Saturday, June 28, 1997

4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco

Present:

Abraham Yu (chair), University of California, Irvine

Yu-Lan Chou (recorder), University of California, Berkeley

Hideyuki Morimoto , University of California, Berkeley

Joy Kim , University of Southern California

Wen-ling Liu (guest), Indiana University

Minutes:

Abraham called the meeting and welcomed newly elected officers as well as Wen-ling Liu, member of the Program Committee, to attend this meeting. Agenda was read and Yu-Lan proposed to add "others" to item 3 OCLC CJK functionality.

1. Database Expansion:

a) Abraham stressed the importance of balancing the size and quality of the OCLC database. Recently, OCLC launched an Electronic Collections Online service in its FirstSearch system. The Users Group's request of loading the CJK electronic datafiles would enrich OCLC database and enhance its reference services. As a follow-up to the Chicago Annual Meeting, Hideyuki Morimoto, Chair of the Program Committee, appointed three members to work on concerns related to justification and prioritization. The Chinese list compiled by Karen Wei of the University of Illinois was discussed and passed. Eddy Harrison of the University of Washington prioritized items in the Japanese list. Hideyuki will ask Eddy whether he can add explanations to each item Listed. Joy Kim of the University of Southern California was working on the Korean part. Joy asked to clarify whether or not CD-ROM titles should be included. Any further opinions and suggestions should be forwarded to these three members' attention.

b) It was suggested to have a separate file for Chinese rare books on OLUC. Some records of the RLIN Chinese rare book project are still in RLIN "save" mode and they are not available through OCLC. Members would like to ask OCLC to negotiate with RLIN for those records.

2. Pinyin Conversion:

a) Tim Connor's draft minutes of the May 29 meeting at LC were distributed. OCLC CJK members asked OCLC not to make any commitments to the pinyin conversion until a decision has been made by the CEAL Task Force on Pinyin. It was understood from the meeting that LC will not implement the conversion prior to the year 2000.

b) Users Group will pay close attention to the Pinyin conversion discussion and work with OCLC for a conversion plan. Any possible conversion alternatives such as the software approach should be addressed to this Group for a thorough study.

3. OCLC CJK Functionality:

Problems were discussed for a) validating vernacular fields, b) procedures for handling the LC full-level roman only records, c) group display, and d) whether the enhance status should be granted to every CJK user. Because of the highly significant nature of these specific issues, it was decided that three of these four matters should be immediately communicated with OCLC. [Note: Hideyuki prepared a memorandum to this effect after the meeting for submission to OCLC. OCLC's response was then received by the Chair.] The group display issue was decided to be included in the enhancement requests list for submission to OCLC at a later time.

4. Membership Expansion:

a) OCLC CJK Software Users:

Abraham expressed that in the future OCLC CJK software should be integrated with Passport for Windows with a one site license fee. If this integrated multitasking software becomes available, then all OCLC libraries will automatically become OCLC CJK software users. Abraham also reported that OCLC is interested in Yu-Lan's idea of providing a free trial copy for the CJK 3.0 to interested OCLC non-CJK users and non-OCLC CJK libraries. This new concept, Abraham said, is another efficient and effective approach to increasing the number of OCLC CJK software users.

b) Users Group members:

The issue to expand membership to non-technical CJK librarians and non-CJK users was examined. The membership directory will be updated and Users Group will try a different approach to actively recruit new members.

5. Update and Upgrade the Authority File and Link with OLUC:

Abraham pointed out the importance of updating and upgrading the online name authority file. Yu-Lan commented that updating and upgrading will involve NACO level authority work and it will need to be reassessed further in detail.

6. Cooperative Cataloging Program:

Wen-ling reported her findings. Issues on analytics and recon were specifically discussed. NCC did a survey on Japanese retrospective conversion, and Joy suggested to form a working committee to setup a priority. Wen-ling cautioned that since many East Asian recon projects are part of a library-wide recon plan, a separate recon project for East Asian collections may not be feasible in all libraries. Even if some East Asian libraries could make the justification to join a cooperative project with other East Asian Libraries, it may not be possible.

7. Users Group Web Page:

Abraham thanked users for their input and will continue to improve the Web Page. Because more links will be added, it was suggested that some criteria for adding links be developed accordingly. The Home Page Development Team members are: Vickie Doll, Fung-yin Simpson, Karen Wei, and Abraham J. Yu.

8. CJK OPAC Features and Fees:

Members unanimously agreed to encourage OCLC to reduce the searching charge in order to promote more use.

9. RLG East Asian Librarians Forum:

At the Chicago Annual Meeting, several users expressed interest in RLG East Asian Librarians Forum. Users Group will try to make an arrangement and give a report at the annual meeting.

10. 1998 Annual Meeting Format:

It was agreed that better time control in the Annual Meeting should be implemented. The format and agenda of the next meeting will be decided at a later date.

Recorder

Yu-Lan Chou

University of California, Berkeley