Association for Asian Studies
Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia (CORMOSEA)
Subcommittee on Technical Processes
1998 Annual Meeting Minutes
Thursday, March 26, 1998, 2 4 p.m.
The Library of Congress - LM642 James Madison Memorial Building


Present: Edita R. Baradi (Guest, Yale), Rohayati Paseng Barnard (Cornell), Lan Hiang Char (Hawaii), James Gentner (Library of Congress), Fe Susan T. Go (Michigan), Alan Grosenheider (Washington), Lian Tie Kho (Yale), Angela Kinney (Library of Congress), Larwan Orser (Guest, University of Florida), Karen Rosneck (Wisconsin Madison), Robin Paynter (Oregon), Ann Della Porta (Library of Congress), Chan T. Phan (Harvard), Swee Lan Quah (Ohio), Richard Richie (Yale), Virginia Jing yi Shih (Chair and Recorder, Berkeley), William Tuchrello (Library of Congress), and May Kyi Win (Northern Illinois).

I. Approval of Minutes

The minutes of the 1997 annual meeting of CORMOSEA Subcommittee on Technical Processes was approved.

II. Reports from the Library of Congress

Many thanks to Angela Kinney, Team Leader of the Southeast/South Asia Team of the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division of the Library of Congress who took extra miles to prepare and distribute an information packet of Southeast Asian cataloging issues to the audience. Here are a few highlights of Angela's intensive show-and-tell presentation:

A) Southeast/South Asia Team

1) Staffing

The Southeast/South Asia Team has five whole book catalogers who deal with cataloging languages of South and Southeast Asia. For the most part, the Team handles subject cataloging while LC Overseas Field Offices take care of the descriptive cataloging. LC in the past trained New Delhi staff in descriptive cataloging. The New Delhi staff provides both descriptive and subject cataloging for B, DS, PK, and PL materials. The Team does subject cataloging and shelf listing. The Team has one full-time subject cataloger handling A-Z materials. One technician who is senior technical advisor trains technicians in the Division and solves all shelflisting problems. Two MARC verifiers handle bibliographic changes for the Team and the Division and also perform cataloging for the National Library of Medicine (NLM). LC has a contract with NLM to help them with their cataloging and offer language expertise that NLM can't handle. Another technician does minor cataloging and shelflisting such as adding call numbers to books, printing cards, and assisting other teams to insert cards. The Team has a total of 11 staff including the team leader.

As of January 17, 1997, the Team completed 1,600 titles of full cataloging, 2,900 titles of subject only, 2,000 titles of minimal level cataloging, and 1,000 titles of shelflist only. The Team handles languages in English, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Lao, Urdu, Pushto, Vietnamese, and other vernacular languages from South and Southeast Asia. LC Thai cataloger retired in 1996. At this point and time, LC has no plan to fill the Thai cataloger position due to budget constraint. The Thai language consultant at New Delhi has been handling LC Thai descriptive cataloging and provides a 520 summary note to describe the contents of the item being cataloged. Subject catalogers at LC will provide subject headings based on the 520 note or they will go beyond the 520 note to assign subject headings should they know the languages. Sometimes, double cataloging work is done but the quality of subject cataloging has been greatly enhanced.

The Team handles all subjects of monographs in Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Lao, Urdu, Pushto, and Vietnamese languages as well as English translations from these languages. The Team also takes care of English monographs in history, language, literature, religion, and philosophy concerning Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The Team provides area-related Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) galleys and CIP verification, referrals for linguistic assistance, area-specific personal, geographical, and corporate name headings, AACR2 rules and Rule Interpretations: 22.26, 22.27, 22.28, 23, and 24. The Team works with the National Library of Medicine as liaison to help with verifying their geographical, and corporate name headings. The technicians cover all areas of shelflist from A to Z.

The Team was at one time short of catalogers to deal with the history and social sciences materials. Two whole book catalogers who already did both descriptive and subject cataloging were cross-trained into the history and social sciences disciplines. The Team works closely with LC Overseas Operations Division, Asian Division, and Overseas Operations Offices in Jakarta, Islamabad, and New Delhi. The Team is also in charge of subject cataloging and shelflisting of Jakarta and Islamabad Office descriptive cataloging, and database maintenance of the overseas cataloging work.

The Team catalogs the materials by subject A to Z (EXCEPT music, maps, atlases, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism) and history of Asia in English and western languages. The Team has in-house distribution of materials in addition to materials from the Overseas Operations Offices and receives materials from other teams within LC.

2) Cataloging Statistics

The handout on "Statistical Reporting System (STARS)" highlighted the receipts and completions of Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese as of fiscal year 1997. The Team accomplished the work goals of 1997.

The handout on "Southeast/South Asia Team Items Received by Activity, Type for the Period 08/31/1997 to 09/27/97" provided the detailed statistical breakdown of categories of materials processed (full cataloging, descriptive only, added volume, subject only, shelf list only, etc.). Another handout on "Productivity by Activity" of the Southeast/South Asia Team as of September 1997 was attached to provide the overall picture of LC Southeast/South Asia cataloging workload.

The "Southeast/South Asia Team Annual Report FY97" kept the audience posted of the Team's accomplishments in its operational activities, training initiatives, professional development, and outreach

B) Field Offices (New Delhi and Jakarta)

1) Relationship to LC's Southeast Asian Cataloging

LC Acquisitions Directorate was reorganized. The African/Asian Acquisitions & Overseas Operations Division was established in October 1997. The new Division includes 6 Overseas Offices (Cairo, Islamabad, Jakarta, Nairobi, New Delhi, and Rio) and covers a total of 108 countries. The Southeast/South Asia Team falls under JKSSA (Japan, Korea, South and Southeast Asia) Acquisitions Section headed by James McLeod.

Thai, Lao, and Khmer descriptive cataloging work is done in New Delhi while Jakarta handles Indonesian, Malay, Javanese, and Vietnamese descriptive cataloging.

Annual reports of both New Delhi and Jakarta Field Offices along with staff organizational charts were distributed to the audience for reference.

2) FY 97 "Total Monograph Statistics" Handout for Jakarta

The Team only handles subject cataloging of monographs published in Southeast Asia once the descriptive cataloging work was completed in LC-Jakarta Field Office. A total of 4,338 titles of purchased monographs was subject-cataloged for Jakarta in FY 97.

3) FY 97 "Titles Cataloged by Language, FY94-FY97" in New Delhi

The handout reflected the fluctuations of descriptive cataloging statistics (94-97) for titles in Burmese, Cambodian, Lao, and Thai processed in New Delhi. An estimate of 1,000 titles was acquired for LC from Thailand, Laos and Cambodia annually. New Delhi staff also helped with full-level cataloging for B, DS, and P materials.

C) Vietnamese Cataloging Project

Hoa Nguyen, Senior Cataloger for Vietnamese and Senior Reference Librarian for Vietnamese Studies at LC initiated a Vietnamese cataloging project. The goal of this project is to provide online access to users of LC Asian Division before they request to have their desired items paged from the Asian Stacks. A concise handout of the project was distributed. Most monograph titles in LC Vietnamese holdings already had very complete descriptive coverage in the following bibliographies:

1) Vietnamese Holdings in the Library of Congress: a Bibliography / compiled by A. Kohar Rony. 1982.

2) Vietnamese Holdings in the Library of Congress. Supplement, 1979 1985 / compiled by A. Kohar Rony. 1987.

D) Update on Status of Southeast Asian Libraries Involved in Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC)

A handout of matrix of Southeast Asia libraries participated in PCC was distributed. Ann Della Porta, Cooperative Cataloging Team Leader filled in the information on SACO (Subject Authority Program) for most PCC members on the matrix. A PCC brochure was distributed to keep the audience posted of the advantages of joining PCC.

III. Old Business

Participating libraries of the Cooperative Acquisitions Program Southeast Asia membership unanimously supported the idea of having LC-Jakarta Field Office to consider providing subject cataloging for materials acquired for LC and participants and also materials acquired for participants only. On behalf of CORMOSEA, Virginia Shih will draft a letter for CORMOSEA input before sending it to Judy McDermott, Chief of African/Asian Acquisitions & Overseas Operations Division and John Byrum, Chief of Regional & Cooperative Cataloging Division for their considerations. PK and PL materials are desirable to start with for this subject cataloging proposal. The proposal would help to expedite LC subject cataloging for the benefits of end users who would have timely bibliographic and physical access to their information needs. It would also be most beneficial to LC as LC PK/PL subject cataloger will be retiring in December 1998. If PK and PL materials would be subject cataloged in LC-Jakarta Field Office, LC would only need to shelflist those materials and would therefore save LC to hire a new PK/PL subject cataloger.

IV. New Business

Virginia Shih led the discussion of the national cooperative Southeast Asia cataloging consortium proposal. Both LC Cooperative Cataloging Team Leader and LC Southeast/South Asia Cataloging Team Leader greatly supported the proposal that could become a regional cataloging component of PCC. However, the majority of CORMOSEA members felt no need of formalizing any cooperative Southeast Asia cataloging consortium at this point and time due to the difficulties of getting the administrative support from their respective institutions or lack of time beyond their regular work schedule. In principle, CORMOSEA members are willing to help one another with Southeast Asia cataloging issues on a small scale upon request. Virginia Shih will finalize the "Directory of Southeast Asia Librarians and Catalogers" and distribute to all members on the directory for cataloging reference.