East Asian Academic Librarians of California

Attendance:
Berkeley: Jean Han, Acting Head, East Asian Library

Davis: S.K. Leung, Catalog Librarian
Phyllis Wang, Collection Development Librarian

Irvine: Ruth Boyer, Head, Catalog Department
Judith Paquette, AUL for Collections
Sally Tseng, Principal Serials Cataloger
William Wong, East Asian Librarian
Abraham Yu, East Asian Catalog Librarian
Joe Yu, East Asian Acquisitions

Los Angeles: James Chen, Head, East Asian Library
Mihoko Miki, Head of Acquisition Division
Richard Siao, Acting Head of Processing Division
Amy Tsiang, Head of Cataloging Division
Toshiko McCallum, Head of Access Services Division
Sarah Elman, Chinese Cataloger for Special Projects
Hui-wan Webre, Chinese Copy-cataloger
Toshie Marra, Japanese Copy-cataloger
Xiu-hua Fang, Visiting Chinese Librarian (Fudan University)
Hiroshi Honda, Visiting Japanese Librarian (Waseda University)
Jaehyeok Park, Visiting Korean Librarian (Seoul National Unversity)
Yukino Nakashima, East Asian Law Librarian

San Diego George Soete, AUL for Collections
Karl Lo, Head, IRPS Library
Eiji Yutani, Japanese Librarian
Richard Wang, Chinese Librarian
Motoko Sekiguchi, Visiting Japanese Librarian (Keio University)

Santa Barbara: Cathy Chiu, East Asian Librarian
Sun-in Choi, Korean Librarian
Allen Cohen, Head, Cataloging Department

Stanford: Emiko Moffitt, Deputy Curator, East Asian Collection

University of Southern California: Kenneth Klein, Head, East Asian Library

Claremont Colleges: Isamu Miura, East Asian Librarian

William Wong opened the conference with a warm welcome and introduced UCI University Librarian Joanne Euster to the group.

Dr. Euster welcomed the group to Irvine and was glad to see the librarians in the East Asian field among UC and Stanford libraries working collaboration, and cooperatively instead of competitively. She hope that with the general theme of “Success Through Cooperation,” the conference would produce fruitful results.

LIBRARY REPORTS

UCD by Phyllis Wang:
On East Asian faculty, there is one retirement and one new appointment in Chinese history field. The Library renovation project is almost completed. The permanent location for the East Asian collection will be on the third floor. The Library received a gift collection of over 600 titles of Chinese cookbooks including some restaurant menus. It will be kept in the Special Collections Department of the library.

UCLA by James Cheng:
No new faculty due to budget cuts but five replacements will be sought this fall including areas of Japanese political science, Japanese anthropology, Korean linguistics and Chinese art history. The Japan exchange program has been elevated. There is a plan to elevate the Korean program out of the Center for Pacific Rim Studies. The East Asian Library is near the completion of the retrospective conversion project with OCLC. All the main entries in Japanese, Chinese and Korean are now on-line, serviceable on ORION and MELVYL. It is also making progress in reducing the 35,000 title uncataloged backlog. All bound volumes of journals will be transferred to SRLF from the East Asian stacks due to space shortage.

UCLA Law Library by Yukino Nakashima:
Last year the Law Library received a grant of $195,000 from the Ahmanson Foundation, $160,000 for acquisitions, and $35,000 for processing books. It aggressively purchased new and retrospective material. UCLA’s West Asian Law Collection represents one of the strongest in North America. The gift also allowed the Library to hire a copy-cataloger for a year. During the past three years, two faculty members out of the four in the East Asian Law Program left the Law School, but they have not been replaced. Ms. Nakashima will resign the position of the East Asian Law Librarian in October to return to Columbia University Law School Library.

UCSD by Karl Lo:
The Library has acquired several unique collections in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fields. The East Asian Collection (EAC) will be separated from the International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS) Library and will be located on the fourth floor of the Central Library. A local CJK system (Innovative) is in operation.

Stanford by Emiko Moffitt:
Two staff retired and one laid off. One full-time staff resigned, but was only replaced with a part-time worker. There is a serious staff shortage. Highlight of last year: Hoover was the site of the National Conference of Japanese Librarians which was sponsored by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission.

USC by Kenneth Klein:
The materials budget has been frozen since last November. The Assistant Cataloger of the East Asian Collection left, so the Library’s cataloging unit has no professional staff for nine months. The cut also affects the Library’s ability to order new books. On the positive side, the Library has received a Korean challenge grant by the National Endowment of Humanities and has successfully completed the project. A large part of the grant goes to Korean book acquisition. East Asian Department is offering a doctoral program.

Claremont by Isamu Miura:
The Library puts emphasis on Japanese studies. The relationships between librarians and the faculty are very close. These are positive factors to develop and manage an active library program at Claremont. Mr. Miura just moved from Columbia University on August 3.

UCB by Jean Han:
The East Asian Library is in the process of recruiting a Director. There is also a critical shortage of staff. The Library has no Chinese bibliographer and Japanese cataloger. The Library was fortunate to be able to acquire one of fifteen copies of Meng-ku ch’e wang fu ts’ang ch’u pen, a rare preserving Chinese rubbings. Now the Library has finished cataloging 2,500 of the 2,700 rubbings. An exhibition on the subject is being held at Bernice Layne Brown Gallery through September. A booklet entitled “Rubbings of Chinese Inscriptions” includes photographs and explanatory notes on selected items are on display. The library mandates a budget cut of $15,000 in serials subscriptions, and a 5 percent reduction in monograph funds this year.

UCSB by Cathy Chiu:
The library has recently acquired a reprint series of Ssu Ku Chuan Shiu. A retrocon plan is in place and will be implemented when resources become available. Ms. Chiu is relatively new to UC. She assumed her duty as Head of the East Asian collection last September.

UCI by William Wong:
Last fall, Abraham Yu was appointed to the position of Head of East Asian Cataloging section fo the Cataloging Department. The East Asian collection will reach the 50,000 volume mark by the end of 1992. Since last year the East Asian program has grown from 6 to 9 faculty members. In addition, there are several new faculty members in the various departments at the School of Social Sciences, such as Linguistics.

INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSIONS: STRATEGIC PLANNING

George Soete distributed a position paper entitled “Current and Future Projects Among the East Asian Libraries” at the meeting. Although he praised the jobs done well by the group, he believed that the group should expedite its projects and change its polices. Other problems that demonstrate the decline of the library collection programs include the decrease rate of volume acquisitions. He advised that the planning and the implementation of new projects could be quickened through the iterative process. He also suggested the decisions could be made before the annual meeting.
Emiko Moffitt commented that the group was formed by volunteers and it did not get any support from Library administrations. Mr. Soete replied that as a library administrators, he is here to support the librarians’ work.
James Cheng disagreed with Ms. Moffitt that there is more support from his administration. He felt that the problem lies in undefined goals. The effort to cooperate and collaborate among the UC libraries started four years ago. The attitude after three years of pursuing money for the funding the project has declined. The collections program needs more focused and specific goals.
The group agreed to set up a Strategic Planning Taskforce which would be chaired by Mr. Soete. The Taskforce will be responsible for developing a document addressing major issues and problems in the East Asian library services. Mr. Soete said that the document will be ready in several months, hopefully before the 1993 Association for Asian Studies Los Angeles Meeting.

TASKFORCE/COMMITTEE REPORTS

1. INTERLIBRARY LOAN SERVICES
Phyllis Wang reported the ILL Taskforce’s 6-point recommendations. They are 1) to extend loan periods to three months, 2) to actively involve East Asian librarians in the process of verifying East Asian materials, 3) to allow journal articles and short theses under 50 pages be transmitted through FAX and to honor telephone requests, 4) to verify bibliographical information and vernacular characters and to obtain copyright permissions by the borrowing campuses, 5) to subsidize the libraries with heavy lending activities, and 6) to plan for a systematic retroconversion for UC East Asian holdings. In addition, she proposed that lending privileges be extend to those campuses without doctoral programs.
Several questions were raised during the discussion and no definite solutions were given. These questions include how many pages should be limited when using FAX, how to verify the validity of telephone requests and patron identification, and how to formulate the pilot project on remote borrowing and lending. George Soete reminded the group that there is a parallel effort made by the University Committee on the Library in which a large group of faculty and librarians seek to liberalize ILL services to faculty and graduate students. He suggested that East Asian librarians actively support that move and suggested that a pilot program from now through January for remote borrowing and lending should run between UCLA and UCSD to research the problems. James Cheng added that UCI be a part of the pilot program. A new Taskforce on “Remote Borrowing And Lending Among East Asian Libraries At UC” was formed and to be chaired by Karl Lo. Meanwhile, it was decided that the ILL Taskforce forward its recommendations to the Heads of Public Services (HOPS) group and urge quick adoption of systemwide ILL liberalization for faculty and graduate students.

2. EAST ASIAN NEWSPAPERS PROJECT

Karl Lo reported that the final document of the project is being circulated among libraries for signing. The two year project is to be completed in the beginning of next year, but some backfiles still have to be acquired. The final copy of the document is in the mail. MELVYL will be a part of the mechanism.

3. COMPREHENSIVE COLLABORATIVE COLLECTIONS PROGRAM

James Cheng reminded the group that this project began two years ago at the San Diego meeting. A document consisting of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) profiles, was circulate last year. He has so far, only received a reply from UCSD. He urged all campus libraries to review their CJK profiles and send changes and adjustments to him. He advised that the libraries clarify and specify their commitments by November. The final document will be prepared during January and February and ready for signing in Spring.
George Soete emphasized that library commitment should alter library collectino practices. It is important to clarify those commitment for the committee. Mr. Cheng suggested working in collaboration with language coordinators at each library.

4. NATIONAL PLANNING FOR ACADEMIC JAPANESE COLLECTIONS

Eiko Moffitt reported the conference which was held at Hoover Institution last November, with and emphasis on its recommendations and conclusions. Copies of the final report of that conference were distributed.

LUNCH SPEECH

The lunch keynote speaker, UCI Vice Chancellor Anne Spence was introduced by Dr. Euster. In her speech entitled “Success is a Journey …,” Dr. Spence emphasized the importance of the library resources which support the curriculum programs and the research projects on campuses. Inspired by the quotation, “Success is a journey, not a destination,” she encouraged more and more collaborative and cooperative projects among research libraries.

FUTURE PLANS

1. COOPERATIVE ACQUISITIONS OF CHINESE LOCAL GAXETTEERS SERIES

Richard Wang presented a brief survey on Chinese local gazetteers acquisition policy among UC libraries. He cited the high cost of the materials and the duplication holdings among institutions which he believes cooperative acquisition would eliminate. He said that specific acquisition interest for each East Asian library, for example, the local histories of small administrative units, would be best for a cooperative collection. He thus proposed a task force to investigate this topic.
James Cheng reported the Chinese gazetteers UCLA collects are very comprehensive. Since five years ago, they have bough almost everything due to need. The priorities are 1) local gazetteers at every level and 2) yearbooks. He admitted that it is very costly. He commented that UCLA scholars from different schools and departments are interested in a vast range of geographic locations. For example, the chinese novelists are interested in Northeast area and the Chinese economist are interested in Canton area. UCLA would make these materials available to other libraries. He therefore proposed that 1) all campuses support UCLA to continue acquiring Chinese gazetteers through Share Collection Acquisition Program (SCAP) fund, contributing about $6,000 to $10,000 per year, and 2) campuses which purchases a title that is duplicated with the UCLA holdings, should process and catalog that title on top priority. The group agreed.

2. COOPERATIVE CATALOGING PROJECT

James Cheng raised the questions of processing a cataloging without duplication in the East Asian libraries, sharing sources in collection development, and consolidating funds of the cataloging staff in each campus. After exchanging information on various cooperative cataloging arrangements at the local an international levels, George Soete suggested that the group should document the plans to expedite the process. He will include the cataloging topic in a comprehensive document on which he will be working.

3. RETROSPECTIVE CONVERSION PROJECT
Amy Tsiang reported the progress UCLA made on this project with OCLC. James Cheng agreed to chair the conversion taskforce and to gather information on the numbers of titles and volumes and the subjects covered to be included in the proposal. Again, George Soete agreed to incorporate the ideas and suggestion on retrospective conversion into a comprehensive document.

4. EAST ASIAN REFERENCE TOOLS
Considering the severe budget cut and research faculty needs in her report, Cathy Chiu made the following suggestions: 1) circulate reference materials via ILL with short loan periods, 2) share purchased electronic databases, 3) establish an electronic bulletin on MELVYL, and 4) develop comprehensive indices for East Asian periodicals with Phyllis Wang’s Chinese history periodical index as the model. Though many found those ideas unfeasible, the group agreed that its members can use e-mail to exchange ideas and respond to reference questions.

5. FORMAL ORGANIZATION OF THE GROUP

Karl Lo proposed a formal organization and a large membership of the East Asian academic librarians, including and elected chair who would coordinate its activities, facilitate meetings and keep records for posterity. He named the propose group as East Asian Librarians of California. James Cheng expressed his concerns that non-UC librarians may not share the same goals, objectives, attitudes and philosophies with the UC system. Amy Tsiang suggested that there is no need to have a formal organization. Furthermore, she proposed that the organizer of the annual meeting should also chare the meeting and keep records. The group favored her suggestion.

6. LOCATION OF THE 1993 CONFERENCE

Recommended by the group and accepted by Jean Han, the 1993 conference will be held at UC Berkeley.

Recorders: Joe Yu and Yvonne Liu

Drafted 09/29/92
Revised 10/12/92