Wayback Machine.
Data Center records, BANC MSS 99/329 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Collection is minimally processed and may be challenging to use. Arrangement of the collection is as received from Data Center.
This finding aid provides mixed access at the box and file level. Bancroft staff attempted to include original Data Center
file numbers in the finding aid when feasible. Bancroft staff kept most of the original folders and labels; folders that were
in bad shape were replaced and unfoldered materials were foldered. Staff clarified or re-labeled existing labels when necessary.
Data Center poster collection (BANC PIC 1997.087)
[Banner and political buttons from the Data Center records] (BANC PIC 19xx.031:218--OBJ)
The Data Center records consist of portions of its enormous vertical file as well as admistrative files and a capture of the
organization's website. Not all vertical files from the center came to Bancroft. Some had been damaged by water and mold at
the Data Center's location in Oakland, California and were not selected for acquisition. Most of the file date from the 1970s
through the 1990s, but, because of the organization's roots as part of The North American Congress on Latin America, the Data
Center records also contain materials dating back to the 1960s. Data Center also acquired many materials via donation from
the public. In some subject areas, materials (often received as donations), date back the the 1930s
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Data Center (Oakland, Calif.)
Goff, Fred
North American Congress on Latin America
Information Services on Latin America (Oakland, Calif.)
Reagan, Ronald -- Press coverage
Information services
Data centers
News libraries
Central America -- Press coverage
Central America -- Foreign relations -- United States.
Central America -- Politics and government -- 1979-
Latin America -- Press coverage
Latin America--Politics and government--20th century
California--Politics and government--20th century
San Francisco (Calif.)--Politics and government--20th century
Freedom of information
AIDS (Disease) -- Press coverage