Other OCLC CJK users:

Karl Lo, University of California, San Diego
Eugene Wu, Harvard University

OCLC Asia Pacific Services staff:

Hisako Kotaka, Manager, CJK Services Section
Shu-En Tsai, Asia Pacific Marketing Executive
Andrew Wang, Director, Asia Pacific Services

The OCLC CJK Users Group Executive Board met at OCLC headquarters in Dublin, Ohio, on September 7-9, 1995.

Andrew Wang , Director of OCLC Asia Pacific Services, welcomed the attendees at a tasty dinner on the evening of September 7.

On the morning of September 8, the Users Group met with the following OCLC officials: Phyllis Bova Spies, Vice President of Member Services, Sales & International; Georgia Brown, Director, Library Resources Development Division; Marty Withrow, Manager, Workstation Products Development Department; and Liz Bishoff, OCLC Vice President, Member Services.

The group was invited to express its needs and priorities. Mr. Wu, speaking for the group, requested that OCLC consider providing OPAC capability for CJK users. It was felt that the most useful OPAC service would include the automatic provision of vernacular displays in Library of Congress card format, with local fields included.

This enhancement was seen as a service that OCLC could provide. Such an enhancement could, therefore, enable OCLC membership to be expanded. It was felt that this capability would be attractive to libraries both in Asia and the United States. The Library of Congress card display would be easier to read than the MARC format, while vernacular text would prove especially useful for the user and the interlibrary loan function.

OCLC officials then stated that OCLC was discussing the feasibility of creating new separate records which would hold local data for each institution, searchable by members of that institution only.

Following a short break, Abraham Yu requested, on behalf of the group, that OCLC use its technical capabilities and good offices to:

1) promote vernacular character capability within the existing authority file;
2) provide a vernacular search key;
3) provide a more complete authority file for names in the OLUC that do not have corresponding authority records now. This would permit a convenient link between the authority file on OCLC and the OLUC; and
4) a multitasking software link between a well-controlled authority file and the database, enabling more convenient accessibility.

It was felt that vernacular access to authority records would enhance the file's clarity in distinguishing between people. Character access is especially needed for headings based on non-standard romanization: for example, in Asia, few users would think to search under the AACR2 heading for Confucius.

It was suggested that, because this is an interest that the entire Library community shares, the issue should be promoted in a larger forum.

The group also requested enhancements to the CJK dictionary to enable more convenient access for Japanese and Korean language CJK users. It was anticipated that these concerns would be addressed in the next CJK release.

At lunch on September 8, Mr. Cheng proposed a joint meeting with the RLIN CJK Users Group to explore common agenda items. Mr. Melzer expressed the view that the Library of Congress would support such a meeting as a way of promoting cooperation among CJK librarians. The group then raised a number of issues that the two groups might pursue together:

- adding characters to the EACC code;
- exchanging data, including earlier CJk reocrds that have not yet been exchanged;
- cooperative cataloging of analytics in large sets;
- guidelines for the provision of parallel fields;
- guidelines for the provision of EACC punctuation in vernacular fields;
- romanization and word division, including possible conversion from Wade-Giles to Pinyin.

During the afternoon hours of September 8, several participants toured OCLC and OCLC CJK facilities.

The meeting of the Executive Board was conducted on Saturday, September 9, beginning at 8:30 A.M. James Cheng served as chair. The group discussed the following topics:

1. Roles of the OCLC CJK Users Group and its Executive Board:

The mission and function of the Users Group and the Executive Board were discussed. It was agreed that a division of function would be most effective. The Executive Board will articulate and coordinate policy matters and provide leadership for the undertaking of projects, while the Users Group will focus its attention on technical matters. While board members are elected to represent specific groups of users, they will be encouraged to use their expertise in pursuit of broad goals that represent all users. The group will continue to be open to all who are interested, whether or not they are currently active OCLC CJK users.

2. Communication among Board members and among user institutions:

In order to improve communication, a listserv has been created for everyone who uses OCLC CJK services. Both OCLC and the Users Group will then be able to communicate directly with users, and vice versa.

3. Program Committee:

Abraham Yu agreed to continue as Program Committee chair. The Committee will continue with two projects, cooperative cataloging of analytics in large sets, and promoting the provision of vernacular fields in authority records. The committee will investigate possible cooperation with RLG in these areas.

4. Membership Committee:

Karen Wei volunteered to chair the Membership Committee. It was agreed that the Users Group will continue to support membership by being open to anyone who is interested. Institutional membership will be automatic for OCLC CJK subscribers. An aggressive membership drive will also be employed to encourage individuals to join.

5. Format of OCLC CJK Users Group annual meetings:

OCLC CJK Users Group meetings will be scheduled in association with meetings of the Council on East Asian Libraries, but hopefully not in such a way that they conflict with RLIN users group meetings or AAS panels. It was suggested that two meetings again be held: the first, on Friday, would feature reports of the Program Committee, while the second, on Saturday, would be a users meeting, beginning with the OCLC report and then moving to questions and answers. Questions will be solicited from users before the meeting via the Group's listserv.

6. Issues related to database expansion:

Kinokuniya Inc. has converted some 330,000 Japanese records from Waseda University into MARC records for OCLC. OCLC is scheduled to load the records at some later date.

It was originally hoped that the "China Project" would realize the conversion and loading of some 120,000 Chinese records of the Republican period from the Chinese national bibliography. However, after 30,000 records had been edited, the project was discontinued because of a lack of funding.

OCLC does not anticipate conversion of Korean MARC records in the near future because Korean libraries have not yet come to agreement on basic technical issues. Although Japan MARC is being converted by the Library of Congress, apparently it is not clear whether converted records can then be distributed in the United States.

7. Review of the new OCLC price structure:

Andrew Wang stated that the OCLC price structure is consistent with its status as a self-supporting organization. Reducing the price to encourage more use, as OCLC did recently, does not necessarily result in any new users. Mr. Wang felt that institutions large enough to justify a full-time CJK staff would find the licensing fee incidental, while those that cannot justify full-time staff will contract their cataloging with OCLC. The main costs involved with OCLC CJK services are for programmers and CJK staff.

Several attendees felt, on the other hand, that a lower license fee would result in more users. It was suggested that fees be pro-rated in favor of smaller users rather than large ones because they were more sorely in need of accommodation. Group members further suggested that lowering the fee for public access terminals (which do not permit a cataloging function) would result in increased use of the database. And, it was reasoned, should it be made available, the desired OPAC with character capability could be sold as a search-only package; with a decrease in fees, such a service would greatly encourage the searching of the database.

8. Retrospective conversion among OCLC CJK members and (perhaps) alliance with the RLIN East Asian Studies Librarians Forum and NCC Subcommittee on Retrospective Conversion:

NCC keeps track of which libraries have converted, and converting, and will convert which sorts of records. RLIN has a person there to keep track of CJK retrospective conversion (recon) projects. It was suggested that OCLC should do this also. In the interest of promoting cooperation and more effective use of our resources, James Cheng will ask RLIN to share its list, and for the two organizations to jointly publicize the status of CJK recon projects. It was agreed that, should funding be available for such a purpose, the field would be best served by recon projects in the Library of Congress.

9. Cooperation with the RLIN-CJK users group:

The Group expressed a desire to initiate cooperation with RLG on issues of common interest. It was agreed that James Cheng will contact RLG and ask if cooperation is possible on three topics:
- maintenance of the EACC code;
- the provision of vernacular characters in the name authority file; and
- the cataloging of analytics in large sets.

If RLIN expresses interest in such cooperation, Hideyuki Morimoto will serve as liaison for the OCLC CJK Users Group. At the same time, Mr. Cheng will contact Beatrice Ohta of the Library of Congress, who is administrator of the EACC code, to ask that missing characters be added to the code forthwith.

10. OCLC CJK contract cataloging:

An increasing number of institutions are finding it difficult to support the cataloging operations necessary to keep up with incoming CJK materials. There is a major shortage of CJK catalogers nationwide. As technology improves, technical services staffs are shrinking.

Andrew Wang noted that OCLC contract cataloging has expanded to meet the increasing demand for such services. OCLC now performs contract cataloging for approximately 20 libraries. Pricing is determined by the language of the materials, whether or not it has been pre-sorted, and whether it includes serials or monographs. Mr. Wang said that OCLC only tries to recover costs because it performs contract cataloging merely as a service to East Asian libraries.

11. Acquisition support of the OCLC CJK PLUS system:

Users have requested that OCLC provide support for acquisitions by making it possible to download existing records for acquisition purposes. While such support is now possible, vernacular characters would then have to be provided by the local system. It was considered desirable for a local save file to be located in the OCLC CJK function rather than in a host system so that a record downloaded into a local file could be more easily controlled.

12. Internet access to OCLC CJK data:

It was noted that OCLC CJK data is available on the Internet, but OCLC conversion software is necessary to bring up the entire record. To use the software, logon authorization and password are needed. Then the software can turn a coded CJK record into vernacular script.

For search-only functions, WorldCat accessed through the Internet provides CJK vernacular display on properly-configured gateways and terminals, such as K-Windows PCs connected to the campus networks within the U.C. system for gateway link to WorldCat via the MELVYL Z39.50 protocol option.

13. Chinese character reindexing for the CJK PLUS dictionary:

Users of all three CJK languages have urged OCLC to include more variant readings in the coming enhancement of the CJK PLUS dictionary.

14. Vernacular character mapping problems occurring through inter-system record transfer:

Many of the vernacular character mapping problems that have occurred in the transfer of records between OCLC and RLIN have been identified and corrected. The call numbers of some RLIN records which were lost when transferred to OCLC have now been corrected.

Call numbers in records from additional RLIN/CJK members may also be retained in OLUC. OCLC will re-investigate acceptability of LCC-type call numbers assigned by a few other selected RLIN libraries to their bibliographic records.

15. Pinyin conversion:

Karl Lo has created software that will efficiently and thoroughly convert Wade-Giles romanization to Pinyin, and vice versa. Following Mr. Lo's demonstration, attendees took the opportunity to experiment with the software.

It is currently OCLC's intention to eventually make it possible for users to identify, when they sign on, whether they wish to use Wade-Giles or Pinyin romanization system to retrieve records and for output. Software used to convert Wase-Giles to Pinyin would not change the basic record, however.

16. OCLC Reference Card:

Hisako Kotaka introduced the OCLC Reference Card, now being produced and distributed by OCLC Product Services. The card tells users how to initiate a two-way communication mechanism for service, using file-transfer capability. OCLC will then answer questions within 24 hours. The service is text-based (not windows-based), but can be downloaded into windows.

A user can refer to a special file for frequently asked questions, and from there pursue more specific questions. OCLC product designers intend to make use of queries made via the reference card to upgrade problem areas; programmers and network specialists will use it to monitor service.