1996

East Asian Academic Librarians of California

Annual meeting, September 20, 1996

UC Riverside

MINUTES OF THE 12TH EAALC ANNULA MEETING

(HOOVER INSTITUTION)

After a brief introduction of all participants and hearing reports from librarian representative about the major developments related to their libraries for the past year, the meeting turned to a series of reports on consortia projects for China, Japan, and Korea that were approved at the U.C. Davis meeting of early fall 1995.

James Chen led off by reporting that a union list for Chinese local histories collected after 1949 was being prepared at UCL by province, agreement had been reached to have at least one set for northern and southern California for the <Fu yin pao k’an>, that Berkeley’s Center for Chinese Studies Library would purchase Communist Party publications and Chinese local newsletters. For Korea, Joy Kim reported on joint sharing purchases exceeding UC $300 per book and other developments. Yong Kyu Choo volunteered to update the union list of Korean serials. There was discussion on whether to move forward or abandon efforts to update the newspaper list originally published by Hoover-Berkeley for newspaper holdings, and a consensus was reached to put this year’s project off for the near future; to be reconsidered for next year’s program. The group leaders (china—James Cheng; Japan—vacant; Korea—Joy Kim) will draft and circulate outlines on the continuing projects in their areas by November 1.

Three cooperative projects were proposed for mini-SCAP funding (if CDC continues the program), or by another method. Among them, the first two are continuing projects. They are:

1. Chinese Rare Books collection, to be housed at UCLA (2nd of a 2-year project. Total cost $16,000, requested amount $11,000)

2. <Snakei Shinbun>, to be housed at UCD (3rd of a 4-year project. Total cost $12,372, request amount $9,200)

3. <Wen shih tzu liao>, to be housed at UCB/CCSL (new project. Total cost $15,000, requested amount $10,500)

It was agreed by the group that the first two continuing projects should have priority over the third. It was also agreed to approach the Japan NCC Multi-Volume Set Program (NCC-MVS) on an individual library basis rather than jointly as done in 1996.

After much discussion, the group finally agreed to break with tradition and select a group convenor who would be responsible for preparing the annual report for the University of California Library Development committee about the group’s activities and progress, preparing the agenda for the annual meeting, and monitoring the various task forces and report about their activities at the group’s annual meeting. The group elected Phyllis Wang as our two year convenor. At the meeting’s end, Cathy Chiu invited the group to meet at Santa Barbara in the fall of 1997.

There was a long, fruitful discussion of the MELVYL capability for displaying CJK vernacular presented by Howie Lan of U.C. Berkeley. This arrangement could be achieved but competent technical supervision was required.

As for cooperative acquisition of Chinese literary journals by region, Phyllis Wang and William Wong outlined the number of journals selected by province and itemized the California libraries that acquired these journals. This survey provided useful information about the scope of our library acquisition of this special type of material.

Considerable discussion focused upon the electronic library topic, led by Cathy Chiu, which cited examples of useful internet data bases for China, Korea, Japan, Australia, etc. The group learned that U.C. Berkeley no longer takes Japanese newspapers physically but through telecom (Nikkei). Julia Tung presented a list of URLs to tap China data sources in electronic sources.

In the brainstorming session the group agreed to establish a task force comprised of Karl Lo, Yuki Ishimatsu, Cathy Chiu, Mihoko Miki, Naomi Findley, and Yong Kyu Choo to explore access to purchase the electronic replacement for the Japanese periodical index ,Zasshi kiji sakuin> and what that electronic data cost and how the California library system might acquire it as a first case breakthrough for similar type projects in the future. Phyllis Wang and David Farrell will draft the group’s charge and work to identify a chair.

The group also agreed to examine the prospects for a consortial web (home) page to highlight specific features of each East Asian Collection of our group. Yu-lan Chou agreed to develop a proposal for a consortial website, including the time/cost commitment required to develop the site. Jeff Kapellas and Sara Elman will assist in this effort.

Finally, the conference focused upon other business related to continuing education for East Asian Libraries, the topic of whether libraries had unique material never cataloged and how user access to these items could be improved, the acquisition of special items from China such as student publications by U.C. San Diego, and how libraries might contract out their special items for cataloging.

The meeting adjourned with a planned guided tour by Julia Tung of the Hoover Institution archives-special collections.

Minutes taken by Ramon Myers

Phyllis T. Want

ptwant@ucdavis.edu

tel 916-752-0594

fax 916-754-8715