Executive Board Meeting 1997

February 15, 1997
Saturday, February 15, 1997
6:20 p.m. - 8:40 p.m.
Washington, D. C.

Present: James Cheng (Chair), Abraham J. Yu, Wen-ling Liu,
Philip Melzer, Hideyuki Morimoto (recorder)

Minutes:

James opened the meeting by congratulating Philip on his promotion to Team Leader, Korean/Chinese Team, Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division,
Library of Congress.

1. Preparation for February 16, 1997 meeting with Mr. Gary Houk:

The OCLC CJK Users Group Executive Board members planned to meet with Mr. Gary Houk of OCLC on February 16, 1997 in order to request from him and/or inform him of the following:

(1) that OCLC should study the list of OCLC CJK Software functionality enhancement requests, prepared by Ms. Hsi-chu Bolick, submitted from the Program Committee through the Board Chair to Mr. Houk. OCLC should also set up priorities based on feasibility, intrinsic benefits, and other factors to rigorously implement those enumerated points that users have identified.

(2) that users are anxiously awaiting character index enhancement and the missing Hangul character addition onto the OCLC CJK Software. As soon as the enhanced version is released, the revised index will be carefully examined to see whether or not it satisfies the users' needs.

(3) that OCLC should study the list of requested electronic datafiles for potential mounting onto the OCLC system. The received Chinese and Japanese studies list will be consolidated for submission from the Program Committee through the Board Chair to Mr. Gary Houk. (Note: a Chinese studies list was sent to Chair of the Program Committee on February 15, 1997. The Program Committee Chair also received Japanese studies datafile requests. No Korean electronic datafile title had been suggested by OCLC CJK users).

(4) that the OCLC CJK Public Access Pilot Project results should be evaluated. It would be unreasonable for users to expect OCLC's fee waiver on search transactions made on public access terminals, however, a substantial reduction in charges for such use should be considered by OCLC.

(5) that OCLC should release information as to detailed CJK records exchange scope and coverage between OCLC and RLIN.

(6) that OCLC should move toward the direction of developing an integrated system for CJK Software and Passport for Windows.

(7) that OCLC should make the utmost effort to expand OCLC CJK Software user base, especially from among larger East Asian studies collections in North America, most of which are currently using the RLIN system.

2. Other Business:

It was pointed out that it is difficult to secure opinions and views from among OCLC CJK users. To rectify these communication problems, it was recommended that the incoming Chair of the OCLC CJK Users Group Executive Board should ensure that each region officer (China, Japan, and Korea), upon assuming the responsibility in March 1997, will collect data as to exactly:

1) who the users are and
2) what collections are served by the OCLC CJK Users Group.

Along this line, it was recognized that further awareness of expansion was needed as to the nature of the Users Group, which is not only for CJK catalogers but also for all CJK librarians.

James will bring to Chicago the OCLC CJK Users Group officer election ballots that he will have received. The Nominating Elections Committee will open the ballots on March 13, 1997 after the CEAL Fellowship Dinner. No announcement shall be made with regard to the results until the Chair makes an official announcement at the beginning of the March 15, 1997 Users Group annual meeting. Members of the OCLC CJK Users Group Executive Board will host a luncheon for the OCLC staff after the Chicago annual meeting. James will make the luncheon arrangements.

An overhead projector and a projection screen will be requested from OCLC for the March 15, 1997 Users Group annual meeting.

Some discussion was made with regard to the proposed switch of Chinese romanization scheme from Wade-Giles to Pinyin. James expressed his strong view to Philip that Chinese studies librarians as well as administrators should widely be consulted before the Library of Congress makes a final decision on this issue.

Respectfully submitted,

Hideyuki Morimoto
University of California, Berkeley