Report On The NCC Open Meeting 2005
Friday, April 1, 2005, 1:00-4:00pm, Japan Information Center, Olympia Center, Suite 1000, 737 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611
Copies of the Reports made at the January 2005 NCC Meeting can be found by following the URLs included.
NCC Chair Toshie Marra opened the meeting and introduced Hiroko Matsuo, Director of the Japan Information Center of Chicago who welcomed the group on behalf of the Consul General. Ms. Matsuo also encouraged participants to enjoy the illustrated panels outlining the history of Chicago-Japan relations in the lobby and she thanked Eizaburo Okuizumi (University of Chicago) who assisted in the preparation of those panels.
As part of her other introductory remarks Toshie welcomed new NCC Council members: Tomoko Steen (July 2005-June 2008) who will replace Tomoko Goto; Susan Matisoff, Humanities Faculty Representative (July 2005-June 2008) who will replace Sally Hastings; and Laura Hein, Japan Foundation American Advisory Committee Representative (from 2005) who has replaced Yoshiko Samuel.
After quickly reviewing the agenda content, she made the following announcements: Among the news items from Japan she congratulated Akio Yasue on his recent appointment as Deputy Librarian of the National Diet Library of Japan. She also acknowledged the following guests from NDL: Kiyoko Murakami, Assistant Director, Domestic Materials Acquisition Division and Ryuichi Okawa, Assistant Director, Asian Resources Division, Kansai-kan. She also reminded members of the recent closing of International House of Japan for renovations. Its Library will be open to IHJ members only from April 2005-March 2006 during the remodeling of the main IHJ building and copy services to overseas libraries will continue. She also announced that Keiko Higuchi, Librarian of International House of Japan left the Library as of March 31, 2005. She publicly thanked Ms. Higuchi for her long support of international library issues and her many assistances to the NCC and the North American library community.
Toshie concluded her opening remarks by noting two further NCC-sponsored events taking place on the AAS Calendar:
The Japanese Publishers and Vendors Roundtable Session held on Friday, April 1, 2005, 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. in Columbus Hall KL, Hyatt Regency Chicago and the North American Japanese Company Histories (Shashi) Interest Group's panel discussion "Treasure Troves for Research: Japanese Company Histories (Shashi)" on Saturday, April 2, 2005, 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m. at Columbus Hall H, Hyatt Regency Chicago.
She then turned the meeting over to Digital Resources Committee Chair Tomoko Steen, Chair of DRC (Science, Technology and Business Division, The Library of Congress) and Co-Chair Robert Britt (Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington) who led the discussion of digital resource-related issues. The handout "
NCC DRC Introduction" can be found on the DRC webpage listed below or by clicking the link.
Rob talked about the DRC webpage (
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/drc.html) and the work of the previous committee (through December 2004). He discussed the role of the webpage in chronicling digital resource related issues and noted that the page was not used very much despite having a specific section designated for that purpose. He also spoke about the committee goals, giving examples of DRC efforts in the previous year. These included Tokiko Bazzell and Ellen Hammond's visit to Japan for the Japan Special Libraries Association Meeting (June 2003), the DRC's creation of a model contract (although the decision was made not to publish it), and working with a go-between to create new ways to work with vendors. He named the members of the current DRC in addition to the Chair and Co-Chair (since January 2005): Tokiko Bazzell (University of Hawaii), Beth Katzoff (Cornell University), Eiko Sakaguchi (University of Maryland), Laura Wong (The Library of Congress), and Keiko Yokota-Carter (University of Washington), Rob also discussed continuing issues for the DRC, including technical issues like networking CD-ROMs on campus, preferring IP range access, problems with acquisitions due to restrictive copyright requirements, and the need to cite materials, as well as legal issues.
He then opened discussion up to the group, asking for examples of problems encountered, successes experienced, or any recommendations from those in attendance. (That discussion is reported below and grouped according to the specific resources discussed.)
NIKKEI TELCOM
Kuniko Yamada McVey (Harvard University) raised the issue of Nikkei Telecom. Although it is a desirable product, she said, due to issues related to copyright and access, there does not seem to be a school in the U.S. that has had success getting a workable contract with Nikkei.
Yasuko Makino (Princeton University) responded that Princeton has an $80 per month subscription that is password based and she is the only one with the password. There is limited access but patrons get their information by going to the librarian's office and having her do the search for them. It is very labor intensive and restrictive, but it is the best they have been able to obtain.
Sachie Noguchi (Columbia University) responded that Columbia is trying to get Nikkei Telecom. It has had problems with the contract which has been sent to the university counsel's office and she is waiting to hear their response. Nikkei said that they couldn't change the contract.
For those not familiar with Nikkei Telecom, Sachie explained that it has major Japanese newspapers - central and local. In the past English newspapers were also included but now it is limited to Japanese newspapers. Nikkei is indispensable for researchers but Columbia's East Asian Library has been unable to subscribe due to contract limitations. She mentioned that the Center for Japanese Economy and Business, one of Columbia's research institutes, does subscribe independently and affiliates can access Nikkei through that link.
Tokiko Bazzell pointed out that Nikkei's limitations on citing and digital downloading make it impossible for Nikkei to be used for research purposes. For example, students who want to do a word analysis are unable to do so because they cannot cite Nikkei. The problem is that the database was developed with corporate clients in mind and their licensing limitations are driven by concerns of corporate competition and profit not the needs of researchers with no monetary applications intended. When she explained such scholarly uses to Nikkei representatives she was told that the system could be used in this manner on an honor system basis but the contract wording could not be changed. However Tokiko noted that the legal advisors to academic institutions couldn't agree to such terms. Sachie Noguchi said that Columbia has had the same problem with Asahi.
Rob Britt brought up a similar point made in the Committee on Japanese Materials (CJM) meeting at CEAL where Amelia McKenzie, Director of the Asia Collections at the National Library of Australia, spoke about how her library tried to get a database and could not because they needed terms of the service to be spelled out in writing. She spoke of licensing and issues with downloading, printing, unlimited viewing, saving, etc. Rob, who comes from a law school library, noted that legal departments get nervous about vague arrangements.
WEB OYA BUNKO
Sachie Noguchi asked if anyone had a consortial license for the Web Oya Bunko database and Haruko Nakamura (Yale University) said not to her knowledge. Ellen Hammond translated an agreement from Japanese to English at Yale, but this is not a consortial arrangement. She said that Ellen plans to put her translation on the web. 5 institutions subscribe right now and Rob asked those present to email him if interested in also subscribing and he will pass on the information.
APAN KNOWLEDGE
Kris Troost (Duke University) pointed to the positive example of JapanKnowledge which is willing to divide its price among smaller institutions. Japan Knowledge allows for a license using IP range access. At Duke, Japanese studies resources include Waseda, NDL, The Central Library in Tokyo, JACAR - and the library's website and other library materials point students and faculty to those resources. Duke has also cataloged their databases on OCLC. Yasuko Makino said that Princeton has databases cataloged on OCLC under Japanese studies as well.
NICHIGAI
Ken Tanaka (University of Maryland) referred to the March 23, 2005 notification that Nichigai would stop service of Sakka Shippitsusha Jinbutsu Fairu (Japanese Writer's Who's Who) as of March 2006, because of the April 1st privacy law. He said that he was advised to change to WHO II, but it is more expensive. Kris Troost said that Duke subscribes to WHO through Nichigai and that they have a pay per use subscription that she highly recommends.
CiNii
Toshie Marra (UCLA) brought up the huge expectations Japanese librarians have for GeNii and using CiNii to get full text materials. She wondered if the OPAC and CiNii could be linked so that a patron searching the OPAC would be able to see the article when available in full text in CiNii. Akira Miyazawa (Director, Research Information Research Division at NII) responded to Toshie's question by saying that the OPAC needs an interface for this. He mentioned SFX software (open URL). Michiko Ito (University of Kansas) said she used the test version of CiNii and it did not cover the humanities and social sciences much at present. She wondered if this would change. Prof. Miyazawa's response was that Zassaku (Japanese Periodical Index, NDL) is included in CiNii and they have a road map to expand the CiNii database but that their first target is to cover science, technology, and medical science materials. The reason being that the citation data for Japanese humanities articles is both difficult to find and costly. Prof. Miyazawa said that social sciences will be a 2nd or 3rd priority for some major journals but he could not say when this would be implemented.
Tomoko Steen concluded the session by mentioning three principal goals she envisions for the DRC:
- Setting up workshops for electronic resource education (possibly at LC)
- Possibly making the DRC website a blog to make it more interactive
- Networking with other Japanese librarians in Europe and Australia so that this would be global
She gave her contact information for comments:
tste@loc.gov, and that of Co-Chair, Rob Britt:
rrbritt@u.washington.edu. (The summary for the DRC portion of the meeting was taken by Beth Katzoff.)
The Open Meeting then returned to its further agenda and Chair Toshie Marra next introduced Hiroyuki Good (University of Pittsburgh), interim curator of the JAC Western Collection, who gave a brief report on the Japan Art Catalog (JAC) Projects. At the end of October 2004 the Art Catalog Library within ACE Japan terminated its library services and the collection of over 20,000 Japanese art exhibition catalogs originally held at the Art Catalog Library was transferred to the new National Art Center, Tokyo which will open in January 2007 in Roppongi.
The Multi-Volume Sets (MVS) Committee Report and a discussion of MVS Project Application Strategies were given by MVS Co-Chair Reiko Yoshimura (Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art). She announced that 14 MVS Grants were given to 12 different institutions for 2004-2005 for a total of 10,601,543 yen.
She then offered an overview of the MVS Project which is a national cooperative collection development effort acquiring expensive Japanese language material that does not exist elsewhere in the U.S.
She encouraged participants to apply for MVS Grants. The next pre-screening deadline will be November 7, 2005.
She noted that MVS seeks applications that make a clear case of institutional need for sets published at least 2 full years before the application date. She also stressed the need for institutions to detail who will use the titles and in what ways. Special consideration may be given to titles that support new and emerging areas of scholarship that do not exist elsewhere in the U.S. The MVS homepage is found at:
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/mvs.html. A brief presentation on MVS Titles at Chicago, 1993-2005, was also given by Eizaburo Okuizumi (University of Chicago) highlighting the materials acquired with partial funding from the MVS Project.
An Update on the AAU/ARL/NCC Japan Project and ILL/DD Committee was provided by NCC Executive Director Victoria Bestor and Sharon Domier (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) who is the Co-Chair of the NCC's new ILL/DD Committee which will provide support to the Global ILL Framework. Sharon briefly reviewed important points about making ILL requests through GIF using the NACSIS Webcat. She noted that one needs to click on an institution's abbreviated symbol to locate information on that library. And then go to OCLC (NII-OCLC Link) and give the record number to your ILL librarian. She offered a few tips for reading holding statements which included: knowing which volumes are held is listed, Vols. (starting yr-ending yr), and that + in the listing means the institution intends to continue subscribing to the full series. Sharon particularly asked that users let her and the committee know what trouble they may encounter and mentioned that Osamu Inoue at Tokyo Institute of Technology is our liaison in Japan.
The Report on the Training the Trainers (T-3) Project and its future plans was begun by Committee Co-Chair Kristina Troost (Duke University) who discussed planning and implementation of the project so far. With the generous funding support provided by the Japan Foundation, NCC organized two sessions of the Training the Trainers (T-3) workshops, one at UCLA in August 2004 and the other at Duke in January 2005, to educate a total of 33 librarian-instructors in the best practices for offering hands-on training for Japanese electronic resources to faculty and students. Sharon Domier, lead instructor for the two T-3 Workshops, then discussed content with brief presentations by three T-3 Trainees: Tadanobu Suzuki (University of Victoria), Chiaki Sakai, (University of Iowa), and Yunshan Ye (Macalester College).
Victoria Bestor then announced the Japan Foundation's funding of the next phase of the NCC's User-Training efforts with the Electronic Resource Training Workshops Project. She reported that the Japan Foundation has given the NCC a $40,000 grant for the next year with the objective of making a comprehensive program in digital training for users of e-resources in all parts of the country. The grant will help the NCC to: 1) Co-sponsor up to 10 training workshops annually; 2) Plan and create an E-resource website, with an archive of lesson plans, online tutorials, user guides, and links; and 3) Launch a new e-mail discussion list.
Vickey noted that a range of possible formats is also encouraged for workshops including but not limited to the following: 1) Introductory presentation sessions, 2) Digital materials for the classroom, 3) Hands-on teaching resources, 4) Hands-on for research, 5) Disciplinary focused sessions, 6) Multiple language formats. She encouraged audience members to think of possible venues for e-resource training sessions and to notify her of any institutions or groups that might be interested in providing co-sponsorship.
The presentation on the Japan Studies Information Specialist Training Seminar was given in two parts by Keiko Yokota-Carter (University of Washington) and Michiko Ito (University of Kansas), two of the four U.S. participants for 2004. Together with Eiichi Ito (Library of Congress) and Toshie Marra (UCLA) the 2004 participants have created a JSIST2004 webpage on the NCC site at:
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/JSIST2004/index.html. The 2004 participants particularly thanked NCC webmaster Brigid Laffey for assisting them in creating the site and getting it mounted so quickly.
Kyoko Murakami (National Diet Library) made a presentation on NDL's Reference Kyodo Database (Collaborative Reference Database Project). The Database will be released in October 2005. It includes collected reference examples from libraries in Japan which will be accessible via the Internet. The database included reference questions from 148 member libraries. The project includes 4 databases: 1) Reference examples - queries and answers (12,000 items), 2) Manuals (171 items), 3) Special collections, and 4) Profile data of member libraries (of which there are 283, 60% public, 27% academic, and 10% special libraries).
At the conclusion of the meeting Toshie Marra thanked those who attended and also the Japan Information Center and its director Hiroko Matsuo for providing the venue for the NCC's 2005 Open Meeting.
Report summarized by Victoria Lyon Bestor and Beth Katzoff
