CEAL Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

Meeting II:  held 7-8.30AM at the Chicago Sheraton 3/15/97

Present: Tai-loi Ma (President, Chicago) Charles d'Orban (Secretary, Cornell) Fred Brady (Treasurer) Ken Klein (Out-going President, USC)

Linda Joe (British Columbia) William B. McCloy (Washington Law) Ichiko T. Morita (LC) Karen T. Wei (Illinois) Joy Kim (USC)

Chairs of Committees Yeen-mei Wu (Chair:Chinese Materials, Washington) Kyungmei Chun (Chair:Korean Materials, Hawaii) Philip A. Melzer (Chair:Technical Processing, LC) Robert H. Felsing (Chair:Library Technology, Oregon) Timothy Connor (Chair:Public Services, Harvard) Gail King (Chair:Publications, Brigham Young)

By invitation: Hsi-chu Bolick (Statistics Task Force, North Carolina)

Absent: Marcia Ristaino (LC) Sachie Noguchi (Chair:Japanese Materials, Pittsburgh)

1. Report on revision of the CEAL statistical survey

Hsi-chu Bolick reported on the draft of the revised questionnaire which had previously been circulated to Executive Committee members electronically. The revised draft attempts to bring the CEAL survey into line with the categories used by ARL in order to facilitate comparison. The main differences compared with the previous format of the survey are: questionnaire rather than table format; an instructions section which follows ARL definitions; a more detailed breakdown of budget. It was argued that this more comprehensive survey should be more flexible in reflecting the differing natures of various libraries. The use of footnotes will make it possible to show how collections differ.

The problem was raised that salary statements are too revealing for small collections. Hsi-chu replied that there would be flexibility not to report or to put "N/A". The problem of dividing up personnel and budget into C,J, and K categories was raised. It was urged that respondents should provide estimates when exact figures are not available. It was suggested that a 4th (comprehensive) "CJK" category could be added to the individual C,J,K categories.

Library collections need to be given time to collect data in the new categories. The possibility of implementing the new format in 1998/99 was suggested.

ACTION: To continue discussion by e-mail. The CEAL Executive Committee will review the draft further and then consider sending it out to the membership for further comments.

2. Eastlib listserv.

Hsi-chu Bolick was thanked for her work on the Eastlib listserv. It was agreed that it should be emphasized more that Eastlib is the official CEAL listserv and as such, a form of CEAL publishing activity.

3. Sequence of next year's panel meetings in Washington, DC

Executive Committee I, Plenary session, Japanese Materials, Chinese Materials, Public Services, Library Technology, Technical Processing, Korean Materials, Executive Committee II.

Times of day to be confirmed.

4. CEAL representation at other meetings

The President will represent CEAL at the workshop "Area Librarians in Higher Education:Defining the Future", to be held in Indiana University in July. CEAL was not officially represented at the previous "Future of Area Librarianship" conference held in 1995. The decision on representation and liaison with CC:AAM is to keep the status quo, i.e. no formal designated liaison person. It was agreed that the main point is that there should continue to be communication between CEAL and CC:AAM on matters of mutual interest.

5. Expenses

The Treasurer will attempt to get a contribution from AAS to Matthew Ciolek's travel expenses because of his participation in an AAS roundtable on electronic resources.

6. Fellowship Dinner

Advance information on the fellowship dinner should be sent to organizations such as book vendors to enable them to attend. It was agreed that vendors can become institutional (subscription paying but non voting) members of CEAL.

7. Pinyin Conversion Task Force

a. Mandate. It was felt that the mandate should be broad at this time, along the lines of: "to investigate the feasibility, the short-term and long-term ramifications, and a timetable for implementation for a conversion to Pinyin romanization" as well as "to consult with the East Asia library community". A time schedule was discussed. It was agreed that the Task Force should provide a definitive report by the time of the next AAS/CEAL meeting. Philip Melzer mentioned that LC would like to have a meeting with representatives from OCLC, RLG and our Task Force during or before the summer ALA meeting. The Task Force's schedule will be tentative upon the outcome of that meeting.

The Secretary was asked to write a draft charge to be used as a basis for further discussion.

b. Membership. It was agreed that the Task Force should not have a membership of more than 10 people. This could include: i. Representatives appointed by the following CEAL committees: Chinese Materials, Public Services, Technical Processing, Library Technology. Each committee should nominate a representative who need not be a current member of the committee. ii. Faculty representation: the AAS China and Inner Asia Council will be asked to designate a person. iii. Representatives of the RLG and OCLC CJK user groups. As no agreement could be reached immediately on whether or not these should be included, the President will poll Executive committee members by e-mail on this issue. iv. The CEAL President v. 2 or 3 "at large" CEAL members. How to select these was not decided.

It was agreed that the Task Force should elect its own Chair. Philip Melzer pointed out that the Chair will need to be elected in time to be able to attend the joint meeting of LC, RLG and OCLC which will probably take place just before the ALA conference at the end of June.

It was agreed that there should be an INSTITUTIONAL vote on the Task Force report.

8. Committee reports

Committee Chairs were asked to write reports on their meetings for publication in the next issue of JEAL. These should be sent to Gail King by the end of April.

Respectfully submitted, Charles d'Orban Secretary