Draft Minutes of the Meeting -- Fall 2009
Madison, Wisconsin
Otober 22, 2009
[Please send revisions and corrections to James Simon at simon@crl.edu
with a copy to Philip McEldowney at pm9k@virginia.edu.]
1. Call to order, minutes, and treasurer report 2. . Round Robin (All reporting) 3. Call for Elections : new Secretary/Treasurer. 4. World Newspaper Archive update (James Simon) 5. Update on the Digital South Asia Library (James Simon) 6. Journal Indexing Project (Mary Rader) 7. Cooperative Collections (Mary Rader and James Simon) 8. New Webpage / SALNAQ archives (Mary Rader)
Present: Carol Mitchell (LC), Fehl Cannon (LC), Jeff Martin (Michigan), James Simon (CRL), Mary Rader (Wisconsin), Sarah Calhoun (Wisconsin), Uma Sharma (Syracuse), Adnan Malik (Berkeley), David Faust (Minnesota), Deepa Bannerjee (Washington), Bindu Bhatt (Columbia), James Nye (Chicago), Samip Mallick (Chicago), Allen Thrasher (LC), Avinash Maheshwary (Duke), Andra Singer (Indiana), Gerald Hall (CRL-DSAL), Rich Richie (Yale), Bronwen Bledsoe (Cornell), Felicity Pickup (Toronto)
1. Call to order, minutes, and treasurer report
Minutes from Spring 2009 approved.
Treasurer's report: Balance $249.07
2. Round Robin The majority of libraries reported budget cuts, staffing eliminations (mostly attained through retirements, hiring freezes), reduction of hours or branch closings. Overall for South Asia, the situation appears similarly bleak, with acquisitions budgets flat or decreased. Updates below reflect only non-budgetary news.
Berkeley -
Chicago - Library continues to build its adjacent storage facility.
University plans to expand faculty, graduate fellowships and undergrad support. Zimmer has
followed through with his statement of interest in China and India.
Roja Muthiah Research Library completed EAP grant for early serial and monograph content.
Urdu Research Centre remains "closed" for access, but hope to re-open soon.
Mushviq Khwaja collection is nearly finished with base descriptive records for 20k items (OCLC
still does not yet have sufficient support for Urdu, records will go in SAUC).
Center for the Study of Marathi Culture (15k monographs) is still being documented. Hope to
integrate union catalog records soon.
(Mallick:) Received a grant to digitize 3 reels of a movie film on [?], soon to mount online.
Columbia - New Masters program in South Asian studies.
New exhibition on "Caste, Ambedkar, and Contemporary India" at https://ldpd.lamp.columbia.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/ambedkar
MEALAC department will add Africa, and will change perhaps to MEASAS
Cornell - Looking for opportunities for cooperative collection. Received Mellon funding
for a program 2CUL. Cornell & Columbia looking for ways to collaborate in area collections. For
instance, Cornell is backing away from language materials in favor of Columbia's strengths.
Cornell focusing on Himalayan, Sri Lanka. The effort is interlinked with Ithaka[*
CRL - In-house demand digitization reached 2 million pages.
Continues to pick up South Asian serials through SACAP Delhi.
Cataloging ongoing for LC microfiche collection shared by CRL/SAMP.
Duke - While the library was forced to reduce serials/database by $400k, South Asia
received $130k for new subs.
Purchased 500 new Urdu titles from India, South Asia Center supported cataloging.
Duke created finding aid for 7,500 pamphlets collected from 1962 (keyword, subject, issuing
agency).
Cataloging has eliminated backlogs of English-language PL-480 material.
Reviewing old serial backlogs (state pubs). Most are held in short runs. Cataloging all
materials for 5-8 year runs.
Avinash Maheshwary will retire in March 2010, after 42 years serving Duke University.
Indiana - reorganization of library staff to be more service-based organization rather
than collections-based (participants noted this is an increasing trend among libraries).
Increasing demand for Central Campus space.
Library of Congress - With special funds, made some large microfilm purchases (Church
Missionary Society sections, British Intelligence on Russia in Asia, others) & special
collections. Outlook not as good for this year.
A recent internship converted Card Index of 450 Indo-Aryan manuscripts into MARC records.
LC has shipped bound serials to Ft. Meade - records created (w/ holdings stmt) for all of these.
Cataloging dept. combined with acquisition, still sorting through complications of process.
University of Kashmir Library joining World Digital Library.
Charles S.J. White arranging for acquisition of Vaishnava manuscripts film (gathered from
private and regional collections), discussing a digital version. [*
Asian-Pacific Americans - getting some collections (Chinese, Japanese, Philippino), none South
Asia yet.
ALA-LC Romanization tables. Thrasher asked whether there were any languages left out we want to
see?
Michigan - Lots of activity in the digital area. University Press and Digital Commons
have been collapsed under the library. MIRLYN has a new interface (Ex Libris).
Minnesota - Increasing pressure to acquire electronic books. This is frustrating, as
South Asia still relies heavily on printed material, older reference resources.
Syracuse - Also seeing increasing demand for e-resources.
Toronto - Increase in Diaspora, cross-disciplinary units. South Asia specialists
increasingly hired through other departments, brought into the Asia Institute.
Still receiving funds thru Shastro Indian-Canadian institute.
Retirement of book selectors causing increased pressure on dealer profiles.
Washington -Serials cutback (SA: -$7000).
Introduced LibGuides recently (generally satisfied with the software. Participants noted this
may ne an area where we can collaborate, as the software allows sharing of resources among other
users).
W/ new Art History professor, adding some important artists, gallery publications.
Oral History Project: just completed the digitization, will demonstrate [perhaps next meeting?
[*
Wisconsin - Lalita du Perron new head of the Center.
Because of budgets, looking for additional service opportunities. Mary created list on Web site
of documentaries (with summaries) held by Wisconsin (avail for interlibrary loan) [*
Introduced Sarah Calhoun (masters in South Asia, currently library school)
Yale - Alice Prochaska retiring in Dec. Not sure when replacement will occur.
3. Call for Elections : new Secretary/Treasurer.
Mary Rader will serve on Nominating Committee and will follow up to add a second nominator and a
few nominees for election in the spring.
4. World Newspaper Archive update
James Simon related the history of the WNA. Currently nearly a million pages of Latin American
newspaper content is available. The next phase will cover Africa and, if funds are available,
South Asia. Participants were urged to support the call for Charter Participation. If funded,
production will begin in the Winter, perhaps some content available in the spring. For more
information, see: http://www.crl.edu/collaborative-digitization/world-newspaper-archive
.
5. Update on the Digital South
Asia Library.
Simon described the goals of the current TICFIA-funded program [South Asia Union Catalogue,
Linguistic Survey of India, and journal indexing/document delivery].
As for the indexing of journals, the DSAL selection panel nominated more than 100 titles for consideration. DSAL has assessed the availability of journals in South Asia and is proceeding with indexing (in house or via contractors). Expected to complete more than 12,000 entries by 9/30/2010. Simon will share a list of titles when finalized. Simon noted the collaboration between the CSSSC and SAVIFA (Heidelberg).
Gerald Hall presented the new interface for the Linguistic Survey of India, which will present the audio files alongside of transcriptions (where available), district maps, and a flash-driven audio/transcript files. DSAL will further interlink the recordings to other contemporary sources, including the printed volumes of the LSI (digitized by the Tokyo Institute of Foreign Studies). Hall pointed out the vectorized district maps that can be re-purposed for other uses by DSAL or by researchers.
James Nye described the activities for DSAL approved for funding by TICFIA. The four-year
grant focuses on three primary areas:
Maps - digitizing from quarter-inch survey maps
of the British Library collection
Audio - digitization of early gramophone
records, digitizing using laser reproduction. (Hindustani, Karnatic music, drama sets, political
speeches, humor, even commercial advertisements).
Photos - postcards from the personal collection
of Graham Shaw
Emphasis will be placed on georeferencing, to allow for maps and other material to be used in
more complex ways (including re-purposing by scholars).
Samip Mallick led a discussion on the new DSAL interface, which will allow for better searching and navigation of content at the item level, while also maintaining the guided pathway DSAL has traditionally maintained. The team asked for feedback from CONSALD.
6.Journal Indexing Project
Mary Rader reviewed the goals of her project and demonstrated the preliminary South Asian
Periodicals Index -
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/SAJournals/.
Wisconsin received some grant funds (AIPS, Delmas) to explore this effort. To date, approximately 600 records are available, with 1000 more to be released in the future. Each index record is checked against authority records and given subject headings. As a result, each item takes on average 15 minutes to complete. Records can be browsed or searched. Original scripts are used.
Rader asked the committee to consider how to continue the project on a cooperative level. What is the impact of Google and/or Hathi Trust on the effort?
7. Cooperative
Collections
Rader and Simon reviewed past discussions on the issue of better harmonizing profiles
overlaps and gaps in order to improve cooperative collection development. In terms of voluntary
collecting areas, Columbia continues to collect art exhibition catalogs, while Cornell is
collecting material in Nepali and Nehwari. Wisconsin collects in South Asian theatre.
Simon presented a proposal for a simulation at AAS in the spring to explore whether institutions could voluntarily reduce collecting in some areas to reduce duplication and to increase acquisition of materials less commonly collected. Members were in favor of the idea, but commented that any changes will need to have support of faculty. Other areas of the library (Middle East studies for Pakistan, for example) may be affected, and one also needs to consider added costs for ILL.
8. New Webpage / SALNAQ archives
Web site revamp for CONSALD continues. Mary Rader presented members with a
temporary site for SALNAQ archives until the new site is complete. See:
http://www.library.wisc.edu/guides/SoAsia/SALNAQ.html
Submitted by James Simon
December 15, 2009
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