2003

East Asian Academic Librarians of California

Minutes of the 19th Annual Meeting

570 Langson Library, UC-Irvine

September 19, 2003

Convener: Bill Wong

Recorder: Rob Bell

Participants (in alphabetical order, by institution): Claremont Colleges: Grace Chen; UC-Berkeley: Annie Chang, Jae-yong Chang, Jean Han, Evelyn Kuo, and Peter Zhou; UC-Irvine: Rob Bell, Diana Lai, Hiro Minamoto, Soon Park, Lorelei Tanji, Bill Wong, Abraham Yu, and Xiaoyan Zhang; UCLA: Mikyung Kang, Toshie Marra, and Amy Tsiang; UC-Riverside: Kuei Chiu and Min Yu; UC-Santa Cruz: Yi-yen Hayford; UC-San Diego: Jim Cheng, Sanae Isozumi, and Richard Wang; UC-Santa Barbara: Cathy Chiu and Peter Pang; USC: Young-joo Kim, Kenneth Klein, and Eun-kyong Kwon; Stanford University: Naomi Otake, Dongfang Shao, and Julia Tung.

I. Welcome and CDL/JSC Reports

Opening comments and welcome were provided to attendees by Lorelei Tanji, Assistant University Librarian for Collections at UCI. In her opening statements, she discussed the status of e-resources for the UC system, stating that the renewal of e-resources was dependent upon three factors: 1. The state of the overall economy; 2. The cost of the e-resources themselves; and 3. The $1 million budget cut imposed upon the Shared Collections Acquisitions Program (SCAP). The Joint Steering Committee for Shared Collections (JSC), under the auspices of the California Digital Library (CDL), was given the task of re-evaluating e-resources funded by SCAP funds. JSC came up with three recommendations: 1. Cataloging worthy open access (“free”) resources; 2. Review existing system-wide resources; and 3. Asking bibliographers to notify their local JSC representatives when new products of merit which deserve system-wide access come to their attention.

II. Member Library Reports

UC-Berkeley: Peter Zhou announced the arrival of its new Korean Librarian, Jae-young Chang. Also, UCB reported that they have raised the $40 million needed to build its new East Asian Library. A groundbreaking ceremony will be held on April 23, 2004, and the construction of the new library building will be completed in 2007. The new building will consist of four stories with 67,000 square feet of space, and will have the capacity to hold 780,000 volumes—enough room to accommodate 13 years worth of acquisitions until the year 2020, plus more than half of the library’s current holdings. The UC Regents have approved the project.

UCB hired five new East Asian faculty in the past year, despite the Library having to suffer through a hiring freeze and a 10% reduction in the overall Library budget, resulting in a serials cut and fewer staff and student employees.

Library projects include digitizing more than 1000 images of 16th-18th century Japanese maps and Chinese rubbings (with metadata included) in the past year, as well as librarians from Shanghai cataloging the entire rare book collection. The Library’s Pinyin conversion project is slated to be completed by the end of 2003, and the Library’s collections are being shifted to allow for additional growth through 2007.

Claremont Colleges: Grace Chen explained that the Claremont Colleges consist of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate schools. Each unit has been organized independently. The libraries are funded by these colleges and are part of the Claremont University Consortium, another administrative group. Pomona College has just hired a new president, formerly at the University of Chicago, and Claremont McKenna College plans to recruit new faculty for Korean and Southeast Asian studies.

UC-Davis: Mei-Yun (Annie) Lin, who was unable to attend the meeting, reported in writing that Sophie Volpp, a faculty member in Chinese Literature, has left for UCB. Professors Xiaomei Chen and Mark Halperin are newly appointed faulty in Chinese and comparative literature.

Due to the budget crisis, Gail Yokote, the new AUL for Collection Development, has been forced to cancel CJK serials and monographs during the current fiscal year. The East Asian Language Collection Web pages have been revised and will be remounted in the Fall quarter, and the new version of UCD Harvest Online OPAC is able to handle most CJK records.

The East Asian Collection at UCD donated 106 duplicated Chinese and Japanese titles to the Asian Collection at CSU-Sacramento, and Eiko Dym has been working half-time as a Japanese Material Specialist since February 2003.

UCLA: Amy Tsiang reported that Pauline Yu, Dean of Humanities, College of Letters and Sciences, has left UCLA to become President of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Gary Strong, former California State Librarian, has returned to California from Queens Borough Public Library and began his position as UCLA’s new University Librarian on September 2, 2003. In addition, Janice Koyama, former Interim University Librarian, will stay on as Deputy University Librarian until December 31, 2003. Other changes include: The departure of Diana Jiang, Chinese Cataloger, who left for Georgia in March of 2003, has resulted in the current lack of a Chinese original cataloging at UCLA; and Reuban Ramirez, Access Services Supervisor, will leave October 10, 2003, to attend graduate school in northern California.

On the budget front, UCLA Libraries had to deal with a 7% budget cut, with the result being that some technical services have been consolidated. Also, the East Asian Library’s circulation functions will be absorbed by Young Research Library (YRL)’s Access Services.

On the positive side, the Pinyin cleanup project has been completed ahead of schedule, with more than 40,000 records being updated—more than four times the original estimate. Also, the project of minimal cataloging of the unique 1982 Chinese Census Collection (around 1900 titles) has been completed.

UC-San Diego: Jim Cheng reported that they are dealing with a flat budget this year, resulting in decreased Library funds and increased tuition. The History department added a new faculty member specializing in East Asian Gender Studies by the name of Lu Weijin.

With UCSB, UCSD has increased the size of their e-book collections to some 50,000 titles. In addition, in a joint project with Stanford, the Library has begun to collect material relating to the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Also, the Library has spent more than $30,000 to increase their holdings in Chinese film to over 200 titles, with the plan to make the films available for streaming to any location (with the UCs taking precedence). To showcase their new acquisitions, a Chinese Underground Film Festival will be held in Price Center Theatre, October 8-10, 2003.

UC-Santa Barbara: Cathy Chiu reported that UCSB took an 8% hit to their acquisitions budget, but has not instituted a hiring freeze. They are dealing with budget shortfalls by keeping only one format for each title they purchase, and by not purchasing any Tier 2 CDL titles that require ongoing funds.

The Library is planning for a new 70,000-square foot building, but the East Asian Collection will remain in its current location. The East Asian Library received a 301-volume set, Si Ku Wei Shou Shu Ji Kan, which is a sequel to the famous Qing dynasty collectanea, Si Ku Qian Shu, from the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles, along with CD-ROMs of a Chinese encyclopedia and a Chinese dictionary.

The campus added a new Chinese literature faculty member specializing in contemporary literature and drama, and a Japanese historian specializing in Japanese art. In addition, the Center for Taiwan Studies has been given approval to recruit a new endowed chair.

UC-Santa Cruz: Yi-yen Hayford reported that they are operating on a flat budget this year, with no cuts and no increases. Also, the local CUZCAT system has completed the CJK Pinyin conversion with OCLC. Currently, it is under additional review and cleanup. The University Librarian Allan Dyson has retired, with Bob White acting as the interim University Librarian until a permanent replacement can be found. Many thanks to Amy Tsiang of UCLA, Annie Chang of UCB, and Richard Wang of UCSD for sharing their Chinese duplicates. Finally, the library building expansion will begin with Phase 1 in 2005 and expect it to be completed with Phase 4 by 2010.

UC-Riverside: Kuei Chiu reported that in addition to his current CJK collection development duties, he started covering Southeast Asia due to the launching of Southeast Asian program on campus. Budget-wise, they are working with a flat budget this year. Finally, regarding faculty at UCR, the university had a hard time retaining Japanese faculty: Fortunately, they have hired two new faculty members in Japanese reently.

USC: Ken Klein reported that Yong Joo Kim is working on a serials holding project, while Dr. Eun Kyong Kwon is evaluating the Japanese collection. The Libraries in general have been realigned into teams for greater efficiency and cost savings.

USC’s Korean Collection is still the jewel in the East Asian Collection’s crown. Part of this collection, the Sea of Korea collection, contains 176 maps, and is fully cataloged and available online.

Eighty percent of a gift given by Zhou Cezong in March of 2003 has been received and processed at this time, and Joan Piggott was recruited from Cornell to teach Japanese history. In addition, USC will post a position for a Japanese Studies Librarian in the near future.

Also, USC received a matching grant for $100,000 to purchase East Asian material. To date, about 3500 titles have been purchased using funds from the grant.

In other library news, USC opened its new remote storage facility near campus, giving them room for about 10-15 years worth of growth.

Stanford: Dongfang Shao reported that the East Asia Library moved to its new facility, and is now the largest branch library on Stanford’s campus.

In the area of budget, Stanford is having to deal with a 3% across-the-board budget cut. The Libraries are actively raising funds for East Asian collection development by visiting alumni. Also, Stanford received a Mellon Foundation grant in the amount of $800,000 for retrospective conversion of its East Asian vernacular catalog, since about 55% of the collection is still on cards.

In the area of collections, about 400 Chinese film titles were selected for the collection over the past year. Also, the Library acquired the Yomiuri Shimbun on CD-ROM from the Meiji era to 1945.

New faculty appointments include Mark Lewis from Cambridge, now Kwoh-ting Li Professor of Chinese Culture, Matthew Sommer, Qing Legal History, Karen Wigen, Japanese Regionalism and Economic Geography, and Steven Carter, Japanese Literature.

UC-Irvine: Bill Wong reported that with Professor Steven Carter’s departure for Stanford, UC-Irvine is recruiting a new department chair for East Asian Languages and Literatures. Other faculty news include the appointment of Duncan Williams from Harvard to teach Japanese Buddhism and Yang Su from Stanford in the Sociology department. In addition, Xiaoyan Zhang is the new Chinese cataloging staff member.

The East Asian Collection has been moved to a better location on the first floor of the newly renamed Langson Library. Bound journals were pulled out from the East Asian Collection and integrated with the main stacks in the compact-shelving area. This new arrangement will create more space for collection growth while old journals can still be accessible.

III. East Asian Digital Resources

Mikyung Kang from UCLA reported on Korean electronic resources.

1. EncyKorea: Korean studies encyclopedia.

2. DBPIA: online aggregator contains content from over 570 journals.

3. Korean Studies Information KISS: another online aggregator with content from more than 1200 journals.

4. KRPIA: also an online aggregator, it contains historical primary source material and classical works.

When it comes to joint purchases, Korean vendors tend to prefer one-time payments for each title of their products, rather than annual subscription payments. However, as long as a library purchases certain amounts of their products, vendors may provide online access to their entire databases at no additional charge. Also, vendors will often allow a trial period for new purchases for up to six months.

Columbia, Michigan, Stanford, UC-Berkeley, and UCLA already agreed to participate in the joint purchase project of these resources. Mikyung would like to know which institutions are interested in these products, and how much each library would be willing to commit to each product. In addition, she will ask for a free trial of the Korean Modern History Database if any library wants to access to it.

Sanae Isozumi from UCSD reported on the state of Japanese electronic resources.

1. Japan Knowledge: Japanese-language database that contains some twenty reference resources, including encyclopedias and language and technical dictionaries.

i. -The cost is $1500 per simultaneous user, with a 15% discount for the first year.

2. Yomiuri Shimbun: newspaper backfile, with content delivered on networkable CD-ROMs.

3. NACSIS-IR/NACSIS-ELS: currently free (until March 2004).

i. -IR: Contains 40 databases plus Japanese academic journals in full text.

ii. -ELS: Contains full-text access to 450 Japanese academic journals.

Cathy Chiu from UCSB reported on Chinese-language electronic resources.

1. CAJ: full-text Chinese journal aggregator, which contains more than 3000 titles (although it is missing some core journals). The cost is $47,000 per year, or the entire backfile can be purchased for $150,000.

2. Chinese Newspapers: database of full-text Chinese newspapers; however, not all articles are included.

3. People’s Daily: full-text version of the Chinese newspaper, with a five-year rolling window, is free online. The CD-ROM version has a 50-year backfile, and costs $3000. Peter Zhou is negotiating a consortial license with a vendor for a web-version subscription to the complete 50-year datafile.

4. Chant (Xian Qin Liang Han): this is a full-text pre-Qin Dynasty literary concordance that is available on CD-ROM (for five simultaneous users) for $6000, or for $200 per year for an Internet version subscription. The database is continuously being developed, with new data being added all the time.

5. Super E-Books: SuperStar electronic books can be purchased at $2.00 per title. Every UC campus can contribute to the database and share all the e-book titles from anywhere within the UC system. These e-books are loaded in the UCSD Super Computer Center. Currently UCSD and UCSB together have purchased more than 40,000 titles.

6. Reprints of Literature: a collection of reprints of Chinese journals and newspaper articles produced by Renmin (People’s) University. Several campuses have the CD-ROM version. However, the Internet version is a lot more useful. UC may want to consider looking into getting a consortial license for this important database.

IV. East Asian Digital Library White Paper Task Force

The Task Force was comprised of Cathy Chiu, Sanae Isozumi, Mikyung Kang, and Peter Zhou.

Cathy Chiu chairs the group.

Cathy Chiu reported that the Task Force visited all 10 campuses to discuss their preliminary report as well as to study the current situation of East Asian digital resources on each campus and each campus’s individual needs. The Task Force proposed that an East Asian Digital Library be established in the CDL and that a Budget and Steering Committee be formed to look for funding sources. The Task Force will submit its report to CDL in October of 2003.

Peter Zhou commented that the best way to present the Task Force’s work would be to take a broad, middle-of-the-road approach that would benefit as many campuses as possible (such as the development of an infrastructure for East Asian digital collections in CDL for all UC campuses). Due to the large amount of money required for such a project—especially in these dire economic times—to increase support for the project, the Task Force needs to point out that the East Asian Digital Library group could be a revenue-generating initiative rather than only a costly expense, and that efforts will be made to tie the initiative to current system-wide mandates, such as CDL’s Digital Preservation Program.

V. New MELVYL

Jim Cheng and Sanae Isozumi presented on the changes and upgrades in MELVYL, focusing on how these will affect CJK searching.

Jim Cheng reported that the system currently in use is comes from Ex Libris, and is based on the ALEPH 500 software currently in use at Harvard and other major institutions (more than 800 in 50 countries). MELVYL’s CJK functionality is limited to use with Unicode, which can be downloaded from the Internet, or is included with Windows 2000 or XP.

When searching for CJK material in this environment, doing a Title search is not very effective. It is recommended that CJK material be searched using the Browse function, which is the only way to catch both simplified and traditional Chinese characters for all CJK records. When searching for Chinese material, the system searches traditional characters first, and then searches Pinyin second. Results are then sorted by Pinyin pronunciation, not by Chinese pronunciation. It should be noted that, if a Title search is performed in this environment, it is actually a Keyword search, and the results are then displayed at the bottom of the results window.

When exporting CJK material, it is recommended that a Web-based e-mail system be used, since local e-mail is not generally set up to be able to use Unicode encoding.

Four problems have been discovered with the current system, and are being corrected when possible:

1. Unicode displays (from EACC tables) do not display all possible characters (based on LC); Harvard has corrected this problem, but it is still evident in MELVYL.

2. Non-standard characters used in original cataloging present display problems for Unicode.

3. Occasionally, characters are converted incorrectly from EACC to Unicode.

4. Problems are still evident in CJK diacritics.

Reporting problems: At the present time, there is no designated person at CDL for dealing with these issues. It is recommended that librarians attempt to determine who is responsible for the error. If the fault lies with Aleph, use the Comments and Feedback form to report the error. It is highly recommended that the UC system put a person in place to deal with CJK issues.

Sanae Isozumi reported that, when searching for CJK material in MELVYL, remember that exact searches do not work. All searches are, in effect, Keyword searches, and the results are displayed by when the material was entered into the system. Results can then be displayed by Year, Author, and Title. When searching by CJK characters, it is best to search as a Phrase. Also, note that entries not entered in CJK will not appear in the results. For Japanese language material, hiragana and katakana searches must be done as a Phrase, otherwise MELVYL will assume that an “and” appears between the characters being searched.

VI. Berkeley’s Chinese Rare Book Project

Evelyn Kuo reported on the background and progress of Berkeley’s ongoing Chinese rare book project.

The collection is comprised of more than 4000 titles that date before 1911, 810 of which date from before 1795. The content of the collection is largely from three sources: The John Fryer Chinese Library was a bequest to the University in 1898. The Mitsui Library Collection was purchased by the Library in the 1950s, and contained more than 100,000 CJK items. Finally, the Ho-Chiang Collection was acquired by the Library in the 1970s.

The current project focuses on the compilation of titles with imprints dating from 1795 or earlier. The initial phase involved selecting more than 500 titles in Shanghai based on the East Asian Library’s cataloged titles. These titles were compared with sources available in China and then authenticated at UC-Berkeley. Additional titles were selected in Berkeley to make up the entire bibliography. One hundred of these selected titles were not documented before in any of Berkeley’s existing records, and five extremely rare titles—manuscripts of Weng Funggang’s (1733-1818) Jin (Classics) writings—were the most valuable.

In general, the project has authenticated and cataloged more than 1000 titles. More than 800 titles will be included in a Chinese Rare Book Bibliography which is expected to be published in the Fall of 2004. In the second phase, the Library will be working on a more complete bibliography covering titles published before 1911.

VII. EAALC Website

Kuei Chiu is currently in charge of the EAALC Website, which is available at: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EAALC/ . He has asked that any material that needs to be added to the site be sent to him.

In addition, as a tribute to his hard work maintaining and updating the Website, Kuei Chiu was elected as chair of the EAALC Website Committee.

VIII. EADLG Chair Election

In recognition of his diligence and knowledge, and despite his extremely busy schedule, Peter Zhou was elected to the two-year term as chair of the East Asian Digital Library Group.

IX. 2004 Meeting Site

Stanford was chosen as the location for the 2004 EAALC meeting.

X. New Business, Others, Etc.

TwinBridge Software, the creators of various CJK versions of software, is working with Infometrics to digitize CJK material. Their first project will be to digitize the People’s Daily (as mentioned by Cathy Chiu in III. East Asian Digital Resources, above). They eventually plan to digitize between 15,000 and 20,000 CJK titles, and at least five newspapers. Several campuses expressed interest in this product. The group will continue to monitor the progress of this product.

(Final version February 20, 2004)