Date: 17-18 September 2019
Venue: The Institute of Social Sciences Information'(ISSI), Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), Hanoi, Vietnam

Program:
Day 1 (9/17)
・Symposium
Towards Sharing the Information Resources of Area Studies for Southeast Asia

・Workshop 1
Bibliographical Control and Meta Data Construction specified MARC21

Day 2 (9/18)
・Workshop 2
Operation and Use of MARC21 Database and its Security Guideline

・Workshop 3
Material Preservation and Construction of Digital Archives

Report: Collaborative Practice for Establishing a Base of Academic Information between Japan and the Three Countries in Indochina―Towards Sharing the Information Resources of Area Studies for Southeast Asia, 2nd International Workshop―

The Center for Southeast Asian Studies hosted an international symposium and workshop on the construction of academic information infrastructure in collaboration with the Institute of Social Science Information / ISSI under the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences from September 17th to 18th in 2019.

This event succeeded and carried out the tasks from the former symposium entitled “To share information resources for Southeast Asian studies” which was held at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies in February 2016. This first symposium gathered more than 100 participants from the university libraries and research institute libraries in Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Japan. For this second symposium, due to our newly signed MOU with ISSI in November 2018, we particularly focused on the materials in the so-called three Indochina countries (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) in order to share the material information and materials within the three countries and Japan.

The main institutions participated in the symposium are as follows.
Japan: Library of Center for Southeast Asian Studies from Kyoto University, Support Division of Kyoto University Library, Library of Department of Economics from University of Tokyo, Asian Information Division from National Diet Library at Kansai Branch
Vietnam: 33 research institution libraries under the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi National University Library
Laos: National Library of Laos, Central Library of National University of Laos
Cambodia: National Library of Cambodia, Hun Sen Library, Royal University of Phnom Penh

The number of participants was more than 120 at the symposium session and around 70 people participated in the three workshop sessions. The total number of participants per day was more than 300 from 45 different organizations from the four countries.

At the symposium held on the morning of the first day, each country’s national library reported on their current situations and these reports were eventually commented by each country’s university as well as research institution libraries. From the Japanese side, the staff from the Asia Information Division of the National Diet Library of Japan at Kansai Branch reported their situation and this report was commented by the staff from Kyoto University Library.

From the afternoon of the first day to the whole second day, three practical workshops were held:
1) bibliographic control for maintaining document information, 2) library database construction and 3) document preservation. In addition, the participants in the three workshops submitted their comments and based on this feedback, we and the library staff from the three countries exchanged opinions.

The background for this project is developing “the Database for Southeast Asian Serials”. The Center for Southeast Asian Studies had led the project titled “Sharing Southeast Asian Serial Publication” launched in 2006 in cooperation with the domestic libraries in Japan which concerns Asian resources and studies in order to provide a tool for core journal selection for strengthening the construction of library collections. This database development project, which only focused on the domestics uses within Japanese libraries, has drastically changed its direction since 2013. The project has comprehensively started recording the data of serial publications such as newspapers and magazines spread out all over Southeast Asian countries. This new database can provide the information of material data to the scholars for Southeast Asian studies across the region. This database has also explored a new field of study where metadata of materials, such as bibliographic information and holding information recorded in the database, turn out to be research resources that enable scholars to search publishing trends related to Southeast Asian studies. In fact, we have paid many efforts for updating this database.

In addition, we are constructing a new system which does not only share material information but also share material itself globally by using the material information recorded in this database. Specifically, the Social Science Library under ISSI and the Library of Center for Southeast Asian Studies are launching a new project which enables them to share the serial publication materials in each library by installing the system called E-DDS (Electronic Document Delivery System). We will build a new mutual using system for sharing materials through digitalization.

In order to operate this new platform for sharing materials long-termly, we are currently seeking cooperation with the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) which is the top research institute for the field of social sciences in Vietnam. We and this institute are about agreeing on MOU in the near future. ISSI, the co-organizer of this second symposium and workshop, is one of the total 33 organizations under VASS. The social science institutes, such as the Museums of Ethnology, the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies and so on located in Hanoi, and other universities and many institutions for social sciences located in the southern, central, and mountainous areas belong under VASS. So far, other than CSEAS’ one with ISSI, we already have two MOU agreements with one of the institutions of VASS. We have a track record of sending sent our graduate students to the Southern Institute of Social Sciences.

In order to promote our international collaborative research network, especially in the humanities and social sciences of Kyoto University, we would like to welcome your kind understanding of our current inter-university MOU projects.

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* This international workshop is co-hosted by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of Kyoto University, and the Institute of Social Information of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, sponsored by Kyoto University President’s Discretionary Spending Program (2019), JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) ‘Study of Publishing Trends in Three Indochina Countries Using a Serials Database’ (Grant Number: 17H01834), and JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research ‘Historical Study for a Diffusion of Western Bookbinding Techniques to Japan: Establishing a Foundation for Preserving Western Bookbindings’ (Grant Number: 16K12543).