Friday, August 6, 2004: Morning Session (9:00 to noon)
Welcoming Remarks were given by NCC Chair Toshie Marra who introduced Robert Bellanti, Interim Assistant University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services of UCLA and Amy Tsiang, Head, East Asian Library at UCLA, both of whom gave brief welcomes to the Council.
The Minutes of the January 2004 NCC Council Meeting were reviewed and approved as revised. The minutes of the January 2004 NCC Meeting are also available on the Minutes and Reports page of the NCC Website at the URL listed above. Reports from Funding Agencies: Keiji Shono, Deputy Director of the Japan Foundation New York Office gave a report on the Foundation. He spoke briefly about the ongoing reorganization of the Foundation and of its continued tight budget. He introduced the Japan Foundation's new logo which looks like a butterfly. He particularly thanked the NCC again for their recent assistance with the donation of TBS Britannica's Britanika kokusai daihyakka jiten, 3rd revised edition, to 14 U.S. institutions and the NCC's assistance with the nomination of participants in the 2004 Japan Studies Information Specialists Training Program. In conclusion he congratulated the NCC on receipt of Japan Foundation funding for the Training the Trainers (T-3) Workshops. (Please visit the Japan Foundation New York Office's web site for further information on their programs at http://www.jfny.org). In Margaret Mihori's absence the Council reviewed her written report on behalf of the Japan-United States Friendship Commission. Of particular note was the JUSFC's new partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities for "The Fellowship Program for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan" which replaces the program of fellowships formerly supported by the Commission at the Social Science Research Council, which had existed since 1977. Please visit the JUSFC's homepage for further details at http://www.jusfc.gov.Reports from NCC Representatives from Collaborating Organizations and Constituencies:
Chief of the Asian Division of Library of Congress Hwa-Wei Lee discussed 1) LC's collaborative project with Nichibunken for the digitization of Japanese rare books, 2) the Inoh Map Exhibition in Japan, 3) the "Ukiyoe" Exhibition at the Edo-Tokyo Museum, 4) an invitation to attend a symposium on "North-East China and Japan," and 5) LC's important recent acquisitions for Japan. He answered questions about his report and also provided background on the recently announced administrative reorganization within LC. He particularly noted the sad passing of Yoko Akiba who had served the Asian Division since 1992. New staff members in the Asian Division include Eiichi Ito who came from the Japan Foundation LA Office's library and Takeo Nishioka who moved to the Asian Division from the Law Division with over 30 years' work experience at LC. The Association of Research Libraries report was given by ARL Representative Mary Jackson based on the extensive written report she presented. An important point of discussion was Mary's recently published study Assessing ILL/DD Services: New Cost-Effective Alternatives which demonstrated that user-initiated ILL has higher fill rates, lower unit costs, and faster turnaround times. User-initiated ILL is likely to become the preferred ILL/DD model, especially for libraries in consortia. Please find the full report at http://www.arl.org/collectaccess/ALAjune2004.html. Kuniko Yamada McVey, Chair of the Committee on Japanese Materials gave the report on behalf of the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL). Her report summarized the program of the 2004 CJM annual session, reported on the February 2004 Practical Workshop for Overseas Librarians on Early Japanese Books which was hosted by the National Institute of Japanese Literature, and provided an update on the Journal of East Asian Libraries. She was also very pleased to announce that a second workshop will be offered at the NIJL in January 2005. Toshie Marra also gave a brief summary of the Shashi (Company Histories) interest group which also met in conjunction with the AAS Meetings. The Council welcomed Samuel Yamashita the new representative from Northeast Asia Council of the AAS. Since he had served as one of the original members of the NCC from 1992-94 he was particularly glad to rejoin the Council and expressed his delight at how the NCC has grown and expanded its programs in the decade since he left. He led a brief discussion with the Council on ways for the NCC and NEAC to work together to their mutual benefit. The Council was delighted also to welcome its new Japan Liaison Syun Tutiya of Chiba University. He gave the Japan Liaison's Report which included his personal update on what is happening with Hojin-ka as it impacts the national university system. He also noted some university mergers and predicted that while the process is getting moving quite slowly it will likely increase in speed and intensity as time goes by. His report also included updates on activities at NII, NDL, on copyright negotiations, and included a brief update on the Global ILL Framework (GIF) project. The most recent year's requests through GIF were just over 1,000 from Japan and 800 from North American institutions. NII is also attempting to negotiate a project parallel to GIF between Japanese and Korean libraries. Japan Foundation New York Office Deputy Director Keiji Shono fielded questions in response to Yoshiko Samuel's written Japan Foundation American Advisory Committee report. The library support committee received 17 applications in the January 2004 round and made grants to four institutions, one in each of the categories. Mr. Shono noted that Professor Samuel is stepping down from the role of NCC representative and her permanent successor will be found shortly. In the interim Kristina Troost will attend the January NCC Meeting as interim JF-AAC representative.NCC Administrative Updates:
NCC Chair Activities: Toshie Marra reported on her meetings in February in Tokyo which followed her participation in the workshop for overseas librarians held at the NIJL. Visits along with former Chair Sachie Noguchi included those to the Japan Foundation, ACE Japan, NII, attendance at a special ANUL meeting (also attended by Kuniko McVey), a visit to JPT, and a meeting on February 10th with the Database Promotion Center (also attended by Kuniko McVey) which was organized with assistance from Prof. Atsushi Aiba of Nichibunken. And finally she reported on the NCC Open Meeting, full details on which are also contained on the NCC Website Meetings and Reports Page at the URL listed above and below. NCC Executive Director Victoria Bestor gave the NCC Year-end Financial Report which began with the circulation of the spreadsheet reporting on the NCC's last fiscal year. The report followed the same format introduced and approved at the end of the last fiscal year. For 2003-04 the NCC ended the year just slightly in the black. Vickey fielded questions from the Council on the budget and asked what further detail the Council would like to see in future reports. She offered to provide further detail in future reports following further discussion with the Chair and Council Members about the most useful format and level of detail needed. Vickey also reported that at the next January meeting she will present the budget plan for the coming year. She also noted that the infrastructural budget from year to year has not changed (in fact there has been zero change in 5 fiscal years except for the JUSFC's addition of support for part time staff) and that all of the annual infrastructural budget is strictly restricted. She further reported on the first year of increased JUSFC funding to support part time staff providing brief bios of the four part time staff members who have come to work for the NCC in the past year. At the next meeting she will provide further details on part time staff and their projects. At the next meeting she looks forward to there being more time available so that she can present a more detailed report on GIF. Visit the GIF homepage for further details and for access to the OPAC's of all participating institutions at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/gif.html. In the area of NCC Public Information Efforts Vickey gave an update on upgrades to the NCC web site and the publication of the electronic edition of the Junior Librarian's workbook. She also asked the Council's advice about future strategies for timing and format for publication of the NCC Newsletter particularly taking the growth of the web site and future strategies for its use into account. Past issues of NCC Newsletters are available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/newsletters.html. She also mentioned that she and Toshie have decided to publish the Open Meeting reports on JEAL which now also includes the published summaries of Council meeting minutes. The minutes summaries published in JEAL will be shorter than recent minutes and will contain the full URLs of relevant NCC Meeting reports, all of which will be contained on the NCC Website. The goal will be to have minutes reviewed by the Council more quickly in an effort to have one set of minutes from working and open meetings to submit for each issue of JEAL which is published three times a year, February, June and October. Recent NCC Meeting reports are available on the NCC Website at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/meetingreports.html and copies the reports of earlier meetings back to 1992 will soon be available in the NCC's digital archive at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/archive.html. It was requested that a packet of reading materials for the Council meeting be mailed to members prior to the meeting. Those who do not meet the deadline for submitting materials for distribution will be asked to bring copies to the meeting site to distribute to all members. And finally she passed out the NCC's new brochure, discussed plans for an expanded version, and based upon Council suggestions agreed to work on individual brochures for the MVS, User-Training, and possibly other NCC Programs in the future.NCC Committee Updates:
Co-chair Sally Hastings reported on behalf of the MVS Committee. She noted that a request for a single volume costing in excess of ¥100,000 was proposed in the 2004 competition and sought the Council's input on whether MVS policy should be changed to allow expensive single volumes to be purchased with MVS funds providing they meet all other MVS guidelines including free circulation through ILL. A spirited discussion followed and the Council resolved that the multi-volume focus of MVS should be maintained. Therefore the NCC voted to reaffirm the Multi-Volume nature of the project and rejected the inclusion of single volumes at least for the foreseeable future. Sally also pointed out that there were some ambiguities in the MVS Handbook. She, however, did not see any conflict between the Handbook and the By-laws. She suggested that in general lower level rules which provide more detailed instruction should be followed as long as they are consistent with the By-laws, and the Council agreed with her suggestion. In the meanwhile, the MVS Committee will discuss the problem areas and recommend revision of the Handbook in the future. The next MVS Committee will be in February 2005. Any handbook revisions or guideline changes that may be suggested by the MVS Committee will be referred back to the NCC for review and approval. Members also discussed ways to broaden the base of applications to include more institutions. In this context an MVS brochure was discussed; the MVS Committee and executive director will work on such a brochure. It was also suggested that a session on MVS application strategies be held at the next Open Meeting. The Council also reaffirmed the principle that the applicant institution is responsible for the all shipping, handling, insurance and other costs for the purchase of the granted set. Please visit the MVS homepage on the NCC Website at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/mvs.html for further information on the MVS Project and for a list of 2004 MVS Grants. Sachie Noguchi reported on the recent Japan Studies Information Specialists Training Program (JSIST) selection process. Eight candidates were ranked and recommended to Japan Foundation for the program, seven actually applied. Thus far it appears that the top four ranked have been recommended by the Japan Foundation to take part in the program in November and December 2004. The final list of participants will be announced by the Japan Foundation later. The written reports of the two Japan Art Catalog Projects were briefly reviewed. Sachie Noguchi noted that because of her departure from the University of Pittsburgh Mr. Hiroyuki Good will serve as the interim curator of the JAC Western Collection. Sharon Domier gave the AskEASL Advisory Committee report with discussion of committee membership. Setsuko Noguchi of the University of Illinois has agreed to become co-chair of the AskEASL Advisory Committee and the Council was asked for advice on other members. Sharon's report also provided data on types of requests, hot topics, and the countries of original of questions. The AskEASL session was concluded with a discussion of future plans and also ways to better publicize AskEASL services to users. Please visit the AskEASL site at http://askeasl.askvrd.org/index.asp? Ellen Hammond's written report on the Digital Resources Committee was presented by DRC Co-Chair Tomoko Goto along with Ellen's recommendations for some reform in the DRC's structure and relationship to the NCC. Ellen recommended appointing a Digital Resources Coordinator who will work closely with the NCC Chair, Executive Director, and the Council. The Coordinator should be allowed to call on people with specific expertise to accomplish specific tasks. It was recommended that that the Council accept Ellen's resignation as chair of the DRC and her recommendations about restructuring the DRC. The Council also suggested that the next open slot on the Council be made a position for the Digital Resources Coordinator. That will be the slot currently held by Tomoko Goto which comes open July 1, 2005. Before finalizing the list of candidates for the proposed position at the January Council meeting, the Council recommended asking Ellen if she could continue serving the Committee until December 2004. Syun Tutiya the new Japan Liaison offered to assist the Committee. He is chair of a consortial licensing committee in Japan and he believes he can be useful in working closely with the person eventually chosen to be the Digital Resources Coordinator in the US. He reiterated the value of such collaborative efforts to both US libraries and their Japanese counterparts. Ellen's suggestion of calling the larger group of DRC members "members at large" was discussed in the context of the NCC nominating process. The Council felt that selection of such members should still come officially from the NCC Chair and that as has been the custom in the past the committee chair would be consulted about members. Sally Hastings will continue as the faculty representative on the NCC Nominating Committee until end of her term in June 2005. Eiko Sakaguchi will become the librarian member of the committee. Update on the AAU/ARL/NCC Japan Project: Eudora Loh, Director of the AAU/ARL Global Resources Network attended the NCC Meeting as a guest and reported on GRN. She particularly encouraged members to review details on the GRN web site at: http://www.arl.org/collect/grp/pubs.html. She also reported on the April 2004 GRN Meeting at the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago. CRL is now the administrative home for the German and Latin Americanist projects and will perform some overall publicity and coordination functions for the GRN. Vickey Bestor also provided an update on GIF thanking Professor Tutiya for his statistics. She noted that earlier in the GIF initiative the number of requests from Japan was considerably larger than those coming from North America, whereas in the last year the numbers were much closer. In the last fiscal year the number of requests from Japan was over 1,000 and approximately 800 were sent from North American institutions to Japan. She mentioned that she is also hoping to do some advertising of GIF possibly in the AAS Newsletter. She drew member's attention to the brief agenda of the Symposium on Japanese Bibliographic Utility and GIF scheduled to be held in September in Tokyo that will be attended by Sharon Domier and Kathy Ridenour and asked for ideas about strategies for offering parallel training in the U.S. Further information on the GIF initiative can be found at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/gif.html. Toshie Marra reported on the new membership on the Japan Project Advisory Committee which is now co-chaired by Mike Smitka and Eiko Sakaguchi. Other members are Syun Tutiya, Sheldon Garon (Princeton), Karl Lo (Librarian Emeritus, UCSD), and Tokiko Bazzell (Hawaii). The newly reconstituted committee has been asked to think particularly about new emerging areas of scholarship and projects that cross disciplinary and regional borders. Tomoko Goto reported that the Canadian Advisory Group has changed its name to the Japan-Related Information Specialists Meeting. That meeting took place on January 17, 2004 at the Japan Foundation in Toronto. There are 25 members who are not only librarians but also subject specialists, researchers and the students of library schools and library technician programs, which led to the group's name change. At 4:30 the working meeting concluded for an executive session.NCC Committee and Project Updates Saturday morning August 7, 2004.
Toshie Marra, Sachie Noguchi, Sharon Domier, and Vickey Bestor all offered portions of the report on behalf of the Training the Trainers (T-3) Committee which was formed to plan and implement projects during the first year of the NCC's new user training initiatives. Following receipt of the grant on April 1, 2004 the T-3 Planning Conference was held at Harvard University in May. That conference finalized the schedule and format for the two T-3 Workshops at UCLA in August and at Duke University in January 2005. It also formed a T-3 Screening Committee made up of the three Co-chairs, Kris Troost, Sachie Noguchi, Toshie Marra and Vickey Bestor all of whom reviewed applications. The Planning Committee also recommended the formation of Committees to coordinate other aspects of the User Training initiatives to take place over the next few years. Those committees were planned to be discussed under new business. Toshie Marra also provided additional details in her report on the T-3 Workshop at UCLA to take place directly after the NCC Meeting. 15 trainees and one observer will participate in that program under the instruction of Emily Werrell the Coordinator of Instruction and Outreach from Duke and Sharon Domier East Asian Librarian at U-Mass Amherst. A trial session for Japanese commercial databases was arranged right after the T-3 Workshop with the generous support from Mr. Mitake of Kinokuniya Bookstore San Francisco, and Ms. Yokota of Nikkei Telecom New York.New Business, Projects and Discussion Items:
At Toshie's request, Vickey Bestor presented the T-3 Planning Committee's proposals for new committees. First she introduced the Regional Training Network (RTN) Steering Committee which the T-3 Planning Committee recommended in May. She noted that it is planned that the RTN work closely with the AAS's Council on Conferences and other regional Asian Studies focused groups. The RTN Steering Committee would be Co-chaired by Michael Smitka who is also President of the Virginia Consortium of Asian Studies and Frank Chance Associate Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania who is on the Board of the AAS's Council on Conferences. Other members who have thus far agreed to serve are Brett Walker (Montana State) President of the Western Association of Asian Studies, Laura Miller (Loyola of Chicago) President of the Society for East Asian Anthropology of the AAA, and Robert Felsing (Oregon) Coordinator of the 2004 ASPAC Conference, and possibly other members, to be determined as needed. Please visit the Regional Training Networks page for a growing list of venues for e-Resource Training Workshops at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/regionaltraining.html. Two Council Members raised procedural issue regarding committee formation that led to the tabling of the rest of New Business. The Council requested that the Chair consult them before forming any committees and task forces either directly at Council meetings or by electronic communication. Council members were asked to review the summary of New Business items they were provided and to send their comment to both the Chair and Executive Director by email by September 7. The formal part of the meeting ended with brief discussions of the plans for the January 2005 Meetings at Duke (January 7-8, 2005, Breedlove Room, Perkins Library) and the 2005 Open Meeting to take place 1-4 pm April 1, 2005, in the auditorium of the Japan Information Center, Consulate General of Japan, Olympia Center, Suite 1000 737 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611 (10th floor, entrance from Chicago Avenue) At noon the meeting ended and another executive session of the Council was held.