Association for Asian Studies
Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia
Subcommittee on Technical Processes
2004 Annual Meeting Minutes
Thursday, March 4, 2004, 9.15-11.00 p.m.
Ascot Room, Town and Country Resort and Convention Center
San Diego, California
Present: Rohayati Paseng Barnard (University of Hawaii), Shintia Argazali-Thomas (Cornell University), Judith Henchy (University of Washington), Raymond Lum (Harvard University), James Simon (Center for Research Libraries), Richard Richie (Yale University), Hao Phan (University of California-Los Angeles), Fe Susan T. Go (University of Michigan), Jeffrey L. Ferrier (Ohio University), Virginia Jing-yi Shih (University of California-Berkeley), Dorothy Rachmat (Yale University), Larry Ashmun (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Frederic P. Protopappas (Library of Congress),
Chair & Recorder: Cheng Yen Khoo (Ohio University)
I. Introduction
Roundtable introduction of all members present. The newly appointed Chair, Cheng Yen Khoo, expressed thanks to the former chair, Rohayati Paseng Barnard for her service and contributions.
II. Approval of the minutes
The minutes of the 2003 meeting were approved.
III. Announcements and Updates
• Hawaii: Currently, Hawaii does not have an original cataloger for Southeast Asia; therefore it is heavily dependent on copy cataloging. Two students will be engaged to do copy cataloging to tackle the backlog over the summer.
• Cornell: Handles materials in Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian/Malay and Burmese, with cataloging expertise in Indonesian and Malay.
• Washington: The cataloging of materials in Vietnamese is handled by paraprofessionals, while looking to have Thai materials outsourced. There is some Indonesian material backlog (approximately 4,500 titles).
• Harvard: The cataloging department of Harvard University is located outside Cambridge, which means that it is physically distanced from the other libraries, hence limiting communication. Harvard is not increasing its collection of Southeast Asian vernacular materials, except for Chinese and English materials from the CAP-SEA program.
• Center for Research Libraries (CRL): The Center for Research Libraries is in the process of eliminating its backlog of material, which includes many collections that were uncataloged by policy. Such material includes foreign dissertations, Library of Congress microfiche, and area studies microfilm. One pertinent collection is the material received as part of the Thai National Collection from LC-Jakarta. This collection, which includes monographs and serials, has been problematic due to the language, irregular receipt, and lack of catalog records. In 2002-2003, CRL hired a Thai speaker to handle the cataloging of some of the material. The remainder was sorted, cataloged where possible, and integrated with CRL's main collection. To date, over 400 monographs have been cataloged, and over 400 serials (samples, discontinued, or continuing titles). The remaining uncataloged material total approximately 500-600 titles (plus new receipts). For these, CRL has engaged CAVAL (Australia) in the cataloging of this material, creating full level records with subject headings working from digital surrogates of the material. CAVAL receives scanned images of title pages, versos, contents, etc. in order to create catalog records. The test set produced acceptable quality records, and CRL is continuing with ongoing cataloging of 50 titles at a time.
• Yale University: Dorothy Rachmat recently joined Yale University as the Catalog Management Coordinator, handling the Indonesian and Malay language materials. Three other acquisitions/catalog assistants are responsible for copy cataloging.
• California-Los Angeles: Hao Phan is responsible for both collection development and the cataloging of Vietnamese materials. There is some Thai material backlog.
• Michigan: Michigan has a full-time Thai cataloger (paraprofessional). Susan personally sees to the Tagalog, Spanish and Portuguese materials.
• Ohio University: Cheng Yen Khoo joined Ohio University as the Southeast Asia Cataloger in January 2003. Ohio’s backlog are mainly materials in Malay and Indonesian. Jeff reported that some Thai language materials have recently been cataloged, thanks to the assistance provided by Susan Go from Michigan.
• California-Berkeley: The library recently lost its SOUTH/Southeast Asia Cataloger to the Library of Congress. The Southeast Asian vernacular backlog includes 38,100 microfiches and 5,755 monographs.
• Wisconsin-Madison: Larry Ashmun said that at present, there is no language capability to handle the Khmer language materials.
IV. Strategies for Reducing Backlog
Rohayati Barnard (Hawaii) suggested the hiring of students through the securing of specific funding. Capable, reliable students with the necessary language abilities can be trained to tackle the cataloging. However, Judith Henchy (Washington) voiced her reservation in the quality of cataloging records from students given the time constraint in the training. Virginia Shih (Berkeley) said that she had some measure of success with hiring students to do the cataloging, in that the students are carefully chosen (eg. from native speakers), tested, and then trained before being assigned to the cataloging department. Rohayati (Hawaii) said that students can be helpful with the language aspect for original catalogers. Jeff (Ohio) suggested brief records so that materials are at least “made known” to library users. Larry Ashmun (Wisconsin) noted that the 520 note (summary) provided by the Library of Congress is at times not accurate, and can even be misleading for catalogers. Richard Richie (Yale) said that in the case of Yale’s general cataloging, they had been tackling some of the backlog by overlaying brief records with full records from OCLC. Susan Go (Michigan) found that choosing students who are meticulous to help with the cataloging helped to ensure quality. Cheng Yen Khoo (Ohio) noted the need to balance between functionality and the adherence to cataloging standards and rules, and bureaucracy, something that catalogers grapple with all the time.
V. Cooperative Cataloging
Judith Henchy (Washington) supported the spirit of cooperative cataloging, but said that it is not the lack of expertise amongst SEA libraries, but rather the lack of capability (human resource) that makes this idea not workable. Moreover, she added that the differing cataloging standards amongst libraries is another obstacle. Susan Go (Michigan) said that perhaps informal, one-to-one institution arrangement would be the way to go, rather than formalizing a big cataloging consortia. Virginia Shih (Berkeley) reminded members that the same issue was discussed in 1998 and 1999, with members coming to an agreement that due to resource constraints, members will help each other out on an informal basis.
Members then explored outsourcing as an alternative to cooperative cataloging. Richard Richard (Yale) said that from his experience in outsourcing Thai materials, the quality of records was questionable. Virginia (Berkeley) said that the Latin-American Consortium had been fairly successful in their cooperative cataloging venture, in that each member institution takes upon one subject area. Judith (Washington) said that members will have to go beyond this group for solutions to the cataloging problems, because there is simply no more capacity since every member is already stretched to the maximum. High outsourcing cost is also another thing to be carefully weighed.
VI. Other Issues
Rohayti Barnard (Hawaii) announced that her term as the SEA representative to ALCTS Cataloging and Classification Section, Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials (CCAAM) will end with the ALA Midwinter in June 2004. CORMOSEA will have to propose another representative, who will serve as liaison between CCAAM and CORMOSEA. The representative will represent CORMOSEA at both the Midwinter and Annual meetings of the ALA.
Virginia (Berkeley) suggested that since the Shao You-Bao Overseas Chinese Documentation and Research Collection is located in Ohio University, it should propose to the Library of Congress subject headings that would more accurately reflect the Chinese diaspora or the community of Chinese overseas.
The meeting was adjourned at 11.15 p.m.
Minutes submitted by Cheng Yen Khoo
http://www.cormosea.org/techpro/Techprominutes2004.html
comments@cormosea.org
Last revision: 9 February 2005
