CEAL Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

Meetings I and II: Minutes of the meetings of the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) Executive Committee, held 8:00-11:00 p.m. on Tuesday 9 April and 7:00-8:30 a.m. Saturday 12 April 1996 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu.

Present at the Tuesday meeting: Cathy Chiu (UC Santa Barbara), Kyungmi Chun (Hawaii) for Yoon-whan Choe (Washington), Ken Klein (USC) [President], Tai-loi Ma (Chicago), Bill McCloy (Washington Law), Yasuko Makino (Columbia), Ed Martinique (North Carolina), Hideyuki Morimoto (UC Berkeley), Ichiko Morita (JDC, Library of Congress), Sachie Noguchi (Pittsburgh) [Treasurer], Eizaburo Okuizumi (Chicago), Doris Seely (Minnesota) [Secretary], Anna U (Toronto), Charles Wu (Columbia). Present at the Saturday meeting: Timothy Connor (Harvard), Linda Joe (British Columbia), Ken Klein, Tai-loi Ma [President Elect], Ed Martinique, Ichiko Morita, Sachie Noguchi, Doris Seely, Karen Wei (Illinois), Yeen-mei Wu (Washington).

DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS ON ASIA (DDOA) AND THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ASIAN STUDIES (BAS)

A decision on whether to continue publication of DDOA was to be made by the Association for Asian Studies, Inc. (AAS) Publications Committee on Wednesday morning. The Committee agreed on Tuesday that Klein should once again, as he did last year, write a letter to the AAS Publications Committee on behalf of CEAL, endorsing the continued publication of DDOA in the strongest terms possible. It was agreed that it should preferably be continued in digital form, perhaps somehow folded in with BAS. On Saturday Klein reported that the decision had indeed been made to continue DDOA in digital form. AAS asked that CEAL appoint severeal representatives to help decide what exact form the digital version should take.

Klein reported on Tuesday that the task force formed earlier to review BAS, which includes Kris Troost, Martin Heijdra, and Richard Wang as CEAL representatives, has been working on the review in very general terms, but has not been able to get down to specifics yet. The hope is that if it can be made leaner and put into CD-ROM form, it may be possible to bring it to a point where there is only a two-year time lag, rather than a lag of seven years, as is the case now. On Saturday Klein reported there had been no further progress on deciding the future of BAS.

CONCERNS ABOUT THE ASIAN DIVISION OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

In recent months many rumors have circulated about problems at the Asian Division of the Library of Congress related to the many changes happening there. With the move of the Asian Collection to the Jefferson Building, there have been fears that the staff will be separated from the collection, that the materials will be integrated into the general collections, and that some materials will be discarded because there is no room for them in the new location. Many members have asked if there is some action CEAL should take to try to address these issues. On Tuesday the Committee decided to wait to hear Helen Poe's remarks at the Plenary Session on Wednesday before discussing the matter further.

At the Plenary Session Caroline T. Brown, Acting Director of Area Studies at the Library of Congress, spoke in place of Helen Poe, with Poe also commenting from the floor. We were told that while it is true that there will not be room for the entire Asian Collection at the new location, and some materials will have to be stored elsewhere, every effort is being made to prioritize the materials carefully so that the most useful items will still be kept together. Rare books are the very first priority for remaining with the body of the collection. No materials will be thrown away. After hearing these reassurances, the Committee concluded on Saturday that, although the Asian Division has problems, they seem to be not substantially different from the problems that most other libraries are having. It was agreed that CEAL need take no action at the moment.

VOLUNTEERS BEING RECRUITED FOR BI CLEARINGHOUSE

Cathy Chiu has set up an on-line BI clearinghouse as part of her work on the CEAL Public Services Committee (PSC), but finds that maintaining it properly is more work than one person can handle. She asked on Tuesday that several more BI-oriented members be recruited for the PSC for the purpose of forming a task force or subcommittee within the PSC to maintain the BI clearinghouse. The Committee agreed to this request and on Saturday Klein asked Timothy Connor, the incoming chairperson of the PSC, to recuit several volunteers for this work.

GAIL KING TO EDIT THE JOURNAL OF EAST ASIAN LIBRARIES

Ed Martinique, who has served for many years as editor of the CEAL Bulletin, now renamed the Journal of East Asian Libraries, has been compiling an index to issues 1-106 of the Bulletin and would like to finish before he retires. Stopping three times a year to put out a new issue of JEAL would make that impossible, so he has asked to be relieved of his editorial duties. Gail King responded to the call for a new editor and her appointment was unanimously approved by the Committee. She will take over with the October 1996 issue.

NEW MEMBERS SOUGHT FOR CEAL STATISTICS TASK FORCE

Klein reported that all three members of the CEAL Statistics Task Force have come to the end of their three-year terms and must be replaced. The outgoing members have suggested that the number of members be increased and their charge be enlarged to include not just the compilation of the results of the CEAL annual survey, but also the review and rationalization of the compilation of the CEAL statistics and an attempt to bring our methods more in line with those of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

NEW TASK FORCE FOR COORDINATING CEAL COMMUNICATIONS CHANNELS NEEDED

Klein brought up the need for a new task force to coordinate CEAL's various communications channels. Bob Felsing has done excellent work in setting up the CEAL home page, but now needs help in maintaining and promoting it. We need people to determine what kinds of information should go on the home page, what we should publish in JEAL, and what is best handled on the EASTLIB, the CEAL listserv.

Many reference questions have been coming to Felsing via the CEAL home page. He can field questions of a technical nature, but to answer all the East Asia-related questions that come in at the same time is too much. We need a way to sort this out, so that the East Asia-related reference questions go to the people best equipped to handle them. Probably they are best routed to the listserv rather than the home page.

EASTLIB OVERSIGHT

Hideyuki Morimoto discussed the need for better EASTLIB oversight, particularly for the purpose of preventing the posting of commercials and scams. This issue has since been addressed, with Hsi-chu Bolick taking over the ownership of EASTLIB and turning it into a monitored list.

INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS (IFLA) CONFERENCE PAPERS

Klein reported that ten CEAL authors had already submitted paper proposals for the special conference "The Evolving Research Library and East Asian Studies" to be held on 28 August 1996 in conjunction with the IFLA Conference in Beijing. Papers on the history of East Asian collecting and Korean collecting were still needed.

ELECTION RESULTS

The ballots for the election of CEAL officers were opened and the votes tabulated on Tuesday night. Those elected were:

Tai-loi Ma, President-Elect (to serve as CEAL President, 1997-2000)

Robert H. Felsing, Chairperson, Committee on Library Technology (1996-1999)

Timothy Connor, Chairperson, Committee on Public Services (1996-1999)

Philip Melzer, Chairperson, Committee on Technical Processing (1996-1999)

Linda Joe and Karen Wei, Executive Committee members (1996-1999)

Yeen-mei Wu, Chairperson, Committee on Chinese Materials (1996-1999)

Sachie Noguchi, Chairperson, Committee on Japanese Materials (1996-1999)

Kyungmi Chun, Chairperson, Committee on Korean Materials (1996-1999)

Klein will try to find an interim Treasurer to take over the last year of Sachie Noguchi's term, so that she can devote her attention to her new duties as Chairperson of the Committee on Japanese Materials. Seely will take over as editor of the new CEAL Directory to relieve her of that task.

SCHEDULE FOR THE 1997 CEAL MEETINGS IN CHICAGO

Since CEAL added a sixth Committee last year and is competing with a growing number of other meetings held in conjunction with AAS, the Committee agreed to hold CEAL meetings on Wednesday again next year in Chicago. Tentatively the schedule would be:

Wednesday 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Executive Committee I
1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Plenary Session
3:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Chinese Materials
7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. Public Services

Thursday 8:00 a.m.-10:a.m Library Technology
10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Technical Processing
1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. Korean Materials
3:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Japanese Materials

Saturday 7:00 a.m.-8:30a.m. Executive Committee II