News from Monash Asian Studies Research Library

Following Helen Soemardjo's retirement in mid-2001, Aline Scott-Maxwell is now Senior Asian Studies Librarian and Southeast Asian Studies Librarian.

Aline is an ethnomusicologist with a background in Indonesian studies and librarianship. Aline says, 'I feel honoured to follow in Helen Soemardjo's and, before her, Bob Muskens' footsteps in building and securing Monash's wonderful Indonesian collection for the future. The collection is their legacy and also testimony to the importance of Indonesian studies in Monash University's foundation decades. I am very fortunate to have such experienced librarians and East Asia specialists as Dennis Kishere and Kim Jung-Sim in my team.'

In a resource-sharing arrangement under the Monash-Melbourne protocol, Aline also works one day a week at the University of Melbourne as Indonesian Studies library consultant. Other members of the team are versatile assistants, Hueimin Chen and Kumi Suzuki. Ayako Hatta will join in September as Japanese Studies librarian. Ayako has been working as reference librarian at Kyoto Seika University in Japan. She trained in librarianship at the University of Adelaide.

Monash recently acquired a rare and fragile collection of Malaysian books in Jawi script. The books include 1950s 'pulp fiction' and religious, classical and educational literature, and come mainly from the collection of the late Professor Cyril Skinner, a former head of the Monash Indonesian Department.

The web pages of the Melbourne Asian Research Library Consortium (MARLC) now include an architecture page, which links resources from the Chinese, Japanese and Korean collections at Monash and Melbourne University libraries.

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