March 30, 2005
Center for Research Libraries
Chicago, IL

Present:
James C. Armstrong (Library of Congress, Jakarta), Larry Ashmun, (U. Wisconsin), Rohayati Paseng (U. Hawaii), Jeffrey Ferrier (Ohio University), Fe Susan Go (U Michigan), Gregory Green (Northern Illinois University), Judith Henchy U. Washington), Raymond Lum (Harvard University), David Magier (Columbia University), Christopher Miller Arizona State University), Jeff Peterson (Cornell University), Hao Phan (University of California, Los Angeles), Rich Richie (Yale University), Virginia Shih (University of California at Berkeley), Marti Alt (Ohio State University), Carole Atkinson (Cornell University), Kuei Chiu (University of California at Riverside), Cheng Yen Khoo (Ohio University), Alice Mak (University of Hawaii), Chan Phan (Harvard University)

I. Introductions
Each member and visitor attending the meeting introduced him or herself and provided their library affiliation for the benefit of both new and old members as well as visitors. Several members of SEAM had changed their affiliation.

II. Approval of Minutes
Minutes of the 2004 minutes were approved as submitted from the San Diego meeting.

III. Election of SEAM Representatives
A silent hand vote was made to re-elect Fe Susan Go from the University of Michigan as Chair of SEAM. Tom Hudak, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University was elected as the faculty representative to SEAM. Greg Green served as chair of the nominating committee to elect these members.

IV. Reports and Discussions
1. Presentation by Bernard F. Reilly – President of the Center for Research Libraries welcomed SEAM members to the Center and thanked the group for their cooperative efforts and successful SEAM projects. Mr. Reilly noted that the efforts of SEAM and the other 5 “AMPs” and the development of international research resources through their efforts is highly regarded by scholars.

2. Digitization vs. Preservation – Mr. Reilly noted that the microfilm technology of the 1940s when the Center for Research Libraries was established, is excellent for preservation, that as a medium of dissemination, digitization is going to be the preferred medium within the next 5 years, as digitized information can be easily transmitted to researchers without the possible loss of the print or microfilmed originals. Microfilm can continue to as a form for preservation, but dissemination of information from the resources of CRL will come via the digital format. With delivery of the digitized form, there will be no reason why collections will be restricted to use by North American members of the organization. The provision of digitized formats will be demand based, rather than CRL digitizing everything in their holdings at once.

3. SEAM Financial Report – James Simon gave a brief financial report for SEAM, noting that a large part of the expenditures from the budget went to the newspaper microfilming projects by Cornell University.

V. New Projects Under Consideration

1. Indonesian Newspapers from Columbia University Library - David Magier noted that Columbia holds approximately 1200 Indonesian newspapers that are being filmed or have been filmed by a wide variety of institutions. His proposal was to film some of the newspapers at about $600 for the project to fill gaps in what had already been filmed. The proposal was approved for funding by voice vote.

2. Statistical Yearbook Thailand (1916-1958) – Fe Susan Go, of the University of Michigan led the discussion on this topic. IDC has filmed these and SEAM doesn’t have the volumes. SEAM will make sure that LC hasn’t filmed all of them already before and if LC has will get a copy of the set from the Library of Congress.

3. Possible Han Nom Preservation Projects – Virginia Shih, from the University of California, Berkeley recommended filming or digitizing the Maurice Durand Collection held by Yale University Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Department. Richard Richie recommended that the collection be evaluated first. Virginia Shih noted that George Dutton who has used the collection and created a brief guide and Professor Michele Thompson from Southern Connecticut University are willing to help somewhat with the evaluation process. Rich Richie suggested that perhaps Virginia Shih could come to Yale and evaluate the collection as a worthy project for filming or digitization before making a final proposal to SEAM. Virginia Shih also suggested working with the National Library of Vietnam to evaluate their Han Nom collections for preservation and digitization. She proposed visiting their library and making a visual evaluation for SEAM.

4. SEAM/ICPSR election data center – Fe Susan Go noted that the ICPSR had encoded some of the Lande Philippine Election collection, and would like to encode all of the Lande material. Several Political Scientists including two faculty members at Michigan would like to do further encoding of Southeast Asian election results including Thai election material and have it housed at CRL. Who should take a crack at reformatting and making the material available to researchers?

5. Current Projects – To expedite the meeting and to keep on schedule it was decided that current project reports would be made available on the CRL website and made available by e-mail to SEAM members.

VI. Other Reports

1. Library of Congress Preservation efforts – Jim Armstrong from the Library of Congress Field Office in Jakarta handed around a list of papers and other material being filmed by LC and available through Photodup. He also supplied SEAM members at the meeting with two lists one for KITLV and LC which showed duplicated titles available. The Field Office is currently using 1 film camera, a few fiche cameras. Production was up 22% with 7004 fiche (1000 titles) being created. The Field Office had also increased film production by 200 reels (or a 7.5% increase). Since both the Library of Congress and KITLV are filming in Jakarta, the Library of Congress is proposing that LC will cease filming of titles also duplicated by KITLV, allowing for LCs time to be used on other projects. LC offered to coordinate this change over and non-duplication effort with KITLV.Film comparison between LC and KITLV filming. They are filming in Jakarta.

2. Thai National Collection – James Simon from CRL led the discussion on this topic. The Thai National Collection continues to be received by CRL from the Library of Congress Field Office in Jakarta. Larry Ashmun offered to evaluate the material in the collection including the quality of cataloging for the material being done in Australia. Much of the material being collected is from Bangkok or the central region with little coming from the north or south of the country. Judith Hency, from the University of Washington stated that she thought that the focus of the collection was on government serials, and difficult to purchase nongovernmental material. She also asked of LC would consider or was already fiching this material. Most members of SEAM who were contributing to the project were asked if they would continue their funding, and most agreed that they would.

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