Starr News

Spring 1998

As spring is in the air, and many of us are slowly gearing up toward spring break (and/or the AAS conference in Washington, DC), it is high time to bring you up-to-date on what is going on in the Library lately. Some news is pretty good, some is not so good. One piece of good news, in our opinion, is that we finally have our new and expanded website up for public use. In fact, this will be the first issue of Starr News to be published simultaneously in print and online (see "publications" on our homepage). Although a lot of work still needs to be done, there is already quite a bit of good information available. Particularly HK Lee deserves praise for putting up a beautiful Korean Studies Homepage. So do check us out at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/eastasian/index.html and let us know what you think. HK Lee and Ria Koopmans-de Bruijn are the co-webmasters, and we are eager to find out what you would like us to add or change. Of course we are all as eager to hear from you on any other library-related matters, so contact information for our public service staff is once again appended at the end of this newsletter.

DUPLICATE SALE ON APRIL 2-3

Hold the dates! Our 1998 Duplicate Sale is coming up soon. This year you will once again be given the opportunity to stock up on lots of goodies at our usual friendly prices. So make sure to mark your calendars and visit our sale on Thursday April 2 and Friday April 3 in our Rare Book Reading Room.

Since we are sometimes asked where all these materials come from each year, let us put your mind at ease. Our librarians are decidedly not in the habit of wasting the Library's budgets on materials we do not need and/or already have (although on occasion confusing catalog listings may inadvertently lead to this result). A substantial portion of the materials offered on sale are donations duplicating materials already in our collection, for which we have received the donor's approval to sell. Also when titles of which we have multiple copies for Reserves or to fulfill high demand are no longer needed on Reserve and/or demand has diminished, such duplicate copies are "weeded" out of the collection to create space for new materials. Rather than just throwing them away, we prefer to let our readers profit from their availability.

OPEN BACKLOG OF STARR MATERIAL IN BUTLER

It has come to our attention that many readers are not entirely clear about the accessibility of materials that are listed in CLIO as located in "BUTLER STACKS Stack 10 Precataloging" followed by a call number made up of three capital letters and four digits. This concerns Western-language materials, which we do not catalog in Starr. When the titles involved clearly seem to be within the scope of the East Asian Library, they generally do belong to us. However, since the general cataloging department has a substantial cataloging backlog, not all materials can be fully cataloged in a timely manner. Minimal records are created in CLIO with temporary call numbers, and the materials are then shelved in the western end of stack level 10 in Butler library, regardless of which library is the true owner of the item. As new materials are added, the oldest backlog is pulled and fully cataloged, after which it is forwarded to its true owning library. Meantime these materials can be used, and checked out as usual at Butler's circulation desk. Although we realize that this is not an ideal situation, given the present staffing limits in the cataloging department, we feel that making these materials available in this manner is better than withdrawing them from access entirely until their turn for full cataloging finally comes up. We hope you will appreciate our dilemma.

CARD CATALOG CHANGES

As more and more cataloging records are converted from card catalogs to the online environment, the physical presence of the card catalogs is diminishing along with this process. As of November 1997, records for the entire Korean collection have been converted to the online catalog, and although the now redundant Korean card catalog is still present in the library it will not be so much longer. In the next few months the Korean card catalog will be entirely removed. Meanwhile the Western-language card catalog, which already has been reduced substantially, will be still further reduced in the next few months, and will move to the space vacated by the Korean card catalog. The space now occupied by the Western-language card catalog cabinets will eventually be reassigned to additional terminals.

VANDALISM IN THE LIBRARY

Recently we have had a series of tamperings, vandalisms, and thefts in the microform area. Lenses from the Fuji machines in the corridor were stolen; wires were cut and parts burned out in the Minolta microfilm reader/printers in the Meiji microfilm collection room. We will be ordering new lenses and parts for repair. Both reader/printers in the Meiji Microfilm room have been set up so that they now read ONLY the cassettes in the Meiji collection, not regular reels.

In the future, patrons will have to leave their ID card at the circulation desk to get a lens for the Fuji reader/printers, or to have the Meiji microfilm collection room unlocked. This is a nuisance to the majority of our responsible patrons and of course to the circulation staff. However, the repair/replacement costs will be in the many hundreds of dollars, and we can't afford to bear that very often.

EXHIBITIONS

Partly in conjunction with an upcoming major exhibition on contemporary Chinese calligraphy in the Wallach Gallery, our Library will mount its own calligraphy exhibition. In the Reading Room cases we will show examples of traditional Chinese calligraphy, while in the exhibition spaces in the Rare Book Reading Room a sampling of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean calligraphy, both traditional and contemporary, will be shown.

In the interim, and only for a very brief period, we will exhibit a modest sampling of Shinto related materials from our collection, to coincide with the display of the Shinto Taikei (see below), and the Shinto workshop organized by the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies, which takes place on Friday March 6.

STAFF NEWS

Amy Heinrich away

Our Director, Amy Vladeck Heinrich, received a grant from the Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), to be used in Japan this spring to conduct research on a study of the Japanese poet Eifukumon'in (1271-1343). She left for Japan on February 4, for an approximately three-month period, and will be away until the end of April. During her absence Charles Wu will be Acting Director of our Library, Ria Koopmans-de Bruijn will be Acting Public Services Coordinator, and Ken Harlin, as Head of Access and Technical Support, will continue to be in charge of daily operations.

Amy will be available by email, using her regular CU email address, which she expects to read regularly.

Staff Publications

Ria Koopmans-de Bruijn had her Area Bibliography of Japan published by Scarecrow Press, as No. 14 in the Scarecrow Area Bibliographies series. A copy is available in the Reference collection of our Library under call number REF Z3306 .K86 1998.

NEW TO THE LIBRARY

Starr Library received a generous and valuable donation of the Shinto Taikei (Collected Studies on Shinto), in 120 volumes with supplements, from the International Shinto Foundation (Shinto Kokusai Gakkai). This donation was arranged by Professor Barbara Ruch, Director of the Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies. The set was published in the years 1977-1996 and, after a brief display in our Rare Book Reading Room, will be available under call numbers in the BL2216.2 .S45 through BL2216.2 .S467 range.

The Library also received Choson Wangjo Sillok / The Annals of The Chosun Dynasty. This is a searchable CD-ROM database in three volumes. Volume 1 covers the period of 1392-1494, volume 2 covers 1494-1674, and volume 3 covers 1674-1863. These annals are c omprehensive records of Choson covering all aspects of Korean culture of the time. They were written in Chinese characters and comprise of 1893 volumes in 888 books. The work was translated over a span of 26 years, by the King Sejong the Great Memorial Society and the National Culture Promotion Foundation, and produced in CD-ROM format by Seoul Systems Company. Anyone wishing to use this database should contact the Korean Studies Librarian, HyoKyoung (HK) Lee, for an appointment. (See below for contact in formation).

Library Director: Amy V. Heinrich. 305M Kent. (212) 854-1508. heinrich@columbia.edu

Library Secretary: D. John McClure. 300 Kent. (212) 854-2578. mcclure@columbia.edu

Access Services: Kenneth Harlin. 319M Kent. (212) 854-1501. harlin@columbia.edu

East Asian Studies: Ria Koopmans-de Bruijn. 310 Kent. (212) 854-1505. rkb7@columbia.edu

Chinese Studies: Frances LaFleur. 307M Kent. (212) 854-3721. lafleur@columbia.edu

Japanese Studies: Yasuko Makino. 308M Kent. (212) 854-1506. makino@columbia.edu

Korean Studies: HyoKyoung (HK) Lee. 310M Kent. (212) 854-1507. hl303@columbia.edu