MINUTES OF THE CEAL PLENARY SESSION, April 2, 1992
The annual meeting of the Committee on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) took place
Thursday, April 2, 1992, in the Washington Hilton and Towers Hotel Monroe Room.
Maureen Donovan, CEAL Chairperson, called the plenary session to order at 9:00
a.m.
Ms. Donovan announced the results of the election for new members of the
executive group. The new members are Karl Kahler, Kenneth Klein, Yasuko Matsudo,
Ai-Hwa Wu. Retiring members are Teruko Chin and Tai-loi Ma. In addition Marsha
Wagner resigned from the executive group because she took a different job
outside the East Asian library field as an ombudsman at Columbia. Raymond Tang
retired. Ms. Donovan thanked all of the retiring members for their service.
Ms. Donovan reported that she is still compiling the new CEAL directory, and
that it should be finished within the next couple of months. There have been
many changes, and people are eager to get a new directory. She is in the process
of automating the records for the subscription and directory information. One
feature of the new automated system will be that the number of the issue with
which your subscription will expire will appear on the mailing label. There may
be some glitches in the new system, so please let Ms. Donovan know if you have
any problems.
Also, Mr. Ju-yen Teng, who was to report on CEAL statistics was unable to attend
the meeting as he is still recovering from a car accident. Ms. Donovan expressed
the sympathy of the group for Mr. Teng, and hope for his speedy recovery.
Ms. Donovan reported on the Committee's financial situation. She stated that the
current balance in the treasury is $10,053.00. The subscription fees currently
pay for the printing of the Bulletin. Although initially her institution had
offered to pay for the postage, because of budget restraints, the institution
has withdrawn that offer. CEAL will therefore have to reimburse some of the
postage. The number of subscribers has continued to expand as people realize the
importance of the CEAL Bulletin for information in this field. An increase in
subscription price will not be necessary.
Ms. Donovan has worked this year with a group from the American Library
Association (ALA) that is having a pre-conference at this year's ALA meeting on
the subject of forming an Asian collection. The focus of the meeting is on not
just East Asia; it includes Southeast Asia and India. CEAL members and former
members attending include Diane Perushek, James Cheng, Karl Lo, and Ms. Donovan.
Ms. Donovan plans to bring CEAL membership information to the meeting to
distribute.
Another project Ms. Donovan worked on in the past year was bringing the European
Association of Sinological Librarians group to the United States to participate
in the AAS and CEAL meetings, and to tour East Asian collections on the east
coast at Princeton, Columbia, Yale, and Harvard. Thomas Hahn, of this group, was
in attendance at the plenary session. There are 15 members in the group
altogether. Ms. Donovan did the travel arrangements for the group, including
renting a van for transportation to the east coast libraries.
Also, CEAL was asked to be the liaison to the Bibliography of Asian Studies. Ms.
Donovan reviewed the BAS proposal for changing to a CD ROM/on-line database
format. Ms. Donovan offered to give her position as liaison to someone else. If
any other CEAL member is interested, please contact her. One of the requirements
is that it be somebody who works in a Macintosh environment. Ms. Donovan is
willing to continue if no one else is interested.
Ms. Donovan reported on the meeting of the CEAL Executive Committee that was
held on the evening of April 1. At that meeting, the request by the Association
of Research Libraries to help with their project was discussed. The executive
committee decided that Ms. Donovan should form a task force that she will chair
to work with each of the CJK sub-committees, put information together, and work
with ARL on their project. (See below for more on the ARL project.) The
Committee also appointed a task force on recruitment and training of East Asian
studies librarians to be headed by Sharon Domier, and one on interlibrary loan
to be headed by Chris ???? These two (committees??? chairpersons???) were
recommended initially by the task forces set up by the Hoover Conference on
National Planning for Japanese libraries (see below for more on this) and one of
the points stressed by this group was that these issues are larger than just
Japanese librarianship, and that they should be considered by CEAL as a whole in
the broader context of East Asian librarianship. Also, the Committee decided to
set up a special guest editorship for CEAL Bulletin no. 100, and to make it a
special commemorative issue covering the history of CEAL and Asian libraries.
This was at the suggestion of Emiko Moffitt. Also discussed were the bylaws, and
the need to review parts of them. In particular, Ms. Donovan mentioned the
difficulty of having only one CEAL officer, and stated that she feels there is a
need for another person, probably at the same institution as the chair to be
called the membership secretary. This person would maintain the records, do the
mailing labels, subscriptions, and that kind of thing. She thought it should be
a part of the organization by-laws. The committee agreed to amend the by-laws,
but this requires a mail ballot. She said that there are other things in the
by-laws that also need to be changed, and that this would probably be an
on-going process. The committee also discussed producing a brochure about CEAL
that could be sent to the library schools, and possibly East Asian studies
programs. The judgment was made that not enough attention is paid to
bibliographic instruction. Ms. Donovan agreed to put together a panel on
bibliographic instruction to propose for the next AAS meeting. She issued a call
for proposals for this panel to those involved in bibliographic instruction.
There is a lot of activity in this area, and Ms. Donovan expressed the hope that
some of the materials produced for bibliographic instruction could be shared
with the panel. She also requested that faculty members be informed if they
might be interested in participating. Please give their names to Ms. Donovan.
She also announced that if anyone else would like to organize any panels or
round tables, she would encourage them to do so.
The subcommittee chairs then announced the agendas for their upcoming meetings.
Mr. Chi Wang (Library of Congress) was not present to announce the schedule of
speakers and topics of the meeting of the Subcommittee on Chinese materials. Ms.
Mihoko Miki (UCLA) announced the schedule of speakers and topics of the meeting
of the Subcommittee on Japanese materials. Mr. Yong Kyu Choo (UC at Berkeley)
did the same for the Subcommittee on Korean materials. Ms. Beatrice Chang Ohta
(Library of Congress) announced the agenda for the Subcommittee on Technical
Processing. Mr. Nelson Chou (Rutgers University) did the same for the
Subcommittee on Library Technology. Finally, Mr. Edward Martinique (University
of North Carolina), discussed the activities of the Subcommittee on
Publications. He requested that more committee members submit articles to the
CEAL Bulletin. He pointed out that he had benefitted in the past from
information in articles published by members in the Bulletin, and he urged
members to continue to contribute articles. He also requested that members send
information concerning projects they are currently involved in. Descriptions of
these projects would be very useful to other members. Mr. Martinique announced
that as of March 1992 EASTLIB, the email listserver, had 46 members, and during
the past year there were several very interesting exchanges between
participants. He also announced that his supervisor has given him time to
complete the index to issues no. 1-90 of the CEAL Bulletin. He will have 10
hours a week to devote to this project. He estimates that he is 1/3 to 1/2
finished with the project, and he thinks he will be able to submit a final draft
to the editor before next year's AAS meeting.
Ms. Donovan announced that there would be no report on CEAL statistics since Mr.
Ju-yen Teng was absent due to his illness. Ms. Chung Ming Lung reported on the
process of collecting information for the CEAL Directory. She announced that the
letters for update information were sent out in October, 1991. It was sent to
individuals and institutions listed in the current Directory. So far, she has
received about a 90% return on the letters sent out. Ms. Donovan is still
accepting new names both for individuals and institutions, so please submit
additions to her. Information needed includes name (including CJK original
characters), address, phone number, email address, interlibrary loan information
for the institution, and a list of the staff, including their titles. Ms. Lung
has a form for the interlibrary loan information, which she will provide if
needed. People listed in the Directory do not have to be CEAL members. Please
notify Ms. Donovan if there are individual or institution names that you think
should be included.
Several announcements were made at this point. Ms. Lena Lee Yang reported that
the collection of the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions that has
been located at the University of New York at Stoneybrook was moved in 1989. For
the last two years, the collection has been in storage while a new facility was
constructed. The new library is re-opening May 9th, 1992 upon the completion of
their new facility, and Ms. Yang invited anyone visiting New York to tour the
collection. Mr. Karl Lo announced that he had 50 copies of the report of the CRC
PRC report titled "From Open Door to Open Shelf." These copies were available to
interested parties at the meeting. Two job announcements were made: for the
Curator of the East Asian Collection at Brown University and for the Head
Librarian for the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. Ms. Donovan announced that a book
on NREN (the new national super-computer network) by Anna Wang is available at
Ohio State University for $12.00.
Ms. Donovan announced that Dorothy Wang from the Los Angeles Public Library
contacted her during the break. Ms. Wang has made arrangements for a hotel near
the Bona Venture Hotel in Anaheim at a special rate for CEAL members attending
the 1993 AAS meeting. The special CEAL rate will be $49.00 for a double room.
Ms. Wang has also volunteered to take care of the arrangements with the hotel.
Ms. Donovan has a flyer and the telephone number if you want to make
arrangements. There are only 50 rooms available. Ms. Donovan also recognized the
visitors from the Japan Publications Trading Co., who were in attendance, and
noted that this is the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of their company.
Ms. Jutta Reed-Scott of the Association of Research Libraries gave a
presentation on the ARL Project on scholarship, research libraries and foreign
publishing in the 1990's. CEAL has agreed to participate in this project. Ms.
Reed-Scott's talk focused on the project as it relates to foreign acquisitions.
She began by pointing out that in recent years foreign acquisitions in research
libraries has faced difficulties in terms of financial conditions, growth in
foreign publications, and changes in world exchange rates. For this reason, ARL
decided that an analysis of the current state of foreign acquisitions in major
US and Canadian research libraries and the development of new resource sharing
strategies and new funding sources were an essential priority. This ARL project
was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and it is the first year of a two
year project. She mentioned two major goals of the project: first, to assist
research libraries in acquiring and delivering information, and second to find
new funding sources for foreign acquisitions. Ms. Reed-Scott emphasized the need
for statistical data in order to carry out the project. She noted that CEAL was
exemplary in terms of the quality of the statistical data that its members
collect. The project aims to look at trends in foreign publishing, in such areas
as prices for materials, and especially the shift to electronic publishing. The
project will also analyze what scholars' needs are in different disciplines, and
what the formats of the materials available are. The ARL Committee on Research
Collections is responsible for the project. There is also a task force of twelve
senior administrators of collection management programs in ARL libraries who
give their input to the project. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences Book
Request Center is also a participant. This group helps project members better
understand scholar needs concerning foreign acquisitions. A major component of
the project is working with the various acquisition groups, including
representatives from CEAL. The second phase of the project will focus on four or
five specific countries for more in-depth analysis. The third phase will bring
all the information that is gathered in the project in the first two phases
together, and find ways of continuing and finding new resource-sharing
agreements, and also finding additional funding for foreign acquisitions. One
source is federal funding. Title 6, for example, provides a very small portion
of funding. Ms. Reed-Scott then went on to discuss how CEAL fits in to this
project, and to describe some of the work CEAL will do. She mentioned that she
is delighted that CEAL has agreed to form a task force to assess publishing and
acquisition trends in research materials from China, Japan, and Korea. This
group will investigate four areas: 1) current trends in publishing, including
the country's output, price forecasts, and significant future developments,
including availability and access to databases; 2) look at existing collection
strengths and current collecting patterns in these areas, including any changes
such as cutbacks or serials cancellations; 3) look at budgets for research
libraries and their relation to price trends; 4) look at trends in scholarly
research. Ultimately the project intends to make the case for additional funding
in order to adequately meet scholarly needs for access to information. Ms.
Scott-Reed also noted that pilot countries will be chosen to be part of the
project in the second phases, and that one of the countries will probably be a
CJK country. She looks to the CEAL task force for a recommendation as to which
country this should be. A second ARL initiative within the framework of the
Foreign Acquisitions Project is one that looks at models for resource sharing.
ARL has participated in meetings of the National Coordinating Committee on
Japanese Library Resources. ARL is in the discussion stages currently of a
project that would focus on developing with the advice of a group of Japanese
studies librarians a series of scenarios for the collection and dissemination of
Japanese publications and databases. The intent is to look at new directions in
resource sharing, and ways that libraries can make changes that will lead to
more effective resource sharing. A group of six Japanese studies librarians
would help ARL design the models or scenarios for this process, and then they
would be tested at two or three institutions.
The program proceeded to a sampling of resource sharing efforts now underway.
Ms. Emiko Moffitt discussed the Hoover Conference on National Planning for
Japanese Libraries (HCNPJL) that was held on November 7-9, 1991, which she
organized. She explained how the Conference came about. It was funded by the
Japan-US Friendship Commission (JUSFC), and also received supplemental support
from the Center for Global Partnership of the Japan Foundation. The JUSFC also
sponsors regular regional conferences on Japanese libraries. Ms. Moffitt pointed
out that the situation surrounding Japanese libraries has changed greatly since
the JUSFC was founded. There has been a phenomenal increase in Japanese studies
programs, and many libraries have grown from very small collections to much
larger ones since 1972. Also new libraries have been formed or are about to be
formed. With these changes, the time was ripe for the meeting held in November.
Last year Diane Perushek, formerly of Princeton, was asked by the Commission to
survey and report on Japanese library developments and needs. Based on this
report, the Japan Foundation and the JUSFC then convened a conference at the end
of 1991. It was a broadly based group, including faculty members, library and
database specialists from Japan, representatives of different libraries,
including the Library of Congress, the directors of large university libraries,
the CEAL chairs, the Chair of the Sub-committee for Japanese materials, the
heads of East Asian libraries, and some others. There were some concerns that
our efforts might duplicate the National Coordinating Committee (NCC) work. But
Ms. Moffitt pointed out that at the time the NCC had not been organized yet, and
because of the time constraints they Hoover Conference organizers felt that they
had to go ahead with making plans for the HCNPJL. Three libraries, Yale, UC
Berkeley, and Hoover were involved in this planning, with Hoover ultimately
taking responsibility for organization. The JUSFC was very supportive from the
beginning, but could only support a conference with a limited number of
attendees, and that it must include faculty representatives, ARL staff, etc.,
etc. This meant that only 15 librarians could be invited. Because of the small
number of libraries involved, the Conference decided to include only academic
Japanese libraries, and also only those librarians working directly with
Japanese materials. The Committee realized the importance of inviting the heads
of East Asian libraries, but had to give up that option. Even so, they persisted
in asking the JUSFC to allow them to invite more librarians, and that it was
absolutely necessary to have five more librarians, or 20 in total. In the end,
25 libraries were represented by 28 librarians, some of whom came at their own
or their institution's expense. Altogether, there were 40 participants. Ms.
Moffitt stated that she gave these details since there was some unhappiness
expressed concerning the limited number of participants invited to the
Conference. She wishes that all of the Japanese libraries and Japanese
librarians could have been invited, and regrets that it was not possible.
The next speaker was Mr. Hideo Kaneko, who discussed the National Planning Team
for Academic Japanese Libraries (NPTAJL) and the HCNPJL. On the third day of the
conference, they created the nine task forces and the NPTAJL, which was to
continue the discussion begun at the conference, and come up with a
recommendation. The NPTAJL was selected from the three regions; one from first
tier libraries and another from second and third tier libraries in each region,
with a total of six members. Members included Hisayuki Ishimatsu, Sharon Domier,
Yasuko Matsudo, Sachiko Morrell, Christina ????, and Mr. Kaneko. The task forces
included; Recon, Access to Materials, and Database issues. The recon task force
touched on five issues relating to shared collection development, including
regional representation, multi-volume sets, current serials, newspaper back
files, and future areas of cooperation. The chairs of the nine task forces were
?????????, Hisayuki Ishimatsu, Mr. Kaneko, Yasuko Matsudo, Sachiko Morrell,
Yasuko Makino, Chirstina ????, ??????????, and Sharon Domier. .The task force
reports were sent to the people who worked on the task forces in February at the
same time they were submitted to the JUSFC and the NPTAJL. Last week, Mr. Kaneko
also sent the reports to libraries that were not represented on the task forces.
Also, Professor Shively edited the minutes and also made a summary of the
report. Each task force came out with a recommendation that is included in the
task force reports.
Amy Heinrich talked about the National Coordinating Committee on Japanese
Library Resources (NCCJLR). This committee builds on work done so far on
addressing the changing situation for Japanese libraries. This work has
continued all year, beginning with the Hoover conference last November. The
discussions have been lively, and the work of the task force teams has been
superb. The NCCJLR is well aware of the work already done in field, and
appreciates it very much. The difference between the NCCJLR and previous work is
that the NCCLJR would be ongoing, and that it would coordinate activities of
Japanese libraries and library users and the funding agencies. It will continue
the work that has been so dramatically begun this year. It will include
scholars, and within a couple of years, non-academic providers and users of
information. The NCCJLR is composed of 12 members, and Ms. Heinrich stated that
an attempt was made to include as many types of institutions as possible among
the membership. Current membership consists of Stephen Anderson (Political
Science Professor, Univ. of WI), Jack King (Asian department at UTLAS
International), Maureen Donovan (CEAL), Professor Haruhiro Tsui (Chair of NEAC),
Hideo Kaneko (Chair of the NPTAJL), Tom Reimer (American Advisory Committee of
the Japan Foundation), Tomio Togasaki (International House of Japan), Warren
Tsuneishi (Library of Congress), Wayne Webster (Executive Director, Association
of Research Libraries), Professor Sam Yamashita (Dept. of History and Religion,
Pomona College), Eiji Yutani (librarian, UCSD) . The terms of the members will
be staggered, but the details of this have not yet been worked out. Ms. Heinrich
expressed the hope that CEAL members and members of NPTAJL would cooperate with
the NCCJLR in efforts to find funding for some of the new projects that have
been suggested. She stressed that her group needs the wide participation of CEAL
members and others, and invited participation and suggestions from those
interested. She noted that the mission statement of the NCC is published in the
current issue of the CEAL Bulletin.
The next speaker was Francis LaFleur, who discussed the cooperative acquisitions
of regional Chinese publications at east coast libraries. The Consortium of East
Coast Research Libraries has cooperated in the collection of Chinese research
materials since 1980. By that time it was becoming apparent that the increased
publication output in China was likely to become a long-term trend. The
financial burden of collecting all this material was causing concern. Therefore,
two heads of libraries, Donald Peck of Princeton and Patricia Batton of Columbia
initiated a cooperative effort for collection of regional materials in China.
Six institutions agreed to work together: Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Harvard,
New York Public Library, and Yale. The heads of these institutions' East Asian
libraries met and divided China into thirty areas. Each institution agreed to
take responsibility for exhaustive acquisitions from five of these areas. The
projected publication output of the regions was considered so that each
institution would have nearly equal amounts of work. Faculty interest, existing
subject strengths of institutions, close relations of participants with
particular areas in China, and personal interests of the librarians involved
were taken into account in dividing up the areas among institutions. A very
amicable agreement was reached. The project has been under way for the past
seven years. The Chinese bibliographers have met yearly to exchange printed
lists of materials being collected, and to discuss their travels to the areas,
and swapped information and strategy on purchasing materials. Also, much time
was spent discussing how to develop exchanges and personal friendships with
scholars in China. Although, many of the institutions still collect materials
from areas outside their responsibility, they have been able to save money on
materials such as materials concerning historical events in particular regions,
which are published all over China, and have become available recently in
overwhelming numbers. The agreement has also encouraged bibliographers to travel
to their area in China, which is in many cases the only way to develop relations
and find materials. This is particularly true of the less developed areas, where
communications are still rather poor. Also, the political climate since the June
4th incident has made face-to-face contact more important, as the government has
increased its attempts to regulate the relations of Chinese institutions with
their foreign counterparts. These trips help American librarians to have a much
better understanding of the political climate, research trends in Chinese
institutions, the evolution of Chinese popular culture, and the situations in
the home offices of key book vendors. This information is all vital in making
selections. There are some problems with the cooperative arrangement. Some
faculty members are resistant to the idea. They are afraid that valuable
materials may not be instantly accessible. Also, faculty interests in certain
areas change, with the arrival of new faculty and the beginning of new research
projects, and sometimes they demand materials falling outside of the agreement.
Some faculty members are not aware of the agreement, and do not take it into
consideration when designing new projects or advising students on their
dissertations. The budget crunch has also been a problem for some consortium
members. Several steps are necessary to assure the future success of this type
of cooperative venture. First, the effort must be publisized more widely among
faculty and students. Secondly, librarians at the institutions involved must
develop closer relations with each other. It is also important to take further
advantage of existing technology, by keeping libraries current about holdings,
perhaps by prioritizing the cataloging of serials from assigned areas on-line,
and to implement quicker and more efficient use of document delivery. Ms.
LaFleur expressed optimism about the future of the project.
The next speaker was James Cheng, who talked about resource sharing at East
Asian collections in the University of California system. The present nine
campus University of California research-sharing program is an extension of an
agreement about eight or nine years ago between UC Berkeley and Stanford. There
have been quite a few changes concerning East Asian programs at the University
of California. Some campuses have new programs, and existing programs have
expanded significantly. Each of the nine campuses of the UC have their own
libraries, but in principle these campuses and libraries form one system, and
that the resources should be readily available and shared by the nine campuses.
Stanford was also included because of the long history of cooperation between UC
Berkeley and the Hoover Institution at Stanford. About three years ago, three
task forces on East Asian materials were appointed by the library council for
the nine campuses. The first task force was on Pacific Rim journal articles. It
was composed of representatives that have active business schools: UC San Diego,
UC Berkeley, and UCLA. They agreed to divide responsibilities based on
geographical areas, and make the materials readily available to the other UC
campuses, and to utilize FAX technology for journal article delivery. Their
agreement has been signed by all the University Library librarians in the
system. Two years ago, another task force was appointed on CJK newspaper back
files. It was chaired by Karl Lo of UCSD, and the libraries in the system have
agreed on what newspapers to acquire, and to avoid duplication of subscriptions.
It was also agreed to catalog the materials as quickly as possible, and to input
the cataloging in MELVYL, the on-line union catalog of the UC library system.
The libraries have also agreed on a number of Japanese newspapers, with each
institution agreeing to collect a complete file for the newspapers on microfilm,
making it available to everyone in the system. Berkeley has also committed
itself to collect some Chinese newspapers not being collected by the Center for
Research Libraries in Chicago. Also, each campus has committed a certain
percentage of CJK funds to subscribing to current CJK newspapers. Two
collections provide Korean newspapers and newspaper back files: UC Berkeley and
USC. There has been a gentleman's' agreement between USC and UCLA, for USC to
collect mainly Korean materials and UCLA to collect mainly Chinese and Japanese
materials. These two institutions have a joint East Asian studies program, and
share a Title 6 grant. This situation is now under review, and may change
because of the program changes. Another task force is Comprehensive
Collaborative Collection Development Among East Asian Libraries Within the
University of California (CCCDAEALWUC). This task force was also appointed about
two years ago. It is chaired by Mr. Cheng. It has identified which collections
are strong in certain areas, and which collections are committed to collecting
in that area. There is some duplication among collections, especially concerning
certain reference materials. The task is to identify areas where duplication is
not necessary, and to fund those areas. Recently the UC system, and Stanford
have signed an agreement that the UC system will make its collections readily
available to all graduate students and faculty members from Stanford. Since the
Hoover Institution is an independent organization, it was not included in the
agreement. The next task force to be discussed was appointed last year. It is to
investigate mechanism and methods for inter-library loan among all the libraries
in the system. It is chaired by Eiji Yutani of UCSD, and a report is expected
this year. Each year the East Asian librarians of the UC system and, in the last
two years Stanford also, meet in September. Programs are reviewed from the past
year, and new programs are introduced.
The next group of presentations concerned ways in which the Internet supports
resource sharing. Wei-ying Wan began by discussing his recently completed recon
project at the University of Michigan. The fact that the University of Michigan
East Asian Bibliographic records are available in digital form makes it possible
to access these records from remote locations over the Internet. Mr. Wan had
several suggestions to facilitate the recon process for other libraries. First,
he pointed out that national coordination of projects would be very useful. Mr.
Wan also expressed the hope that more libraries make their on-line catalogs
accessible through some kind of network such as the Internet. Next, he stressed
the need for developing CJK availability on the local systems and on the
network. Finally, he applauded the all the efforts towards resource sharing.
Next, Sharon Domier and Yu-lan Chou discussed their experiences with using the
Internet. Ms. Domier explained how to use Japanese language over the Internet.
She distributed a handout showing how to find out more about this topic. Copies
of the handout are available from Ms. Domier at her email address: sdomier@oregon.uoregon.edu.
She emphasized that it is not very difficult to do electronic Japanese, and that
free software is available that allows you to display Japanese on relatively
unsophisticated computers. Ms. Domier also showed an example of a Japanese
language NACIS file that she brought up on the Macintosh computer in her office.
Ms. Yu-lan Chou discussed using the Internet to access Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology. She gave instructions for connecting to Hong Kong
University and displaying Chinese language messages. She also gave information
on how to connect through the Internet to the NOTIS system at the University of
Michigan. Ms. Chou also mentioned there is a file available on the Internet
called Internet Guide. It is guide to using the Internet (approximately 190
pages). The next presentation was by Karen Smith-Yoshimura on the RLG ARIEL
document transmission software for efficiently sharing documents over the
Internet. She emphasized that ARIEL is superior to FAX in speed, quality,
reliability, and cost. No special equipment is necessary. It uses 286 or 386
personal computers, and it can use laser printers or FAX printers. The system
uses a scanner to digitize information in documents. It uses data compression to
ensure high resolution, allowing users to read characters more easily. Because
it uses the Internet, there is no extra cost for telephone charges. It is high
quality 200 by 300 dots per inch on regular paper. It is also possible to
manipulate images after they are digitized. Images can be enlarged or reduced.
ARIEL can be used in conjunction with RLG's CitaDel (Citation and Delivery)
system. This system gives the capability of identifying and ordering a document
in one step. Finally, Ms. Donovan pointed out that a system developed at her
institution (Ohio State University) is also capable of fax transmission of
digitized information. It uses off the shelf hardware and inexpensive software.
She is hoping that a microfilm reader will be added to the system, so that reels
of microfilm could be digitized and transmitted over the Internet. They have
already received funding for a scanner so that tables of contents can be scanned
and transmitted over the Internet. She requested that computer literate people
interested in this project contact her so that they can be involved in the
development stage. She expects by the middle of summer 1992 to have the system
operational. Also, the CIC Internet fax was developed at Ohio State for delivery
of documents over the Internet.
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