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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 46 | August 2000


Asian Studies: academics, libraries and cooperation

Library Forum speakersLibrary Forum speakers (from left) Merle Ricklefs, Andrew Gosling, Sally-Anne Leigh, John Fitzgerald and Vera Mackie.

Librarians were active at the Asian Studies Association of Australia Conference, held at the University of Melbourne from 3–5 July. More than 500 scholars, teachers, librarians and others attended the conference and some 200 papers were presented, with lunchtime library sessions attracting considerable interest.

Three of Australia’s top academics spoke at the Library Forum on 3 July. The session addressed the topic ‘Academic Library Cooperation and Funded Asian Studies Library Projects’. It was chaired by Andrew Gosling of the National Library, as President of the East Asian Library Resources Group of Australia.

Professor Merle Ricklefs, Director and Professor of Asian Studies at the Institute of Asian Languages and Societies at the University of Melbourne and the conference convener, spoke first. He said that there were promising signs in Asian libraries, even though Asian Studies library resources and activities could expect to face similar pressures as other parts of the nation’s academic libraries. These included loss of buying power, the fall in the Australian dollar and the pressure of the rise in the costs of science serials upon library budgets.

Encouraging signs included collaboration between libraries, such as the Melbourne Asian Research Libraries Consortium (MARLC) which he held up as a model of the way forward. The University of Melbourne and Monash University libraries had formed the consortium in 1993 to enhance access to the Asian materials held in both libraries.

Electronic publications might also assist by providing access to a wider, more accessible range of titles.

One problem he had observed was the ‘marooned library collection’, created when an academic who had been active in developing resources moved to another institution, leaving behind important materials which supported a particular interest and may not be required by the owning library. Professor Ricklefs said the experience of trying to relocate such collections had not been promising and a better mechanism was required.

Professor John Fitzgerald, Chair of the Department of Asian Studies at La Trobe University, Melbourne, said he spoke as a researcher rather than an administrator. As a member of the Library Panel of the Australian Research Council (ARC), he offered his expertise in the preparation of funding proposals. Likely candidates for funding included digitisation projects and subject gateways. From the viewpoint of the ARC, projects needed to support high quality research and be based on collaborative arrangements. Relatively large sums of money were available.

Professor Vera Mackie, Associate Dean, Division of Humanities at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia, said the decline of the Australian dollar against the Yen had been a particular problem for Japanese researchers in Australia. It had badly affected historical research, for example, as publications came in a variety of formats such as facsimile, microforms and in the form of databases. Travel funding was needed to enable distant users to access collections in Canberra, other eastern capitals or overseas.

Sally-Anne Leigh, Manager, Asia-Pacific Cluster, Australian National University, was the discussant. She highlighted problems in obtaining the involvement and support of academics for collaborative funding proposals for the ARC. Electronic publications offered far fewer possibilities for Asian Studies than for some other disciplines.

Funding proposals for languages in script needed to consider aspects such as cataloguing expertise and systems. IT support was more complex and expensive.

The need to archive electronic materials resulting from a project should be considered in the planning stage. Recurrent funding was needed to ensure the continuation of projects which had been started with project funding.

The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) was interested in developing consortia for the acquisition of electronic formats and this should be considered as one way of proceeding. Another topic discussed was SPIRT (Strategic Partnerships for Industry, Research and Training) proposals. Alison Broinowski, Australian National University, said the ARC had approved a three-year proposal under the SPIRT scheme between the ANU, Griffith University and the National Library for research on Asian Accounts of Australia.

There was also discussion of the impact of the comparative rankings universities gave to funding proposals for the ARC in its various schemes. There was a perception that library-related projects were not given a high ranking. A differing view from another academic was that the inclusion of a project in the university’s list of possible funding proposals was sufficient and their internal ranking was not an issue. Professor Ricklefs compared the different pattern of library collecting between the social sciences and the sciences. He noted that the social sciences required long-term funding to maintain and develop collections.

On 4 and 5 July librarians demonstrated the National Chinese, Japanese and Korean Service and web sites and databases for Asian Studies. The web sites session was particularly well received. The conference also provided an opportunity for members of the East Asian Library Resources Group and the Japanese Library Resources Group to meet and discuss future strategies.

It is planned to include a fuller coverage of the conference in the East Asian Library Resources Group of Australia Newsletter.
Marie Sexton

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