March 21, 2007
Boston Marriott Copley
Boston, MA

Attending:
Larry Ashmun (Wisconsin) (recorder), Carole Atkinson (Cornell), Fehl Cannon (LC), Kuei Chiu (UC-Riverside), Judy Eckoff (CRL), Fe Susan Go (Michigan) (chair), Greg Green (Cornell), Judith Henchy (Washington), Cheng Yen Khoo (Ohio), Catherine Y. Lee (UCLA), Raymond Lum (Harvard), David Magier (Columbia), Christopher Miller (Arizona State), Gerry Moran (Moran Micropublications), Rohayati Paseng (Hawaii), Jeff Petersen (Cornell), Chan Phan (Harvard), Hao Phan (NIU), Rich Richie (Yale), Virginia Shih (UC-Berkeley), James Simon (CRL), Mel Thatcher (Gen. Society of Utah), Will Tuchrello (LC), Kathryn Wellen (LC)

I. Introductions & II. Approval of Minutes
The attendees introduced themselves and the minutes from the 2006 SEAM meeting held in San Francisco were approved, with Virginia Shih noting that her Ha Nom Project summary was not yet posted on the SEAM web site.

III. Election of SEAM Representative
Hao Phan organized this with Jeff Petersen.  Rich Richie was willing to stand for re-election; Virginia Shih was a second candidate.  Ray Lum raised the point that there was no slate prior to the meeting, wherein Rich Richie asked how other AMPs handle their elections.  James Simon replied that each AMP is different, though elections are mostly done via e-mail prior to AAS.
Rich Richie was re-elected.

IV. SEAM Reports
1. CRL/GRN Report:  James Simon reported on (a) election(s), (b) transitioning plans from microfilm to document delivery digitally, (c) planning re scanning -- to date primarily monographs in the public domain, (d) phase 1 of newspaper digitizing  = Latin America, and (e) working on certification of repositories via RLG standards.
Rich Richie commented that CRL was doing well re hard-to-get European dissertations, with James Simon saying the aim is to do them digitally.
David Magier inquired (1) about CRL’s aim to digitize document delivery, with James Simon replying that it would not be done for all items, and (2) whether only CRL-held newspapers would be digitized, with Simon answering “No”, rather CRL & members’.
Yati Paseng asked about the status of CRL’s solicitation of Indonesian e-only newspapers about a year ago.  Answer:  Done in conjunction with the Internet Archive.

2. SEAM Financial and Progress Report:  Judy Eckoff referenced the Financial Statement handout dated March 21, 2007 and explained that the Arabic newspapers SEA collection was in Jawi script.  In reply to a question about Suara Batak’s “on hold” status, James Simon said LC PhotoDuplication told CRL they weren’t doing any South or SE Asian material for 6 months.

3. Other reports:  None.

V. Discussion Items
1. CRL policies on digitization and consortial buying:  In reply to a question about what CRL was doing re licensing, James Simon said they had developed draft “principles” for dealing with vendors (with the document being available for review) and that the charges would be borne/initiated by individual institutions, not SEAM or CRL money.
David Magier asked about administrative fees & who would be the signee, with Simon replying that to some extent the fees would be built into the licenses while the signee would be CRL with SEAM a “participant” via CRL.

2. Myanmar Consortial buying:  Greg Green explained that the material would be in PDF or j-peg format.  In reply to Rich Richie’s question whether there’d be OCR/indexing, Green said “No”.  A major question is who would maintain this, with the point being whether it would be done as a consortium or individually by libraries.  Another concern is preservation – digital archiving – vis-à-vis access.

Chris Miller questioned whether the work quality of the camera, a Canon SLR, is OK.
Judith Henchy, as per her e-mail on this, inquired about back-up, then being done on microfilm and stored at the Ateneo in Manila.  Green said Thant Thaw Kaung seems to be willing to work with us in doing high quality (vs. CD) work.  The idea of back-up being at CRL or the SEA Digital Library was raised.  Will Tuchrello said if at CRL, he would offer to facilitate with the Embassy to get the material out.  That, however, is the cart before the horse, as it were, since the question of quality remains.

Tuchrello added that LC may already be supplying the 23 serial titles in paper -- he’d check, while Miller will check the accuracy of the Burmese titles’ work with LC.

3. Vietnam Luce Microfilming:  Judith Henchy reported that there was about a year of money remaining and last year permission to film resistance zone material (pre-1954, Viet Minh-held territory) was finally obtained.  That equals about 30 titles on 2 reels, mostly reports – some serial-like, which Washington is cataloging for CRL.  There’re about 2,500 on the main project’s working list, most of which should be able to be done with the money which remains.

She added that the project manager would be leaving for a new job before the end of the project.  In reply to a question whether SEAM would continue this project, Henchy reiterated that there’s still money for about one year.  However, on the question of money to support cataloging, which CRL can’t do, James Simon said it’d probably be outsourced, i.e., money would be needed to continue on that.  In short, money will be needed to continue cataloging and filming back-up reels.

4. Other items:  Susan Go brought up the matter of LC-SEA’s microfiche per our 2006 discussion on this.  Cornell indicated that they will continue to acquire the fiche for now; however, they haven’t been receiving any lately.  Will Tuchrello said that fiche are sent every 2 weeks.

Go also mentioned the matter of whether to raise the SEAM membership fee from $800 to $1,000, as was discussed in 2006.  The consensus was that we have sufficient funds for now, so no change at this time.

VI. Proposals for New Projects & Voting

1. Numsao (1977-1984), Prachachat (1974-76), Puthuchon (1975) [as per the draft agenda]:  Susan Go was the requestor for these 3 Thai serials.  Greg Green noted that Cornell’s copy of Numsao is safe & in good condition in their Special Collections, that Prachachat is also in good condition, while he didn’t get to Puthuchon.  Thus the point was that all 3 are “OK” vis-à-vis other priority considerations.

Straits Times (Singapore) [not on the draft agenda]:  The requestor, Ray Lum, highlighted that filming the proposed issues held by Harvard would complete CRL/SEAM’s holdings of pre-2006 issues and result in the only complete set available for U.S. lending.

In the ensuing discussion, James Simon commented on combining the need to index these serials with the SEA Digital Library’s indexing.

All 4 proposals were approved, with no real “no’s”.

2. Other proposals:  None

3. SEAM/NLVP Project:  Virginia Shih’s working on this project, in its preliminary phase, consisting of newspapers – some in French, Chinese, & Khmer besides Vietnamese – in poor condition, which the National Library of Vietnam is concerned about preserving.  Shih proposed the Vietnamese ones plus 10 Chinese titles.  Some discussion ensued re potential overlap with the Vietnam Luce Microfilming project (begun in 1995), which was acknowledged with reiteration that the materials’ very poor condition needs to be factored in too.  Also noted was that filming is still being done in Paris.

Harvard has offered funds to do the Chinese materials, with James Simon thanking Harvard for its providing money to AMPs.

The consensus was to return to this prospective project once the Vietnam Luce Microfilming funds have been expended.

VII. Current Projects
all listed on the SEAM financial & progress report handout

1. Projects in process:  Judy Eckoff updated on 4 titles, as follows:
            i. Arabic newspapers from SEA:  5 reels have been received, 6 remain to be received
            ii. Indonesian Newspapers from Columbia:  the reels were recently received
            iii. Radar Bogor:  July-Dec. 2005 was received in Oct. ’06; 2006 being collated for filming
            iv. Suara Maluku:  to the filmer in Jan. – 3 reels, with more to come

2. Cornell SEA Newspapers:  Carole Atkinson reported that more Indonesian, e.g., last year, had been done, while mostly small runs of Burmese & Vietnamese (excluding American Vietnamese publications) would be undertaken with the remaining funds.

Atkinson stated that there was not enough money to do all the remaining newspapers.  Discussion ensued following Judith Henchy’s inquiring about the possibility of working with the old National Library in “Saigon”, as it has lots of newspapers, while it was stated that the Library was digitizing, not filming, right now, though their camera could film.  And, since the head of the Library would be coming to Harvard, this matter could then be discussed.  (Note:  The recorder believes Atkinson was going to provide a list of the remaining newspapers.)

3. Lande Collection II:  Susan Go reported that the first phase is on CD at CRL, while the second is on hold for now, as Allen Hicken (Michigan faculty) got a Mellon grant to collect SEA election material, i.e., including Lande’s.

4. Heder Collection II:  Judith Henchy reported that there was no news, except to say she needed to work directly with Heder.  Ray Lum commented that this unfinished project’s been on the agenda for a long time.

VIII. Other Reports

1. Genealogical Society of Utah:  Mel Thatcher reported that the GS has a 90% success rate re negotiating digital imaging use rights for its film and that by the end of 2008 the GS should be completely digital.  This year they’ve done about 60% as original digital imaging.  Thatcher noted that a film reel can be scanned in 30 minutes & that Family Search Indexing is a new GS web site.

In terms of SEA work, the GS film in Indonesia has a digital option.  In the Philippines, they’re working on Chinese-Philippine materials, e.g., Kaisa’s, and Catholic dioceses & 20th century death records.  For Thailand, GS hopes to do cremation works, church records, and Chinese associations, for example.  In Malaysia, they’re doing another project on Chinese material with LC. 

As there’s GS newsletter about all this, people can request information via e-mail from Thatcher, who may also do an article for the CORMOSEA Bulletin.

2. Library of Congress:  Will Tuchrello reported that the PDII & Dutch film files had crashed and LC-Jakarta was working to help resurrect them.  LC-New Delhi newspaper filming, except for Burma, is gradually being transferred to LC-Jakarta, which now has a second film camera (from India).  Working with his family, LC-Jakarta is fiching Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s papers, which may also be digitized.

3. KITLV:  No representative was present; however, as the agenda noted, a report had already been circulated.

4. Center for Khmer Studies:  Philippe Peycam was not present, but would be attending CORMOSEA’s Collection Development meeting.  It was mentioned that we are interested in CKS’s French project, though we have no details as yet.

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