Summary for the January 16-17, 2009 Meeting of the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources
202 Jones Hall, Princeton University

 

Agenda

Copies of the Reports made at the meeting on January 16, 2009 can be found by clicking the relevant links.

Friday, January 16, 2009: Morning Session (9:00 to noon)

Present: Tokiko Y. Bazzell (Chair), Keiko Yokota-Carter (Chair-Elect), Victoria Bestor (Executive Director), Michael Bourdaghs, Martin Collcutt, Maureen Donovan, Hitoshi Kamada, Dawn Lawson, Robin LeBlanc, Haruko Nakamura, Chiaki Sakai, Akio Yasue, and Peter Young. Observing: Izumi Koide, Mitsuko Shimomura, and Chiharu Watsky.

Martin Collcutt, Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University and the Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) Representative to the NCC, welcomed the Council on behalf of his colleagues. As part of his welcoming remarks he also reported on the Northeast Asia Council of the AAS. Council members thanked NEAC for their grant of $5,000 to support partial travel for faculty and students who took part in the January 15, 2009 Faculty Forum, which preceded the NCC Meeting.

Reports from Funding Agencies:

Assistant Executive Director Margaret Mihori gave the Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC) report. She distributed materials on behalf of the Commission, CULCON, and the Bridging Foundation. The US-Japan Bridging Foundation continues to raise funds to support US undergraduates studying Japanese in Japan.

All funding priorities can be found on the Commission's website at http://www.jusfc.gov/. Funding remains very tight due to the low interest rates and the current global economic climate. She stated that the Commission has a new emphasis on programs that will focus on activities at the undergraduate level that represent the interests of the field nationwide. She announced that the Commission would hold a luncheon at AAS on Saturday March 28, 2009 in the Michigan Room at the Chicago Sheraton Hotel.

Council members discussed the widespread emphasis on undergraduate needs among their institutions. Several reiterated their concerns about the marked decline in the percent of Japanese students as compared with Chinese and Korean students. Several faculty members expressed their perception that the number of Japanese coming to the US has even declined considerably in relation to US students going abroad. In addition, in light of the current global economic crisis there are indications that the weak Won is swaying Korean families from sending their children to secondary and higher education outside Korea.

Ms. Mihori mentioned that CULCON would hold a major symposium in Japan in June with a focus on the US and Japan's roles in Global Soft Power. The exact date has not yet been confirmed but is expected to be in mid-June. NCC should send an update to both the CULCON secretariats on NCC activities. Council members recommended that NCC's update should report especially on the Global ILL Framework (GIF), the Image Use Protocol project, Digital Resources advocacy, and expanded programs to work closely with faculty and students at all levels to integrate digital resources more into the curriculum. It is important to note that GIF grew from CULCON's information access working group formed in 1995 and now has over 220 members in the US, Canada and Japan.

Faculty members asked how they might best go about expressing their own concerns and those of their students to CULCON. In CULCON's position paper there is reference to the need for exchange of curators, but there is no reference to librarians. NCC might point out that it is delighted that curators are included and that the curation of print and digital collections is crucial. Also it should recommend that the term "curator" be expanded to include curators of special collections of all kinds and that curators possess skills & expertise to create access for broader groups of users. The role of the Image Use Protocol (IUP) project and the importance of intellectual property dovetail well with CULCON plans. Margaret suggested that faculty address comments and suggestions to CULCON to the Co-Chairs Ben (Minoru) Makihara and Thierry Porté via email care of Pamela Fields the Assistant Executive Director for CULCON at pfields@jusfc.gov. NCC should reacquaint CULCON members with NCC's mission and priorities in the same way NCC must do with Japan Foundation now that they no longer send a representative to NCC Meetings.

Tokiko Bazzell then reviewed the written report from Isao Tsujimoto, Director General of the Japan Foundation New York, which had previously been circulated to the Council. She also discussed changes in the Japan Foundation's representation at NCC Meetings. In the past a member of the Japan Foundation American Advisory Committee sat on the Council as a full voting member. Beginning with this Princeton meeting, the Japan Foundation will no longer send an AAC representative nor will a Japan Foundation staff member attend the Council's meetings. Japan Foundation staff will, however, attend programs that the NCC and other grantees may offer, as they did at the NCC's Faculty Forum that took place the previous day, January 15, 2009. Tokiko briefly reported on her visit to the JFNY office with Keiko Yokota-Carter, Chair-Elect, and Dawn Lawson, Digital Resources Committee Chair. She reminded the JFNY office of the NCC's concern about the lack of librarian representation on the JF's American Advisory Committee. At the Honolulu meeting Veronica Taylor (JF-AAC representative) promised to raise the issue to the JF and JF-AAC. Mr. Tsujimoto agreed to follow this up. Council Members asked that a letter be sent to the Foundation encouraging the appointment of a librarian member to the American Advisory Committee in the future.

Council discussion turned to the Japan Foundation's Institutional Project Support Program (IPS). At the last NCC Meeting Japan Foundation AAC Chair Veronica Taylor spoke of the IPS's need for grantees to provide "clear deliverables" for JF funded programs. It is not yet clear what the definition of those deliverables might be. The Japan Foundation's report states that for IPS "priority should be given to projects that contribute significantly to infrastructure building for the field; projects framed as partnerships or consortia in a variety of forms." This is exactly what the NCC does, and if the Japan Foundation seems still not to be aware of that fact, yet further advocacy and PR about NCC is needed.

Discussion regarding the Japan Foundation's suggestion that NCC should solicit support from Tanaka Ten (TT) institutions made the following points:

The discussion concluded with the uniformly expressed note that in the current economic climate there is no prospect of NCC getting substantial support from TT institutions. In addition the success of any future attempt requires Japan Foundation's active involvement in solicitations.

Further points generated by discussion of the Japan Foundation:

Specific recommendations related to NCC's IPS application included:

Reports from NCC Representatives from Collaborating Organizations and Constituencies:

Peter Young, the new Chief of the Asian Division at the Library of Congress answered questions about LC's report. Council members were delighted to hear that LC and NDL have both agreed to join the World Digital Library in cooperation with UNESCO. He briefly discussed the activities of LC's library services unit, which is under Deanna Marcum and constitutes ¾ of LC's activities. He also spoke about the recent speech of Ichiro Fujisaki, the Japanese Ambassador to the US, and circulated a copy of charts that summarize the points about Japan that Mr. Fujisaki feels are essential for US citizens to understand. That model was suggested as offering ideas for new ways for NCC to illustrate its activities.

Committee on Japanese Materials Chair Haruko Nakamura gave the report for the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL). She particularly noted the recommendations of CEAL President Kristina Troost to consider reorganizing the schedule and format of CEAL Meetings to include programs that cross-geographical areas and focus more on common issues of the field.

Akio Yasue gave the Japan Liaison's Report. He noted first that while discussions of future librarian training programs have been held among constituencies in Japan, no application has been produced for the current year. It is hoped that next year will be an appropriate time to again apply to the Japan Foundation for support of a training program from collaborating organizations in Japan.

NCC Committee and Task Force Reports:

The Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery (ILL/DD) Committee Report was distributed by committee co-chair Chiaki Sakai. She reported on recent committee rotations and solicited suggestions for new members. She also thanked member Hitoshi Kamada for his work in developing the Japanese GIF Holding Libraries Finder and thanked him for joining her at the meeting with the Japan Team in Tokyo in December 2008. NCC members were concerned about the Japan side's apparent desire to have bilateral ILL projects rather than making them truly global. Following the success of GIF the Japan side developed a similar and separate project with Korean libraries that does not include US and Canadian libraries. The Japan Team also expressed their desire to establish a separate Australia-Japan program if Australian members are interested. NCC discussed ways to urge the Japan side to consider combining the GIF network with their Korean project. Possible strategies include:

Keiko Yokota-Carter, the outgoing Chair of the Digital Resources Committee (DRC), gave the report and officially welcomed her successor Dawn Lawson to the NCC. Because she has been elected NCC chair-elect Keiko's tenure as DRC Chair was only 6 months. During that time she and the committee completed the annotated guide to Japanese commercial digital resources, which is being edited and will soon be live on the NCC Website. Print versions of the annotated list were given out to participants in the Faculty Forum. New DRC Chair Dawn Lawson gave a presentation at the Faculty Forum on freely available Japanese digital resources. She also informed the members that Dawn and Keiko visited the Nikkei's New York Office and discussed licensing issues and Nikkei's database.

Discussion related to the Librarian Professional Development Committee (LPDC) was principally confined to that presented by Japan Liaison Akio Yasue in discussing plans for a post-JSIST program. In addition Council members thanked the committee for their assistance with the Tenri Workshops. The Committee's new idea of creating an on-line study group for junior Japanese studies librarians was well received by Council members.

The application deadline for the Multi-Volume Sets (MVS) Project was January 16, 2009, the same day as this meeting, therefore no substantive report given. Faculty co-chair Michael Bourdaghs noted that applications had begun arriving at his office in Chicago before he left for the meeting and he expected to find a large pile awaiting him upon his return. The MVS Committee will meet in late February in Cambridge to make MVS grants for 2009.

Two written reports were received on the Japan Art Catalog Project, from Reiko Yoshimura curator of the Asian Collection at the Smithsonian Institution and Mariko Shiratori on behalf of the JAC II exchange at the National Art Center, Tokyo. Vickey reported that there would be two articles on JAC in the upcoming newsletter, one written by Mariko Shiratori and a report by Tokiko Bazzell on her visit with Keiko Yokota-Carter to the Avery Library at Columbia to see the JAC Western Art Depository. In reporting on that visit Tokiko showed slides of the facility and expressed concern that cataloging records thus far produced at Columbia needed revision to clarify the fact that the JAC collections fully and freely circulate through ILL. A concern was also raised as to whether these cataloging records appear in OCLC WorldCat NCC will write to Columbia to clarify this and to request that revisions be made in past and future records to indicate the availability of the materials via ILL.

Friday, January 16, 2009: Afternoon Session (1:00 to 5:00)

NCC Reports on Major Recent Projects

A lengthy discussion and updates on the Image Use Protocol Task Force were given and details on the IUP Workshop at AAS were presented. A brief demonstration of the beta site for the IUP page was presented along with discussion of 2009-10 Project Activities. A meeting of the IUP Task Force was to take place on Saturday afternoon following the conclusion of the NCC Meeting. The IUP Website is being developed at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/imageuse/index.html.

Grant activities under the current Japan Foundation IPS grant were discussed. A list of E-Resources Workshops was distributed and plans for Year Two of that grant, 2009-10 were outlined.

Discussion then turned to a review of the Faculty Forum, which had taken place the previous day, January 15, 2009. Faculty Forums educate users about what is available, how to make use of it, and raises awareness of NCC's full range of programs. A number of Council members had participated in the forum, which produced strong suggestions for future Faculty Forum formatted programming, as follows:

It was noted that with JUSFC's new focus on undergraduates some of the ideas being discussed might be attractive to JUSFC.

Faculty-librarian co-teaching and the concept of the embedded librarian were both discussed. In general librarians find co-teaching with faculty to be a no-win situation in which they do a great deal of the work but get little or no credit. Most feel it is better to offer independent courses or to offer guest lectures (which are very common). At many institutions every course has a librarian assigned to it. NYU also offers term paper clinics for students trying to figure out how to proceed with their research.

NCC Administrative Reports:

Tokiko Bazzell discussed her Chair's Report on Tokyo Visits in November 2008, some of which had been discussed in conjunction with the Japan Foundation Report in the morning.

Tokiko's visit to the Japan Foundation Tokyo Headquarters Library was also reported upon. The Library had a major makeover after the relocation. Although the new configuration provides much easier access for walk-in visitors, the library functions are considerably reduced.

Vickey Bestor reported on plans for the next issue of the NCC Newsletter, including an article on NDL's services for faculty and students and short pieces on the JAC II and Western collections.

She then asked the Council to make recommendations about the NCC Website, these included:

The final business for the day was the circulation and signing of the NCC Bylaws to revise the minimum number of Council Members to 10 (from 12) and to allow for one NCC Council Meeting a year rather than the two previously required. That change is necessary because Japan Foundation will not provide meeting support in the future. Because NCC has its Open Meeting at AAS and holds many committee meetings at that time, the Council recommended that the January Council meeting should be eliminated keeping a late summer or fall meeting.

Saturday, January 17, 2009: Morning Session (9:00 to 1:00)

New Business, Future Meetings, Projects and Discussion Items:

The first order of business for the Saturday morning session was a discussion of the 2009 NCC Open Meeting in Chicago. The principal objective of the Open Meeting is to discuss plans for the 3-D conference and to seek specific recommendations from the field. However since many new people have entered the field and are not familiar with the history of NCC and its programs, the meeting will be organized in such a way as to recap major NCC initiatives and seek advice about their continuation and revision. Key components of the open meeting should include:

Discussion of the NCC 3-D Conference Planning was a key thread in the discussion of the open meeting and was more fully developed in committee and task force meetings that followed the meeting. The 3-D Conference will take place in Philadelphia on March 22-23, 2010 before the AAS and CEAL Meetings. It was also strongly suggested that NCC plan to offer more Faculty Forums in conjunction with future meetings.

A brainstorm session regarding the 3-D Conference followed. Suggestions made included:

The Chair and Executive Director then asked the Council to recommend speakers and guests from different fields to be invited to the 3-D Conference.

A range of dates to avoid when planning future Council meetings were mentioned (JUSFC is busy with applications in August and cannot attend until the last weekend in August or early September, their Commission meeting is in late September); this year IFLA will run to August 27th, APSA is Labor Day Weekend; JUSFC has trips to Japan in November.

It was suggested that NCC look at holding their meeting in conjunction with another meeting such as a regional AAS Conference. Following that suggestion NCC will investigate holding it's meeting at one of the Regional AAS Meetings held in October 2009. The Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (WCAAS) will be held at the University of Arizona on October 22-24, 2009, which is the home institution of Council Member Hitoshi Kamada. He will discuss the idea with his colleagues and get back to NCC. If that experiment working with regional meetings is successful, future fall NCC meetings may rotate around the various regional AAS Meetings.

It was announced that the NCC Executive Committee recommended that NCC hold future Council elections electronically. The last election, for the DRC Chair, was held electronically and went very smoothly. Unless the Council encounters problems with that format in the future it will continue to employ electronic elections. The Council then discussed the two positions next coming open (terms from January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2012), those replacing Chiaki Sakai of the University of Iowa (who currently serves as ILL/DD Co-chair) and Robin LeBlanc, the NCC social sciences faculty representative. Following the Council's recommendation the Executive Committee will draft job descriptions for those two positions and post them on the relevant professional lists (eastlib, H-Japan, etc). A first announcement will be sent before the AAS to provide an opportunity for Council members to hear suggestions and talk to potentially interested candidates at AAS. Another round of notices will be sent to the lists after AAS followed by the EC's review of candidates. Short lists of candidates will be complied and those individuals will be contacted to stand for election. Those who stand will submit short CVs and statements of interest. The EC will review those and propose a slate of candidates for election by the full Council on-line. The election of the above two positions will take place before the Fall 2009 NCC Meeting. There will also be two additional librarian slots filled in early 2010 to take office on July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2013. The NCC Japan Liaison position will also be elected to serve on that same schedule.

Princeton University's East Asian Studies Program and Gest Library hosted this meeting; Travel and accommodations for Council Members who attend were supported by grants from the Japan-US Friendship Commission and the Japan Foundation. The Northeast Asia Council of the AAS provided partial travel grants for participants in the Faculty Forum on January 15, 2009.