Staff Papers

Australian Experiences with Coordinating Asian Collections: Issues and Achievements

Paper by Andrew Gosling, Chief Librarian, Asian Collections, presented at the International Workshop on Developments in the Co-ordination of Asian Collections, Amsterdam, 15 April 1997


CONTENTS


Acknowledgement

The generosity of the International Institute for Asian Studies in supporting the participation of the National Library of Australia in this International Workshop on Developments in the Co-ordination of Asian Collections is gratefully acknowledged. It is a great honour and privilege to address the workshop about developments in Australia.

Background

The current pattern of Asian collections in Australia has been strongly influenced by geographical and historical factors.

Australia is a country roughly similar in size to Europe but with only twenty percent more people than the Netherlands. The population is largely concentrated in urban centres scattered along the more fertile coastal fringe, particularly in the south and east of the continent.

Although Australia is situated in the Asia-Pacific region, for the first one hundred and fifty years after European settlement in the late eighteenth century, Australians tended to look towards Europe (particularly Britain) and later also North America. The impact of the Second World War and subsequent changes in Asia brought about a gradual change of focus towards Australia's own region, which accelerated during the 1980s as economic, political, migration and other links with Asia deepened. Meanwhile Australia's traditional links with Britain have weakened as the latter has concentrated on its role in Europe.

Unlike in Europe and North America, Asian studies and Asian collections in Australia are largely the product of post-Second World War interest in the region. Prior to the 1950s, apart from quite strong holdings on British India, particularly at the State Library of Victoria, Australian libraries had negligible Asian collections, and no Australian library was regularly collecting current publications from the region. Although the University of Sydney began teaching Japanese language and history as early as 1918, Asian studies only really became significant in Australia in the 1950s, initially at the Australian National University (ANU), the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne. At the same time these three universities and the National Library of Australia began to develop Asian collections, and although many other institutions have subsequently also built up Asian holdings, these four research libraries remain the largest Asian resources in the country.

The growth of Asian studies in Australia since the 1950s has been at an uneven rate. The 1970s and 1980s saw rapid developments, including marked increases in school and university teaching of Asian languages and cultures, as well as in postgraduate study and research on Asia. As a result there are now centres for Asian studies in at least half of Australia's thirty-six universities. However, this time of growth has been followed by government reductions, which are affecting educational institutions and libraries across the country.

The fact that systematic acquisition only began in the 1950s has meant that Australia's Asian collections are strongest in comparatively recent publications. Over the last four decades a few Australian libraries have developed extensive holdings of contemporary Asian materials, particularly on East and Southeast Asia. These include Asian language and Western works on Asia. They have been supplemented by reprints, microforms of archival and other older materials and by the acquisition of formed collections from scholars and bibliophiles. However, Australia cannot match the retrospective collections of European countries such as the Netherlands, Britain, France and Germany, or libraries in North America, not to mention collections in Asia itself. Australian scholars still need to travel abroad for much primary source material.

In the Australian political system there are three levels of government : federal, state and local. No single organisation or level of government has overall responsibility for library planning nationally. Different library sectors fall under different administrative and funding arrangements. This means that co-ordination of library activities has been and will remain dependent on a willingness to co-operate for a shared benefit.

Current Situation

The most recent national figures contained in the Results of the DNC Asian Library Materials Survey, carried out in December 1994, strongly reinforced the findings of earlier studies on Asian collections.

They confirmed the heavy concentration of Asian library resources in Canberra, and to a lesser extent in Melbourne and Sydney. The two Canberra institutions, the National Library and the ANU Library, between them held 1,490,630 or 75% of the total national collection of 1,975,545 Asian and Western language titles on Asia. They also accounted for A$1,565,200 or 65% of the total national budget of A$2,398,470 for such materials. While the figures are somewhat incomplete, they suggested that the four largest collections, at the National Library, ANU, University of Melbourne and University of Sydney, together contained 1,013,080 or 89% of the 1,131,965 Asian language works held in Australian libraries. With the exception of Melbourne's Monash University, which had become a major player, Asian collections in other Australian libraries remained modest in size.

The study also revealed the extent to which resources were concentrated on East Asia and Southeast Asia. Nationally, East Asian materials accounted for 1,261,216 titles (63% of the total national collection on Asia) ; Southeast Asian materials totalled 596,486 titles (30%); while South Asian materials were much more limited, at 115,017 titles (6%). The figures for West Asia and Central Asia were much lower, together accounting for only 1% of the total. While not all libraries indicated their budgets for the various regions of Asia, the figures provided suggested that nationally the percentages were similar to those for collection sizes.

Co-ordination of Asian Collections

Efforts to develop Australia's Asian collections in a co-ordinated way began in the 1950s. A number of formal and informal agreements at the state or local level have existed for many years, and have, to a greater or lesser extent, helped libraries concentrate their resources and avoid unnecessary duplication.

In Canberra, where the two largest Asian research collections have been developed, it was agreed as early as 1955 that to avoid duplication the responsibility for collecting Japanese and Chinese language materials should be divided. In broad terms the Japanese agreement allocated collecting responsibility for the social sciences and modern history (from the Meiji Restoration of 1868 onwards) to the National Library, and the humanities and pre-1868 history to the ANU. The agreement for Chinese materials was similar, with the National Library responsible for Chinese history from 1912, and the ANU for Chinese history up to the Revolution of 1911.

The history of these two agreements shows something of the strengths and weaknesses of such arrangements. The Japanese agreement has been in operation for over forty years and continues to be a useful basis for collection development by the two libraries. Although the Japanese research interests of the ANU have changed over this period, and now include a strong emphasis on areas of the social sciences such as economics, both institutions have accepted the benefits of avoiding duplication of subject areas, and have retained the existing agreement.

This was reaffirmed in 1984 when a librarian from the National Diet Library in Tokyo, Mr K.Shiraiwa reviewed the ANU Japanese collection. He found that detailed statistics for the Japanese holdings of the two institutions by subject and form of material confirmed that both sides had collected mainly within their allotted fields. At the same time, some flexibility had been maintained through consultation, for example when one library has had more money to buy expensive items falling into the other's area of responsibility. According to the Shiraiwa Report this shared responsibility had been effective, and as a result, the Japanese collections of both libraries were of world significance.

As the research interests of the ANU turned more towards modern China, in particular with the establishment of its Contemporary China Centre in 1970, the 1955 agreement for Chinese materials was revised in September 1973. In effect, the revised agreement led to both libraries collecting on the contemporary period. There continued to be useful consultation to avoid duplication of expensive items, and some aspects of the agreement continued to operate. For example, the National Library built up a major collection of Chinese national and regional newspapers, while the ANU restricted its collecting of newspapers. Nevertheless, co-ordination was less effective than for Japanese. However, in the 1990s both libraries have been looking again at co-operation for Chinese materials and are now finalising a new agreement, initially for Chinese statistical yearbooks.

There has also been local co-operation for Asian studies and collections in other parts of Australia . In Brisbane, Griffith University has concentrated more on the social sciences and the University of Queensland on language and literature. In Adelaide, Flinders University has had a Southeast Asian focus while the University of Adelaide has covered East Asia. In Melbourne, for many years the University of Melbourne and Monash University had an informal arrangement on collecting of Chinese and Japanese materials. In the 1990s they issued a statement entitled Library Co-operation on East Asian Resources: Informal Agreement Between the University of Melbourne and Monash University.

While there were no formal agreements for Southeast Asian resources until recently, a considerable degree of co-ordination has been achieved for Indonesian publications, through the Indonesian Acquisitions Project, operated by the National Library. Under the terms of this scheme, officially established in 1971 after three years of pilot projects, a number of major research libraries have each received a selection of current imprints supplied through the National Library's acquisitions office in Jakarta. The package of publications they have received is a subset of the much larger volume of Indonesian materials the National Library acquires for its own collection, and which are listed in the quarterly Indonesian Acquisitions List .

The Indonesian Acquisitions Project has played a major role nationally. It has created a world-class research collection on contemporary Indonesia at the National Library, and has provided other Australian libraries with important Indonesian monographs and serials otherwise difficult to obtain. Despite government cutbacks in the early 1980s which had some effect on its operations, the Indonesian Acquisitions Project was fully restored and upgraded in 1993 under the National Library's renamed Regional Office, Asia, based in Jakarta, which was given an expanded liaison role in Southeast Asia.

Recent Developments (1989-1997)

The period since the late 1980s has seen a number of significant developments. These are outlined in broadly chronological order.

Ingleson Report (1989)

The Ingleson Report marked the first major examination of Australia's Asian library resources in recent years. The Ingleson inquiry was intended as a review of Asian studies and languages in universities as the basis for advice to the Australian government on future directions. It devoted a chapter to libraries, setting out the main difficulties. It also made a number of recommendations which have formed the basis for subsequent initiatives.

Ingleson argued for Australian libraries to participate in a national co-operative acquisitions policy for Asian materials, given the expense of establishing, maintaining and cataloguing such collections. A systematic rationalisation of collection development was seen as the most effective means of providing tertiary education with resources of an international standard. This would be supported by an efficient and inexpensive system of access and distribution.

Cataloguing problems were seen as serious, in particular the need for an automated system capable of supporting Asian scripts.

The report referred to a staffing crisis, with virtually all Asian collections understaffed, and a number having no specialist staff. The need for training to produce more professional librarians with Asian expertise was seen as a priority.

Ross Report (1990)

Unfortunately the library aspects of the Ingleson Report were not taken up by government. Instead they were referred to a review on Library Provision in Higher Education Institutions (Ross Report). The Ross Report supported Ingleson's recommendations on areas including the lack of trained staff, acquisitions difficulties, cataloguing backlogs and the need for Asian script automation. Ross also stressed that the potential library consequences of the recent rapid spread of Asian studies programs had not been appreciated by the institutions involved or possibly by the Commonwealth Government.

First National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia (1991)

In May 1991 a National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia was organised at the National Library in order to consider a national strategy to further the recommendations stemming from Ingleson and Ross. This and subsequent Roundtables have been important in informing librarians and academics of developments and building consensus for collaborative action to improve Asian collections and services nationally.

Following the Roundtable, the heads of the National Library, the ANU Library and the University of Sydney Library, jointly wrote to the Federal Government's Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) requesting funding to implement its recommendations, and drawing attention to the fact that these proposals had previously been urged upon various arms of government by the Ingleson and Ross Reports.

Survey of Trends in Asian Studies and Asian Collections (1992)

Following a submission resulting from the First Roundtable a grant was made by DEET for a study to examine national resource sharing for Asian library collections. Part of this funding was allocated to a consultancy to investigate a nationally available shareable library system for Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK) script materials. In addition a survey of Asian library resources and research trends was undertaken jointly by the National Library and ANU Library Some eighty academics and librarians were interviewed in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth concerning trends and priorities for Asian library resources nationally.

Major trends affecting libraries included a continuing emphasis on modern Asia though with the study of cultural traditions seen as important for understanding the present; an emphasis on East and Southeast Asia, but concern that South Asia was not receiving sufficient attention; rapid changes such as amalgamations of existing institutions and new universities establishing Asian studies with minimal library resources; growing links between Asian and Australian institutions, and larger numbers of postgraduate students increasing the demand for Asian language and English research materials.

While the 1992 survey found broad support for recommendations in the earlier studies, probably the strongest wish of academics and librarians interviewed was for improved access to Asian resources in Australia and overseas. In particular there was strong support for a national system of Asian studies library grants for postgraduate students to use the major collections especially at the National Library and ANU in Canberra.

National CJK System (1991+ )

A national system for automated cataloguing of Asian scripts was strongly recommended in the Ingleson and Ross Reports and the First Roundtable. Stemming from the latter meeting, Australian Research Council funding was obtained in 1991 for a feasibility study, which was completed the following year. In 1993 more extensive Australian Research Council funding was granted to identify and implement a suitable system. The National CJK Service was implemented in June 1996. MASS software that allows input and display of non-Roman characters is integrated with INNOPAC for the CJK system, which provides cataloguing and an online public access catalogue.

The mission of the National CJK Service is to support Australia's closer relationship with Asia by providing Australian libraries and their clients with improved access to holdings of Chinese, Japanese and Korean library materials. Currently eighteen Australian academic, research and public libraries have joined the CJK Service, which is governed by a Steering Committee comprising representatives of participating libraries, with an advisory Technical Committee. It is anticipated that further Australian and New Zealand libraries will join the Service. It is also hoped to expand the system to include other Asian scripts, beginning with Thai.

Second National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia (1993)

The Second Roundtable, organised by and held at the National Library was attended by over fifty participants, with representation from every Australian state and territory. The meeting reviewed progress since the First Roundtable and future developments. Participants identified five major priority areas: collection development; regional / international role; bibliographic control; information services and specialist staff.

It was agreed that collection development policies and collecting intentions for Australia's Asian collections needed to be more widely known. The issue of inadequate South Asian library resources was again raised, and later taken up with the Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) and the National Centre for South Asian Studies, which links seven Australian universities.

Following calls from this Roundtable for further discussion of co-operative acquisitions, the National Library arranged a national meeting of academics, officials and librarians concerned with Indonesian materials. Held in November 1993, this provided useful feedback from users for the National Library's expanded Jakarta-based co-operative Indonesian Acquisitions Project.

Agreement on Eastern Indonesian Materials (May 1993)

The Northern Territory is the part of Australia lying closest to eastern Indonesia, with which it has developed firm economic and cultural ties. Northern Territory University Library has strong links with institutions in several eastern Indonesian provinces. It has also established a special collection on eastern Indonesia, as well as developing the INTAN MAS online database which deals in part with eastern Indonesia. Under the Agreement Between the National Library of Australia and Northern Territory University Library for the Co-operative Collecting of Eastern Indonesian Library Materials, the University Library undertook to collect eastern Indonesian library materials intensively, while the National Library adjusted its collecting accordingly. Eastern Indonesia is taken to include Irian Jaya, Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and Sulawesi.

Asian Studies Library Awards (ASLA)

The Second Roundtable supported the finding of the 1992 survey that there should be assistance for postgraduate students and junior staff undertaking research on Asia to travel to the larger collections, particularly in Canberra. In 1994 and 1995 DEET funded the ASLA scheme, which was administered by the ASAA. Twenty-nine awards were taken up in 1994 and twenty-six in 1995. Although modest, these awards met with positive responses from recipients and their supervisors. Unfortunately, despite ASAA approaches, DEET did not fund the scheme beyond 1995.

Third National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia ( February 1995)

As with the previous meetings, the Third Roundtable was organised by and held at the National Library.On this occasion the number of librarians, academics and government officials attending had grown to seventy-five. The National Library's Distributed National Collection (DNC) Office and the Asian Collections Section played a strong role in arranging the Roundtable, in collaboration with a Reference Group of Asian studies academics and librarians from around Australia, which included the President of the ASAA, the heads of three university libraries, a State Librarian and several Asian studies librarians.

The Distributed National Collection began as a concept some years ago. It is regarded as the sum of all major library collections in Australia, the contents of which are recorded in a generally accessible catalogue and which are available to users through an efficient and affordable interlibrary loan system. Discussion of the DNC concept has centred on collection development, bibliographic control, preservation and access. The DNC Office was established by the National Library early in 1994, to co-ordinate operational aspects of the DNC concept at the national level.

The resolutions of the Third Roundtable covered six key areas : South Asia; collection development and collection agreements; networking, electronic publications and the Internet; training and staff; preservation and bibliographical access.

The considerable documentation from this Roundtable, including papers, resolutions and the DNC Office's Status Report on Collection Strengths in Asian Library Materials Collections and Results of the DNC Asian Library Materials Survey, December 1994 has provided much useful information on the current situation

Following the Roundtable, the Reference Group of academics and senior librarians identified collecting agreements as a major issue for further work.

Asian Collecting Agreements Meeting (November 1995)

This meeting was called to further the Third Roundtable's resolution that Australian libraries with Asian collections should indicate areas in which they were prepared to discuss collecting and access agreements. The most significant outcome of this gathering was agreement that given Australia's increasing interest in Korean studies and collections and services, the National Library should call a meeting of major stakeholders to consider collecting and access issues for Korean language materials.It was agreed that it was an opportune time to seek more systematic co-operation particularly to avoid unnecessary duplication of Korean research materials and to provide maximum accessibility to the collections nationally.

DNC Korean Collections Meeting (March 1996)

Prior to this meeting at the National Library, the DNC Office prepared a Conspectus Report for Korean Library Collections in Australia and Results of the DNC Korean Library Materials Survey . These showed that the overall national collection and budget for Korean were modest, with only two major players at present, the National Library with by far the largest collection and the National Korean Studies Centre with its developing Korean collection at Monash University.

It was agreed that as a first step towards implementation of a number of resolutions there should be an evaluative study of the needs of Australian researchers and business related to Korea for the next five years. This study would be used by the Korean Working Group of academics and librarians to establish the present situation and the value of setting up electronic networking, formal supply arrangements and the need to fill gaps in the totality of the holdings of Australian libraries. The Working Group includes the President of the Korean Studies Association of Australasia (KSAA), other leading Korean scholars and librarians from institutions with major Korean interests.

Other resolutions included a call for libraries to assess their Korean collections using the Conspectus methodology; an assessment of the potential for improved supply of materials from libraries in Korea; a collecting, supply and access agreement between the National Library and the National Korean Studies Centre based on the model of the National Library / ANU Library Korean agreement then being finalised ; strengthening the Korean component of the National CJK Service; improved links between Korean studies researchers and librarians in Australia and staff exchanges between Australian and Korean libraries.

Developments on Korean Collections and Services (1996-1997)

The Korean Working Group has been successful in obtaining modest funding from Australian and Korean sources for the research and business profile. This will now be undertaken by questionnaire and visits to major centres, and should be completed by mid-1997. It is intended that its findings will be used as the basis for further action.

The Agreement between the National Library of Australia and the Australian National University Library for Collecting and Providing Access to Korean Vernacular Materials was completed and signed in August 1996 . The agreement covers matters including collecting, bibliographic control, access, loan of material and preservation. It assigns the primary responsibility for collecting of Korean language research materials to the National Library, with enhanced access provided to ANU academics.

Meanwhile following the completion by the DNC Office of Conspectus sheets for East Asian materials based on the Harvard-Yenching Classification, libraries with Korean collections, including Monash University and the National Library have begun to assess their collections using Conspectus.

The National Central Library in Seoul has now provided sample Korean MARC (KORMARC) records to the National Library. It is hoped to load KORMARC data to the National CJK Service in the near future.

Relations between Korean and Australian libraries are being strengthened in other ways. A senior librarian from the National Assembly Library in Seoul is currently spending a year at the National Library and visiting other Korean centres in Australia. This follows several other staff visits between Korea and Australia.

South Asian Collections (1995-1997)

The problem of the comparative weakness of Australia's South Asian collections was raised by all major reports and meetings from Ingleson onwards. South Asia was a major focus of the Third Roundtable, which among other resolutions urged that a further collaborative attempt be made to win government funding to redress the imbalance of library resources and services available for the study of South Asia.

In November 1995 a consortium of Australian universities and national bodies including the National Library gained a substantial Research Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities (RIEF) grant for the South Asia : Renovating the National Collection Project. A further grant was obtained at the end of 1996, to consolidate the project.

This co-operative project has been co-ordinated by Curtin University of Technology and La Trobe University, in partnership with Monash University, Flinders University, the ANU, the National Centre for South Asian Studies, the University of Adelaide, the University of New England, the University of Sydney and the National Library.

The project has three main objectives : a survey of the national South Asian collection for inclusion in a national database; a co-ordinated national acquisitions program and the development of a corps of librarians who are interested in and have a knowledge of South Asia.

It plans to identify unlisted South Asian materials in Australia and make sure they can be found by researchers anywhere in Australia or overseas. It also wants to ensure that the work done has maximum compatibility across host systems and is compatible with and available on National Library databases. A database set up at Curtin University is being made available on the Internet. In conjunction with the survey, a collaborative acquisitions program is replenishing and expanding the national collection, in accordance with priorities identified in the survey.

In February 1997 a group of nine librarians from Australian university libraries and the National Library visited libraries, publishers and other institutions in India and Bangladesh, as part of the project. The aim of this four week trip was to enhance links with South Asian libraries and improve acquisitions.

In accordance with the resolutions of the Third Roundtable and in parallel with the RIEF project, the National Library, which has Australia's most extensive holdings of English language materials on South Asia, including many government publications and newspapers, has sought to improve its coverage of India and other South Asian nations.

Issues and Achievements

There have undoubtedly been significant improvements nationally in recent years. The development of the National CJK Service can be seen as a major achievement stemming from the First Roundtable and subsequent collaborative work. In the area of co-operative collection development, the 1990s have seen new collecting agreements for Asian materials signed or in the offing. Priorities identified through the Roundtables, such as Korea and South Asia are receiving considerable attention which is now leading to better collections and services nationally. The various meetings and surveys have also greatly improved the level of knowledge and understanding of Asian collection matters. While by no means all recommendations have been implemented, there has been considerable progress in the nine years since the Ingleson Report.

Funding remains a major issue. In an era of government reductions, all Asian collections in Australia face increasingly tight funding for acquisitions and staffing. This in itself is a major incentive to continue the co-operative process, as no institution can be wholly self-sufficient in serving its users.

Obtaining government or other funding for collaborative projects is time-consuming and there is no guarantee of success. Persistence may pay off as has happened with the National CJK and South Asia projects, both of which have involved a number of funding bids. In other cases, applications have obtained very limited funds or none at all. Some worthwhile schemes such as the Asian Studies Library Awards (ASLA) have only been funded briefly. The concept of a joint facility for National Library and ANU Library resources on Asia has not attracted government money, and other possible sources of funds are being investigated.

In seeking collaboration, institutional, regional and other sensitivities cannot be ignored. Government policies have led universities to compete strongly for students and research funds. Rivalries between Australian states and suspicion of Canberra, the national capital, also have to be taken into account in any co-operative activities.

Thus in the Roundtable process, the National Library, a Commonwealth government body situated in Canberra, has been careful to involve as wide a range of interested parties as possible. These have included representatives from all six Australian states and the two territories, different library sectors, and user groups including academics and government. ASAA participation in the Roundtables has been most valuable. The past four ASAA Presidents, Professors John Ingleson, Colin Mackerras, Beverley Hooper and currently Tony Reid have strongly supported the process.

The National Library has taken a strong leadership role in co-ordination, while being mindful of the issues described above. It has been helped in this by having the largest Asian research collections in Australia, by its strong links with libraries in the region, as well as by its broad role under the National Library Act to co-operate with Australian and overseas authorities and individuals on library matters. Nevertheless leadership has been exercised through consultation not coercion.

Communication to overcome the "tyranny of distance" is a vital issue in Australia with its widely scattered population. In the co-ordination of Asian studies library matters, newsletters of organisation such as the East Asian Library Resources Group of Australia (EALRGA) and the Asia-Pacific Special Interest Group (APSIG) of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) have played an important role.

The growth of electronic information and the Internet have greatly improved communication nationally and internationally. For example the Asialib electronic discussion group was established by the National Library and ANU in 1993. It covers a diverse range of Asian library matters in Australia, and has a wide group of subscribers both in Australia and overseas.

The role of electronic information on Asia is becoming increasingly important, and is expanding the DNC concept originally developed for traditional library materials. It is also broadening the focus of libraries from the national to the international level, as networked information is not limited by borders.

Australian institutions have been active in the electronic area. The ANU, for example, has played a major role in developing the Asian Studies World Wide Web Virtual Library , as well as its Chinese Serials Database (http://www.anu.edu.au/Asia/Chin/ChiSer.html) and Indonesian Serials Database (http://www.anu.edu.au/Asia/Indo/Indonesia-jrnls.html) . Following the Second Roundtable, APSIG was successful in obtaining funding from the Australian Council of Libraries and Information Services for the compilation of Asian Resources : a Directory of Databases on Asia Accessible in Australia (http://www.alia.org.au/~apsig/directory.html)

World Wide Web home pages have been set up for individual Asian collections. The National Library's Asian Collections home page includes descriptions of the Library's various Asian language, regional and formed collections; extensive documentation relating to collaborative activities including the Third Roundtable, the National CJK Project, Korea and South Asia; as well as links to other Australian and overseas resources, which are being progressively expanded.

While national co-ordination is important, Australian libraries are strongly aware that international co-operation is vital. Australia has never been and cannot be self-sufficient in terms of Asian collections and services. A major theme in the Roundtable process has been the strengthening of the already considerable links with institutions in the region and beyond. The building of closer ties regionally and internationally is central to major developments including the National CJK Project, and the Korean and South Asian initiatives. Recent examples of closer co-operation include the widening of the National Library's Indonesian Acquisition Project to include the National Library of Singapore as a participant; the work of the National Library's National Preservation Office in close co-operation with the National Diet Library as a regional centre for the IFLA Preservation and Conservation (PAC) Core Programme; and the strong role of the National Library and the ANU in assisting libraries in countries such as China, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea to gain access to the Internet.

Conclusion

While certain aspects of the Australian experience may reflect circumstances unique to Australia, a number may be of more general interest to other countries in dealing with similar issues, and assist in fostering the aims of this International Workshop on Developments in the Co-ordination of Asian Collections.

Glossary

ANU - Australian National University
ASAA - Asian Studies Association of Australia
CJK - Chinese, Japanese and Korean
DEET - Department of Employment, Education and Training
DNC - Distributed National Collection
RIEF - Research Infrastructure Equipment and Facilities

References

Asia in Australian Higher Education : Report of the Inquiry into the Teaching of Asian Studies and Languages in Higher Education (Ingleson Report). Canberra : Asian Studies Council, 1989.

Cross, Nereida. Asian Resources : a Directory of Databases on Asia Accessible in Australia. (http://www.alia.org.au/~apsig/directory.html). Canberra : Australian Library and Information Association, 1996.

Gosling, Andrew. "Books from Asia : Co-operative Collection Development in Australia", in East Asian Library Resources Group of Australia Newsletter, Number 10, December 1986, pp. 7-15.

Gosling, Andrew. "Reports and Roundtables : Australia's Asian Collections in the 1990s", in Australian Library Review, Volume 11 Number 4, August 1994, pp.327-336.

Hooper, Beverley. "3rd National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia", in Asian Studies Review, Volume 19 Number 1, July 1995, pp. 91-100.

Law, Cliff. "Asian Collections; Collection Development and Analysis" [Paper Written and Presented to 3rd National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia, Canberra, 16 February 1995]

Library Provision in Higher Education Institutions (Ross Report). Canberra : AGPS, 1990.

McGuire, John. "A Passage to India", in National Library of Australia News, Volume 6 Number 13, October 1996, pp.9-12.

Miller. George. Survey of Trends in Asian Studies and Asian Collections in Australia : a Report to a Working Party Established by the National Roundtable on Libraries and Asia Held in the National Library of Australia, 3 May 1991. ANU Library Occasional Papers, 6. Canberra : Australian National University, 1993.

Results of the DNC Asian Library Materials Survey December 1994. 2nd edition. Canberra : DNC Office, June 1995.

Sexton, Marie. The Scene Downunder : Southeast Asian Library Resources Planning in Australia in the 1990s[ Paper Written and Presented at the Southeast Asia Resources Planning Pre-CONSAL X Meeting, Kuala Lumpur, 18-20 May 1996].

Shiraiwa, Kazuhiko. Report on a Survey of the Japanese Collection at the Australian National University, February-March 1984. Canberra : Australian National University, 1985.

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