Friday, December 20, 2013

Implementing the Japanese Romanization Table

LC Japanese Romanization Table (updated 2012) | Joel Hahn Macros (Includes Alif to Apostrophe) | Webinar on OCLC Macros (by Erica Chang) | NACO/SACO Change Request Form

The Committee on Technical Processing (CTP)/Committee on Japanese Materials (CJM) Joint Working Group on the ALA-LC Japanese Romanization Table was formed in September 2013 to continue the work of the previous task force with regard to revisions and updates to the ALA-LC Japanese Romanization Table. It has been a year since the revision of the Japanese Romanization Table was approved and distributed. The Working Group would particularly like to raise the Japanese cataloging community's awareness that the current Table (linked above) specifies the use of the apostrophe | ' | (Unicode 0027) rather than the alif | ʾ | (Unicode 02BE) (see examples under "Diacritic Marks, 2").

What You Need to Know

  • OCLC regularly updates Worldcat BIBLIOGRAPHIC records to the new standard, using an automated program to replace any alifs in Japanese cataloging with apostrophes (listserv post from Ms. Kotaka of OCLC).
  • OCLC does not update AUTHORITY records. This is because the data management/control for LC/NACO authority files is in LC/NACO hands. As a result, pre-2012 authority records may still include the alif in romanized Japanese text.
  • In bibliographic records, if the "control headings" feature is used with authority records that include the alif, the alif will be re-introduced. Alifs in controlled fields will be corrected when the linked authority records are updated with the apostrophe.
  • Because of the normalization process, mixed use of these two diacritics will not cause any hindrance to searchers in WorldCat. However, it is still important to update authority records in order to maintain consistent use of diacritics in the records, as well as to prevent any search problems from occurring in local systems after importing records from OCLC.

What You Can Do


OCLC


  • NACO (Name Authority Cooperative Program of the PCC) libraries : If you are a trained NACO contributor working for a NACO library, please update authority records by replacing any alifs with apostrophes in romanized Japanese, whenever time allows.
  • Non-NACO libraries are not authorized to update the records. However, you may make a change request to the Working Group. Click here or above to submit a request form.
  • Joel Hahn's macro for converting alifs to apostrophes, "AlifAyn2Apostrophe" (see links above) may be used in OCLC Connexion to update either bibliographic OR authority records.
  • For more background on macros for this purpose and other related issues, see Erica Chang's presentation, "Using macros in Connexion for CJK materials webinar, Advanced session" (11/2012), linked above.
  • Subject authority records may also include alifs, when they include romanized Japanese text. If your institution is a SACO library, ask your SACO coordinator to make a change proposal to LC. Non-SACO libraries may contact the Working Group using the request form link above.

Local Systems

  • Be aware of the use of the alif in bibliographic records you download to your local integrated library system (ILS). You may want to replace any alifs with apostrophes in OCLC Connextion before exporting records to your local system.
  • LC has kindly shared their alif-to-apostrophe macro for the Voyager ILS. For more information, please contact the Working Group chair, Yoko Kudo at yoko.kudo@ucr.edu
  • For other local systems, each library must develop their own policy with regard to this issue depending on local needs and priorities. The effect of the mixed use of the alif and apostrophe may vary from system to system.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact Yoko Kudo (yoko.kudo@ucr.edu), or any other Working Group member.

Japanese Romanization Working Group (JRWG)

Yoko Kudo (Chair, UC Riverside)
Rob Britt (U. Washington)
Mieko Mazza (Stanford)
Hikaru Nakano (U. Florida)
Chiaki Sakai (U. Iowa)
Keiko Suzuki (Yale)
Working Group charge

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

UW, UBC Receive Collaborative Chinese Cataloging Grant

University of Washington and University of British Columbia Libraries’ Collaborative Chinese Cataloging Project Receives CLIR 2013 Grant

We are very pleased to share the good news that the University of Washington Libraries has been selected to receive a 2013 Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant in the amount of $183,500 to support the project “Discovering Modern China: University of Washington (UW) & University of British Columbia (UBC) Collections.” Our project is one of the 22 selected from a total of 75 applications.

This is an international collaborative project to catalog the special Chinese language materials at the UW East Asia and the UBC Asian Library. Scheduled to start on June 1, 2014, the project will be completed in 18 months. The project will recruit two professional catalogers specializing in classic and modern Chinese to be based at UBC and UW respectively. The project will also recruit one Chinese rare-book specialist who will spend time to assess the special collections at each institution. UW and UBC libraries will share the expertise of the project staff through regular online meetings, site visits, and exchange. The project will make accessible to scholars worldwide up to 2,000 special Chinese publications, including pre-modern texts and some rare books, as well as rare publications of the Chinese Republican Era.

Our project is the first of only two international collaborative projects that CLIR (Council on Library and Information Resources) has funded. We look forward to a successful collaboration between our institutions through this exciting project.

Zhijia Shen
Director of the East Asia Library at UW 

 

Jing Liu
Chinese Studies Librarian at UBC Asian Library


Wednesday, December 11, 2013

CTP/CJM Working Group on the ALA-LC Japanese Romanization Table Formed

In 2012 CTP and CJM formed a joint Task Force on the LC Proposal for Japanese Romanization to respond and provide feedback to the LC Revision Proposal for Japanese Romanization Table. The revision was approved and released in Dec. 2012.

Based on the 2012 CTP/CJM Task Force ’s report and recommendations, CTP and CJM formed a new joint working group on the ALA-LC Japanese Romanization Table in September 2013 to collect feedback on the 2012 revision and work on unresolved issues, etc., to be chaired by Yoko Kudo.

Thanks to Yoko and the following CEAL members who are willing to take the leadership and serve on the WG on the important issues concerning the ALA-LC Japanese Romanization guidelines:
  • Yoko Kudo, Chair (UC Riverside)
  • Rob Britt (U. Washington)
  • Keiko Suzuki (Yale)
  • Chiaki Sakai (U. Iowa)
  • Hikaru Nakano (U. Florida)
  • Mieko Mazza (Stanford)
The WG’s charge is available at the CTP website. The WG welcomes suggestions/comments from CEAL members. Please contact Yoko Kudo at yoko.kudo@ucr.edu

Shi Deng, Chair, Committee on Technical Processing Setsuko Noguchi, Chair, Committee on Japanese Materials

CEAL Task Force on Metadata Standards Formed

I am pleased to announce, on behalf of CEAL Executive Board and CTP members, that CTP worked with CEAL Executive Board members recently to form the CEAL Task Force on Metadata Standards and Best Practices for East Asian Electronic Resources, to be co-chaired by Bie-Hwa Ma and Chengzhi Wang.

This Task Force is charged to investigate the best practices for creating, manipulating, and managing electronic content and metadata for resources in East Asian languages including that for current and future databases, e-journals, e-books and media materials, and address the issues as those e-resources move through their life cycle from selection through user access, along with associated metadata across different systems and functions.

Under this general charge, the Task Force promotes compliance with well-established metadata standards and best practices for electronic resources used by research libraries in North America, and communicates the required compliance to vendors/ information providers of East Asian digital publications.

The Task Force will work as a liaison with national and international working groups on metadata standards and best practices to identify issues related to East Asian e-resources. When called for, it will form responses to national and international organizations on e-resource metadata standards in consultation with the CEAL community.

The Taskl Force will organize training workshops and educational programs for both East Asian library staff of research libraries in North America and East Asian content providers to promote metadata standards and best practices. The first workshop will be held at the upcoming CEAL 2014 conference on Tuesday, March 25, 2014. Please see registration for more details.

Thanks to Bie-Hwa for taking the initiative on getting CTP to form this group and the following CEAL members who are willing to take the leadership and serve on this important TF:
  • Bie-Hwa Ma (Co-Chair, UCSD, for technical services)
  • Chengzhi Wang (Co-Chair, Columbia, for collections and public services)
  • Susan Xue (UCB)
  • Haruko Nakamura (Yale)
  • Miree Ku (Duke)
  • Connie Lam (HKU)
  • Charlene Chou (U. Washington)
  • Mieko Mazza (Stanford)
  • Erica Chang (U. Hawai’i)
  • Shi Deng (UCSD)
  • Ex-officio and liaison to CEAL EB: Shi Deng, CTP chair.
The TF’s charge is available at the CTP website. The TF welcomes suggestions/comments from CEAL members. Please contact Bie-Hwa Ma at bcma@ucsd.edu or Chengzhi Wang at cw2165@columbia.edu

Shi Deng, Chair, Committee on Technical Processing

CTP Subcommittee on RDA Formed

Dear all,
Over the last two years, CTP was called upon numerous times to address and/or respond to RDA related issues, and sometimes we had to work on the RDA JSC and/or PCC’s timetable to provide comments/input on behalf of the CEAL community. The list of CJK specific RDA-related issues is getting longer. The need to have a group of members, who are the front runners and have more experience/knowledge with RDA, focusing on RDA related issues became more prominent with the implementation of RDA. With approval of CEAL executive board, CTP formed a Subcommittee on RDA, to be chaired by Charlene Chou.

The Subcommittee will work on CJK specific issues related to RDA instructions in consultation with CEAL community; facilitate and seek CEAL community input on any proposed RDA instructions or best practices that may improve the effectiveness of cataloging CJK language materials; propose RDA instructions or best practices that may facilitate and enhance user discovery; communicate with ALA, LC, PCC, OCLC and/or other stakeholders on behalf of the CEAL CTP and CEAL community with the approval of CEAL Executive Board; coordinate and/or work jointly with OCLC CJK UG on database maintenance projects as a result of RDA implementation and/or changes of RDA instructions; recommend to the CTP Chair to form working groups on specific RDA-related issues as needed and collaborate with those groups when appropriate; plan and develop for RDA training sessions if needed.

Thanks to Charlene and the following CEAL members who are willing to take the leadership and serve on the Subcommittee:
  • Charlene Chou (Chair, U Washington)
  • Erica Chang (Hawaii)
  • Erminia Chao(BYU, AV materials)
  • Jee-Young Park (Chicago)
  • Mieko Mazza (Stanford)
  • Rob Britt (U Washington, laws & public services)
  • Shi Deng (UC San Diego)
  • T.J. Kao (Yale)
  • Consultant:  Hideyuki Morimoto (Columbia)
  • Liaisons: Sarah Elman (Columbia, CJK NACO Project liaison); Jessalyn Zoom (LC, LC liaison)
The Subcommittee’s charge is available at the CTP website. The Subcommittee welcomes suggestions/comments from CEAL members. Please contact Charlene Chou at cc83@u.washington.edu

Shi Deng, Chair, Committee on Technical Processing

Monday, December 9, 2013

Election 2014: Help CEAL!--Nominate Yourself or a Colleague Today!

CEAL Bylaws


Dear CEAL members:

We have not been overwhelmed with nominations since we posted this call a couple of weeks ago. Please consider running for a CEAL office or encouraging a colleague to do so. It's a great way to get to know librarians from other universities while serving our organization and the profession. If you have any questions about the serving on the CEAL Executive Board or about the election process, please feel free to contact me or the other Election Committee members, listed below.

On behalf of the CEAL Election Committee, I am sending you this official call for nominations/self-nominations for a total of eight positions on the CEAL Executive Board. The positions are as follows:
  • Vice President /President-Elect
  • Chair of Committee on Chinese Materials
  • Chair of Committee on Japanese Materials
  • Chair of Committee on Korean Materials
  • Chair of Committee on Public Services
  • Chair of Committee on Technical Processing
  • *Member-at-Large (all areas eligible)
  • *Member-at-Large (China focus only)
*Please note: one of the member-at-large positions is open to all eligible CEAL members. In accordance with CEAL Bylaws Article V(D)(6a), the second member-at-large position will be open to eligible CEAL members who can represent China as their main area of focus.

Serving on the Executive Board is a wonderful opportunity for professional growth and career development. Pursuant to article VII of the CEAL Bylaws, the Election Committee is committed to ensuring a slate of candidates balanced in geographic representation, collection size, and area specialty. While also encouraging experienced members to continue their valued contributions, we also welcome nominations and self-nominations from newer CEAL members. For more information about the positions, please see the relevant section of the CEAL Bylaws.

Please address your nomination(s) to any of the Election Committee members (our contact information is below) by December 11, 2013. The Election Committee will confirm with nominees that they are current CEAL members and willing to serve.

Thank you very much!

CEAL Election Committee: