report from Small Collections Roundtable 2011
Sharon Domier
Our group had a very late meeting time this year, and that probably accounted for the smaller number of people present. But the benefit of a small number of people discussing small collections is that we could all participate. Here is a summary of our discussions. For those of you who are interested in joining our conversations and collaborating on projects, please email Julie Wang, our current leader [jwang@binghamton.edu]
These notes are compiled from the recollections of David Hickey, Julie Wang, and Sharon Domier. Mistakes belong to Sharon Domier!
Small Collections Roundtable 2011
Members in attendance:
Julie Wang, SUNY Binghamton
David Hickey, U of Florida
Sharon Domier, UMass Amherst
Jie Pan, Seattle Asian Art Library
Pei Jung Hsu, University of the West
Li Ling Kuo, University of the West
Meng-fen Su, UT Austin
Macie Zheng, McGill
Kazuko Hioki, U of Kentucky
Wei Wang, China Classics (guest)
Our "small" group title designation does not necessarily refer just to the size of one's East Asian collection, but can apply as well to such things as the multiple East-Asian-related hats the collection manager wears, such as Cataloging and Acquisitions as well as collection management/public service.
The group’s discussion began with the topic of libguides. Libguides are a web-based platform for providing subject guides or class guides, much like we used to create pathfinders and webpages covering our various subjects. Many libraries have purchased subscriptions to libguides (see http://libguides.com), but other vendors exist such as Subject Plus. Some libraries have created their own software platforms that make it easy to populate guides using SFX and Verde.
One of the advantages to our members (Small Collections Roundtable) is the ease with which we can collaborate. We can have several editors, even if they aren’t at our own institutions. We can also copy other people’s libguides with their permission. We decided that we would put an attribution to the person who helped us or let us use his/her guide as a model on our libguides, and possibly put a note that says it was part of a project of the CEAL Small Collections Roundtable.
The group discussed the type of libguides that they could contribute:
Li Ling Kuo volunteered to do a guide on Buddhism.
Jie Pan volunteered to do a guide on Chinese Art.
Sharon Domier is hoping to do some collaborative work on Study Abroad guides.
She has created one for Japan: http://guides.library.umass.edu/jpntrvl
She would like to see ones created for China, Taiwan, and South Korea.
Mengfen Su volunteered to work on one for Taiwan.
Julie Wang and Jie Pan volunteered to work on one for China.
(in the meantime, Sharon Domier had to start one for a library session she is giving at Smith - http://libguides.smith.edu/studyChina) She would love to have updates, additions, and corrections.
We also discussed the idea of moving information useful to Small Collections members from the Google Groups page to a libguide. This is still under consideration.
The conversation then moved to the viability of approval plans for small CJK collections. Approval plans are controversial in terms of CJK. Sharon mentioned that Gail King has carefully crafted a plan for obtaining approval Korean books at BYU. Mr. Wei Wang mentioned that he has set up a program for subscribing libraries to do Chinese book approvals: he has emphasized fiction, and suggested such elements as new writers, cellphone fiction and prize-winning titles can all be selected in a profile. If a collection manager wants to give him a budget limit just to buy new books, he can comply and strictly follow established guidelines. He will do duplicate checking, binding, per guidelines. Libraries set profiles and budgets. He started with 8 libraries last year, with budgets from $1,000 to $10,000. Japanese vendors can also do approval plans, so it is worth considering if you can set very clear guidelines and budgets.
Then the conversation turned to a couple of different topics. Delicious and other social networking tools were briefly discussed. E-book platforms such as ChinaMaxx seems cost-effective in Sharon's particular 5-college consortial purchasing environment. A user can click on the "recommend button" and the title then goes to a librarian for review. Each e-book averages $3.95, and there's a $500/year maintenance fee for up to 5,000 titles.
Sharon Domier
I can't believe that this is just our second week of classes here in
Western Massachusetts and I have already taught several classes, given
several tours and worked with a number of students preparing to submit
proposals for senior theses or independent research projects. The grad
students are full of hopes and dreams and the faculty haven't lost the
glow of their summer vacations. Life is good!
I spent last sabbatical looking at books and materials that would be
good for Japanese language learners at all levels. I looked at the
Japanese language textbook and matched resources (videos, manga,
stories) to the topics and grammar covered in each chapter and put
that information into a libguide for the course.
Tuesday I got to teach a third year Japanese class, where the students
will begin to read materials outside the textbook. For the students,
we went over print and online dictionary choices - and the importance
of using Japanese-Japanese dictionaries as well as JE. To give them
something specific to look at or use as a prop for the class, they all
had to choose a book from our collection of my truck. How happy was I
when several students asked if they could check their book out that
day. Since then, several more have come to see me to get other books
more suited to their taste (lots of requests for horror!).
To help encourage reading for pleasure and to make the task of
choosing stories for translation projects easier for the students, I
am in the midst of de-refing most of my reference collection to set up
a browsing collection instead. I have permission to leave the book
jackets and obi (cover bands) on the books so that the students can
see the advertisements and summaries.
I so desperately want to do the same thing for Chinese and Korean.
Korean should work, but I am having a lot of trouble finding pretty
and appropriate Chinese language materials. Light novels, good manhua,
pretty picture books for adults. If any of you have done this for your
students, or are involved with a Chinese language school and can send
along titles, please do.
Best wishes,
Sharon