Committee on South Asian Libraries and Documentation

Minutes of the Meeting
October 1999. Madison, Wisconsin

Approved as corrected on 9 March 2000, San Diego CONSALD meeting

Introduction || CRL Report || South Asia Library Taskforce || Library of Congress Report || Digital South Asia || Consortia updates || New Members || SALNAQ and other business || Attendees

Following short introductions, several announcements were made: ELECTIONS will be held at the next meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in March 2000; Avinash Maheshwary and Don Johnson have agreed to be the nomination committee. MINUTES of the March 1999 meeting will be revised and up for approval at the AAS meeting; review those minutes and send any corrections or revisions to Philip McEldowney, pm9k@virginia.edu. Alan Grosenheider will be backup minutes-taker to McEldowney in this meeting.

Center for Research Libraries Report - J. Simon
At the South Asia Microfilm Project (SAMP) there has been a change in the chair from J. Nye to R. Lum.
Acquisitions - Crime in India in the 50s and 60s; Sri Lanka of 2 jounals
Microfilming and cataloging continues. 19,500 titles filmed
Centre for South Asian Libraries (CSAL) has been established as a non-profit body, approved by the Center for Research Libraries' Board. Are proceeding to get it incorporated, working on the legal aspects and by laws. Are trying to complete the process before John Simpson leaves at the end of the month
Strong need for some start up money - looking at various sources, Mellon, etc.
Eventually the CSAL will be part of the South Asia Digital Library.

South Asia Library Taskforce - Susan Rabe
Reported on the meeting this morning; mainly two issues-
1) Pakistani serial review to examine and eliminate duplicates and ceased serials 2) Cataloging uncataloged foreign documents; mainly copy cataloging.
Including 545 Sri Lanka titles, 44 Pakistan and 285 Indian serials
the Overseas Research Center serving scholars in India and the United States; Original concept - augmenting holdings of earlier prints; Distribution to scholars; coordinating acquisition of titles
An arm of CRL, eventually integrated into CRL; trying to get outside support for incorporation.
Some questions and discussion (Irene Joshi and Jim Nye) of the relationships, memberships, and funds between various organizations - CRL, SAMP, etc.
Jim Nye reported that the institutions in Hyderabad and Madras have shown the way of how to do this at other places. Will allow for cataloging of materials and then access. Materials don't leave the subcontinent. Tamil and Urdu materials are seeded to Indians after microfilming. There is selective microfilming and digitization, but never all of the materials.
A. Paulos asked about copyright. Nye said, if filmed, the film will be the copyright copy, and permission will be taken from either place; pay just over cost, using any extra funds to go for more microfilming. But many things are out of copyright.
Further discussion of the relationship between CSAL and SAMP; access, ownership, funds, bills.

David Magier reported on a big private Nepal collection, which has become available, but needs lots of work for cataloging, preservation, and filming. He looked at it last (1999) summer. The small local trust is interested in collaborating, so as to make it possible to open it up and allowing the world to use it.

Library of Congress Report - James Gentner
He welcomed Carol Mitchell as the new assistant director in Delhi
LC in Washington - the President has signed the appropriations bills, and we will spend it until 30 Sept 2000
Reported on the implementation of the cataloging module; did not believe it had any impact on India books.
A lift van was sent out last week; will begin to load a new one in India next week. India authority records are being loaded directly into OCLC
The Integrated Field Office System is finally a reality. It is being implemented in Cairo; in 2 weeks in Jakarta; after that in Delhi, Nairobi, Islamabad, and Rio.
Discussion of the Supplemental bills - partly unpredictable by postal rate increase; taken by surprise. Lygia wants to re-iterate that we do work on the profile system in New Delhi; last year selected 20,000 titles; Delhi has not decided to go to title selection like Cairo. The profile system does not allow to guess what will be published in any single year. In most cases do not miss the mark like it did this year.
Some discussions of circulars, quality of Indian language selection; dividing Pakistani Islamic books between non-South Asia Islam and South Asia Islam; and Pakistan's lack of a split between literature and literary criticism.
Also discussion of large, unexpected overhead costs, shipping, etc. and the fact that India acquisitions went up 58% last year.
Pakistan - discussion of the recent coup there and Jim Armstrong's plans to go back into Pakistan.
Discussion of the delayed Pakistan census (1991 census was held in 1997), and the materials that are gradually becoming available.

Digital South Asia. Updates from David Magier and Jim Nye
Magier - got the grant. Selection be governed by 1) academics and 2) administrative bodies.
Jim Nye - Digital Dictionary Project. CRL based. Through a Consortium [Columbia University, Research Triangle, University of Chicago] with a grant from the Department of Education, Title VI, section 605
In next three years, will select the best dictionaries for 24 languages (Indian language to English dictionaries), and best language to language dictionaries for the main Indian languages.
Make these available at no cost on the Web, and at cost on CD-ROMs.
David Magier discussed alternative funds for Sanskrit and Pali; but presently not enough funds for other classical Indian languages
Doing these projects can act as a magnet for other projects.
Jim Nye mentioned that Hindi and Tamil dictionaries will soon be up; and that Platt's Urdu dictionary should be up by the end of the calendar year.
Don Johnson mentioned the U of Wis Digital Asian library, which will list and catalog over the next 3 years 10,000 websites. Ohio State will work on Japan sites, Wisconsin on Chinese and SouthEast Asian sites, and Minnesota on South Asian sites.

Consortia updates.
SAC-West. Discussed what may be their future, 5 years from now
Build on cooperative acquisition and expand. May extend the Diaspora collection.
CIC- (Afeworki Paulos) Dictionary and other project - cooperative cataloging, and the Virtual Electronic Library.
SAC-East did not meet.
D. Magier talked of the 1 year grant last year which NY institutions received and used for microfilming and cataloging about 2400 monographs, 1850-1950 titles.

New members. Tim Bryson of Emory University said he was trying to learn what all the acronyms meant; just starting out; and learning about library science. Mary Rader of U of Michigan is trying to learn what has happened in the past in order to decide what will happen there in the future.

SALNAQ and other business was delayed until the next meeting of CONSALD.

Meeting adjourned.

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***Attending:
Chair: Suzanne McMahon, UCBerkeley;
Minutes takers: Philip McEldowney, UVirginia and Alan Grosenheider UWashington;
James Simon, CRL; Irene Joshi, UWashington; Merry Burlingham, Texas at Austin; Catherine Lee, UCLA; Monica Ghosh, Hawaii; James Gentner, Library of Congress; Tim Bryson, Emory; Donald Johnson, UMinnesota; Carol Mitchell, UWisconsin; James Nye, UChicago; Carol Mueller, UWisconsin; Andrea Singer, UIndiana; Ved P. Kayastha, Cornell; Narindar Aggarwal, UIlllinois; Mary Rader, UMichigan; Bronwen Bledsoe, UChicago; Afeworki Paulos, UIowa; Susan Rabe, CRL.

[Corrected minutes approved 9 March 2000.
Earlier drafts submitted by Philip McEldowney and Alan Grosenheider
2nd draft: 8 Feb 2000; 1st draft: 19 January 2000]

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