Association for Asian Studies
Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia
Subcommittee on Technical Processes
2009 Annual Meeting Minutes
Thursday, March 26, 2009, 1:30-3:00 p.m.
Mississippi Room, Sheraton Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Present: A. Jade Alburo (University of California, Los Angeles), Larry Ashmun (Recorder, University of Wisconsin-Madison), Kuei Chiu (University of California, Riverside), Jeffrey Ferrier (Ohio University), Fe Susan Go (Co-chair, University of Michigan), Gregory Green (Cornell University), Anthony Hardy (The University of British Columbia), Raymond Lum (Harvard University), Rohayati Paseng (University of Hawaii at Manoa), Jeffrey Petersen (Cornell), Chan Phan (Harvard University), Hao Phan (Northern Illinois University), Dorothy Rachmat (Yale University), Richard Richie (Co-chair, Yale University), William Tuchrello (The Library of Congress).

 

I. Introduction and Announcements

On behalf of Virginia Shih (University of California, Berkeley), Chair of CORMOSEA Subcommittee on Technical Processes who was unable to attend the Association for Asian Studies this year, Richard Richie and Fe Susan Go kindly co-chaired the meeting.

 

Larry Ashmun introduced Ms. Kolap Mao, a current master’s student from Cambodia in the School of Library & Information Studies at Wisconsin-Madison to present about Khmer romanization issues. She informed the group that she is a librarian at Pannasastra University of Cambodia.

 

II.  Election/Appointment of New Chair for CORMOSEA Subcommittee on Technical Processes

 

No election or appointment was made. Virginia Shih did not wish to see a hiatus of the chairmanship so she is willing to chair the Subcommittee for another year.

 

III. Roundtable Update: Southeast Asia Cataloging Staffing and Projects

 

• Anthony Hardy (UBC):  UBC depends on the Library of Congress Cooperative Acquisitions Program for Southeast Asia (CAPSEA) and OCLC cataloging records and he helps with subject headings as needed. He asked if we were not finding CAPSEA records in OCLC.  Susan Go responded that only some records were found.

 

• Jeffrey Petersen (Cornell):  Their Southeast Asia technical services staff remain unchanged for now.

 

• Rohayati Paseng (Hawaii):  Students are hired to help with vernacular and copy cataloging of Southeast Asia materials.

 

• William Tuchrello (LC):  He asked about the use of table of contents information. Nearly all Cambodian is original cataloging, as is Burmese cataloging done in Bangkok.  Some copy cataloging for Lao material is found.

 

• A. Jade Alburo (UCLA):  UCLA does not receive student help with cataloging.

 

• Fe Susan Go (Michigan): Their technical services unit was dissolved, as it were, last year though their Southeast Asia staff is unchanged. They are using Coutts approval plan shelf-ready services. Some discussions ensued regarding how Michigan and Wisconsin dealt with cataloging corrections. For example:

 

v  William Tuchrello (LC) solicited input regarding which fields are helpful. The initial group response was the 520 field.

 

v  Go had raised the question with Tuchrello and others regarding LC using Australian records with inaccurate subject information (i.e., in the note field), to which Dorothy Rachmat (Yale) agreed.  This generated a lot of discussions.  Richie (Yale) requested input from everyone via the CORMOSEA listserv be sent to him and/or Susan Go by June 1, 2009, as requested by Tuchrello.

• Hao Phan (NIU):  A student is still working on Khmer material that the Library received  in 2007. NIU Library is scanning title pages and a lot of uncataloged vertical files to provide access. Please see the NIU Southeast Asia Collection site for the list. http://www.ulib.niu.edu/rarebooks/hartsea.cfm

·         Jeffrey Ferrier (Ohio): Cheng Yen Khoo continues to perform Southeast Asia cataloging. They have some in-house structural issues and the Southeast Asia (Thai) cataloger position was eliminated. Ferrier said his administration feels reluctant to use students for cataloging.  Jeffrey Shane helps with Thai cataloging. Ohio University is currently conducting a pilot project with TechPro in Columbus, Ohio to evaluate the possibility of outsourcing Thai language materials.

 

• Kuei Chiu (UCR): UCR just finished a 3-year Luce grant, but the cataloger position was lost due to budget reduction. A 12,000-book collection for Thai studies was acquired last year.

 

• Larry Ashmun (Wisconsin-Madison):  Southeast Asia cataloging is primarily done by students for Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese, with one professional cataloger doing some Indonesian. Ashmun works directly with the Head of Original Cataloging on some Hmong, Khmer, and Lao. A Thai student will continue to provide Thai bibliographic information for non-LC acquisitions.

 

• Richard Richie (Yale):  Dorothy Rachmat continues doing some original Indonesian/Malay, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. Richie is also responsible for South Asia cataloging. Yale is doing original inputting of Thai language materials, basically updating existing records with original script in their Voyager system. They were unable to upload the records to OCLC, thus putting them there first, and then downloading to Voyager.

 

IV. ALA-LC Khmer Romanization Table Revision Proposal[1]

 

With Ashmun’s assistance, Ms. Kolap Mao (Wisconsin-Madison) had prepared a handout (page 4) and distributed it to those interested. Please see all the attachments for details.  She reviewed the handout’s points, concerns, and suggestions. William Tuchrello provided some background that the romanization for both Khmer and Burmese was originally designed to be convertible (i.e., a basic difference between these two romanization systems and those for Lao and Thai). A lot of discussion ensued.

 

Ashmun added that the matter of Khmer name entry also needed to be standardized.

 

Tuchrello suggested preparing separate proposals for the two issues of (a) name order and (b) romanization on which he would be willing to follow up with comments from LC Bangkok staff.

 

Raymond Lum proposed that Ms. Mao could present the Khmer romanization proposal at the American Library Association Cataloging and Classification Section, Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials Midwinter meeting and there would be some travel funding support for Ms. Mao’s attending the meeting.

Sample Records

Record A
Record B
Record C
Record D
Record E
Record F
Record G
Record H
Record I

 

V. Tentative Shan Transliteration Table Proposal

 

Nothing was discussed thus far while Michigan still needs to consult with Prof. F. K. Lehman at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. William Tuchrello raised the issue of dialects and scripts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Khmer Romanization:  A Review and Some Suggestions

By Kolap Mao and Larry Ashmun

University of Wisconsin-Madison

 

Prepared in conjunction with a presentation/handout for the CORMOSEA Technical Processes Subcommittee meeting held March 26, 2009 in Chicago, this document provides a fuller explanation of the “Khmer Romanization” outline discussed then (accompanying this document).

 

The basic issue is whether Khmer romanization is based on orthography or pronunciation.  In other words, the existing ALA-LC table for Khmer does not indicate which way to proceed, thus allowing for possible inconsistency.  In particular, in checking WorldCat records, we have found both practices.  See section I.  (Note:  The figures are “hits” from late March.)  From the two very common Khmer word examples, it is clear that most catalogers are basing their romanization on orthography.  If that is the case, then that should be explicitly noted in the table.  (Note:  It may be useful to point out that the romanization for two related languages, Lao and Thai, is based on pronunciation, wherein the difference for Khmer stems from its romanization, as well as that for Burmese, having been designed to be “convertible”.)

 

The second major issue is that up to five vowels seem to be missing from the table.  See section II. 

a.       For the first missing vowel, note 5 of the Khmer table suggests “uṃ” for   Mu  

b.      For the second missing vowel, we would propose “àṃ​” or​​​​ “āṃ” for  Ma

c.       For the third missing vowel, we would propose “uḥ” for   uH

d.      For the fourth missing vowel, note 5 of the Khmer table suggests “eḥ” for e H

e.       For the fifth missing vowel, we would propose oaḥ for e aH

Third (Section III.) concerns why a “q” is used as (a) the consonant it is meant to represent is not a “q” sound, as (b) it would be better to use the ayn, which is the case for Lao and Thai (which formerly used “q”).