Report on the CEAL meetings at the AAS Conference
(by Macy Zheng)
I attended the CEAL (Council on East Asian Libraries) meetings at the 58th AAS
(Association for Asian Studies) Conference from April 4 to April 8, 2006. AAS is
CEAL's parent organization. About 3100 people attended the AAS conference; about
300 people attended the CEAL meetings.
AAS (founded in 1941) is the largest society of its kind in the world, a scholarly
professional association open to all persons interested in Asia. CEAL annual meetings are
organized by the several CEAL committees for East Asian librarians to address and
discuss East Asia related issues at libraries in North America and other areas.
I attended the following meetings, seminars, shows and discussions:
1) The Plenary Session
The meeting started with the introductory remarks and recognition of retirees by the
president, and then a report given by the CEAL special Committee, and the results of the
CEAL election. The meeting also included the Progress Report of the Asian Division at
the Library of Congress ( by Hwa-Wei Lee at the Library of Congress), and presentations
“Beyond Unicode: What More Do We Need?” (by Martin Heijdra at the Gest Library,
Princeton University), and “Vernacular” vs. “Script” or “Characters”: When to Use
Which Term? ( by Amy Heinrich at Columbia University), etc.
2) Committee on Technical Processing
The meeting started with the CTP Chair’s “Welcome and Introduction”. She mentioned
that on July 2005, the Committee sent LC its comments on ADDITION OF DATES TO
EXISTING PERSONAL NAME HEADINGS. In the message, the Committee expressed
its concerns over issues involving non-roman, particularly CJK, scripts, and its interest in
seeing more implementations from LC about this topic. The Committee also commented
on Part I of the RDA (Resource Description and Access) in February 2006 and LC's
proposal on March 7, 2006.
Following are the topics discussed at the meeting: CEAL RDA (Resource Description
and Access) Review, Update on FRBR (IFLA Study Group on the Functional
Requirements for Bibliographic Records), LC report to Committee on Technical
Processing. There were also presentations on “Cataloging Outsourcing: Practice and
Thinking”, “CJK Character Validation - Impact from EACC to Unicode Migration”,
“Implementation of local library system with CJK functionality: the University of
Michigan Library Experience”, “Loading Chinese Vendor Acquisitions MARC records:
technical aspects using Innovative system”.
3) Committee on Public Service
The first presentation was given by Youngmi Hong, Librarian at National Library of
Korea: Introduction to the databases of the NLK and the National Digital Library of
Korea. Youngmi Hong introduced the Library's website and talked about how to utilize
its vast collection of online full-text databases. The next was by Kristina Troost, the head
of International and Area Studies at Duke University: Planning for and building new
spaces---Changing public service paradigms and renovation. Kris Troost talked about
Duke University Asia Library's recent move and its effect on public service. The third
was by Ellen Hammond, Curator, East Asia Library at Yale University: Deconstructing
public services---New ways for East Asian Studies librarians to think about their
"publics" and their "services". Ellen Hammond talked about university globalization, and
suggested ways in which we as librarians can think anew about the range of groups we
should be supporting and what those services should be---everyone needs to get beyond
the notion of public services as just reference and instruction. The last one was by
Sharon Domier, East Asian Studies Librarian, University of Massachusetts-Amherst:
Public services in a digital age---The need for pro-active East Asian Studies librarians.
Domier shared her experiences working with faculty in small colleges and with the NCC
T-3 (Training the Trainers) project, in which librarians are prepared to take on leadership
roles so that they can be more comfortable in a teaching role with regard to faculty and
students.
The meeting ended with questions and follow-up discussions.
4) Committee on Chinese Materials:
The committee chair Zhijia Shen briefly reported on the several major projects that the
committee worked on over the past year: redesign and development of the committee’s
website; planning and fundraising for a Chinese librarians’ training program; exploration
of ways to facilitate communication and understanding between librarians and providers
of Chinese e-content; and conducting a survey of CEAL members to identify issues
related to copyright.
Other presentations focused on two topics:
1) Trends in libraries and the publishing industry in China, presented by Dr. Furui Zhan,
Director of the National Library of China, Mr. Linxia He, professor of History at
Guangxi Normal University and editor-in-chief of Guangxi Normal University Press, and
Dr. James Lin, head of Technical Services Department of Harvard Yeching Library.
2) A panel discussion on copyright issues for Chinese materials used in libraries in the
United States and Canada, presented by Dianna Xu , a member of the Committee on
Chinese Materials, Dr. Chuanfu Chen , a professor and Dean of the School of
Information Management at Wuhan University, and Kristin Green, a member of
Microsoft's Copyright & Trade Secret Group.
5) Committee on Library Technology
The meeting included the following discussions: a) Development of Input Method
Editors (IMEs): A Brief Survey. b) Database Usage Tracking Technology. c) The CEAL
Website: Our Pioneering Past and Prospects for the Future d) Current Content Issues of
the CEAL Web Site. E) A Quick and Dirty Overview of Blogs.
6) Round table discussions: Small Collections (or one-person libraries), Practical
Solutions
The discussion involved following topics: useful websites and why they are useful,
favorite print reference tools (and why), favorite vendors and selection tools, biggest
success of the past year, and biggest lessons learned; for professional development, what
area do you need to work on to be a better CJK librarian and what steps to take in the
following year, etc.
7) Round table discussions: Talk with experienced librarians
This was a free-talk session among new and experienced CJK librarians and no topics
were pre-decided.
8) Chinese Cataloguing Service Round table Meeting:
The meeting was held by CIBTC (a Chinese book vendor) and CJKat (a cataloguing
service provider). Service coverage, cataloguing standards, formats and scope of subjects
for cataloguing, requirements for libraries, work flow, processing time and service
charges were discussed.
9) Forum on Chinese E-Content
E-provider presentations by OCLC, OriProbe, CNKI, Apabi E-Books, NLC (National
Library of China), SuperStar, DragonSource, etc. Most of the presentations mentioned
following topics: 1. The e-provider’s organization and product profile, 2. Pricing models
(NLC provides free-of-charge databases) 3. Service models 4. Copyright issues 5.
Archival issues 6. International Standards issues. The presentations were followed by
Questions and answers.
10) OCLC CJK Users Group Annual Meeting
The meeting included welcome and chair report, 20th anniversary celebration remarks,
talks about the migration from EACC to Unicode, etc.
11) AAS Exhibition
I went to the exhibition and browsed the books and other products at the exhibition. I
also talked to venders and publishers about their services and collected their catalogues
and booklets. I also saw some demos at the exhibition.