APSIG newsletter no. 62: November 2006

Building Research Collections for the New Asian Studies

Roundtable discussion at the 16th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, University of Wollongong, 26-29 June 2006, featuring Geremie Barmé (ANU), Peter Jackson (ANU), Mark McLelland (UOW) and Amelia McKenzie (NLA)

Dr Peter Jackson opened the discussion by pointing out how new developments in technology were impacting both upon the scope of Asian studies as well as the manner in which research is being conducted. He noted in particular how digital technology in the form of CDs, DVDs, i-pod etc. had made Asian cinema, TV and popular music, for instance, much more accessible to researchers and digitization has facilitated the collection and archiving of these popular cultural forms. However, Dr Jackson also noted that the rapid turnover in technological formats also posed problems for archiving, in that material catalogued and stored in one format might become obsolete in only a few years unless strategies were put in place to migrate the material on to the latest delivery platforms. The constant need to keep up with the technology and to keep archives up to date and accessible to researchers was outside the ability of most individual institutions and Dr Jackson noted that this was a responsibility that needed to lie with professional archives - namely libraries.

Dr Jackson also noted the turn to popular culture in the humanities in general and more recently in Asian Studies, pointing out that issues such as sexuality, which had tended to be overlooked by Asian Studies researchers had, in the last decade, begun to attract considerable attention with a number of key monographs being published. Particularly with regard to minority sexualities, Dr Jackson noted how much material relating to these cultures was in the form of ephemera such as short-lived magazines, photocopied fliers, video and other community-generated materials that often were not stored or catalogued by these communities. He pointed out that in many areas in Asia, these is considerable stigma associated with homosexual identities, making it difficult for community organizations to adopt a public face and role. It was noted that several prominent Australian researchers working on minority sexual communities in the region had personally amassed large amounts of this kind of material but were unable to make it available to other scholars. Dr Jackson wondered whether there might be a role for Australian libraries in collecting and preserving this kind of 'politically sensitive' material for future research, and if so, in what format this might be best achieved?

The next presenter, Dr Mark McLelland, outlined how he discovered and began to collect a range of popular, mass-circulated sexology magazines published in the early years of the US Occupation of Japan that give a fascinating insight into how native Japanese understandings of both heterosexual and homosexual categories came into dialogue with and were transformed by contact with US popular culture (including film and print media as well as interaction with US male and female personnel). He noted that, excepting his own work, this very extensive genre of magazines which sought to educate the public in new modes of romantic/erotic interactions such as 'dating' had not been studied in either Japanese or English. While many of these magazines could still be bought up cheaply in second-hand book stores in Japan, Dr McLelland noted that few were archived in libraries in Japan, and he believed that he has one of the most extensive collections of this kind of material. However, the magazines were printed on poor-quality paper from between 1949-1955 and they are now not able to be lent out for fear of damage. These important texts need preserving in digital format in order for them to be made available to the scholarly community.

Professor Geremie Barmé followed on by describing his efforts to set up online archives of Chinese-language material, particularly ephemeral material connected with Chinese intellectual history. As a documentary film maker, Professor Barmé has had access to a great deal of archival material and he has established websites that archive some of the important material used, such as http://www.morningsun.org/. Professor Barmé noted that he had been involved with a wide range of Chinese intellectuals for over 30 years and that he was aware of numerous individuals who had extensive personal collections, including film and video, and that he hoped to be able to archive and make available more of this material via his website. It was noted that an understanding of intellectual history required the study of a wide range of media and that digital technology provided excellent potential for convergence in this area. Professor Barmé outlined his plan to work with other academics across Australia and with the ANU to establish an Asia-Pacific Media Archive that would collect, digitize and store a wide range of media products from the region and make these available for teaching and research purposes. He thought it important that access to this material should be guaranteed to a general public and that organizations such as Microsoft should not be allowed to purchase and privatize these intellectual resources.

Ms McKenzie noted that the kinds of materials discussed by the previous presenters did need to be collected by libraries and stored in a format that enabled them to be accessed by the wider scholarly community. It was noted that the NLA has already been proactively working with scholars like Dr Jackson in order to build up its collection of print materials in Asian languages to do with sexuality (for instance local gay and lesbian magazines and Indonesian versions of Playboy). The NLA is also actively archiving community-group websites (at this stage mostly in Australia but it is hoped to extend this to other countries in the region). Important also, is the storing of audio materials and the library was pleased to receive a donation of over 30 years of Indonesian popular music.

Ms McKenzie pointed out some of the pitfalls in building this kind of collection, particularly issues of copyright regarding the archiving of Web-based material, and problems associated with computer code (for storing and retrieving Asian languages in a variety of scripts).

It was stressed by Ms McKenzie that the NLA is very willing to work with academics to further build on these collections and to rely upon academic expertise in identifying these significant materials. The NLA was always happy to receive donations of academics' own archives (and in some instances does purchase materials from academics) and was also happy to be put into contact with second-hand booksellers or other sources of print media. Ms McKenzie passed on that all that was required to request the NLA to purchase materials was an email message to select@nla.gov.au.nospam (please remove '.nospam' from address). (Mark McLelland)