No. 011 Newsletter - Association for Asian Studies. Committee on American Library Resources in the Far East

              COMMITTEE ON AMERICAN LIBRARY LIBRARI RESOURCES ON THE FAR EAST OF THE association FOR asianstudies aslan ASIAN STUDIES adwin 0 seal & september 281965 28 1965 co orientalia division edwin G beala bealp deat beat deai jr library of congress chairman washington D C 2050 20540 newsletter no 11 I 1 the union catalog of monographic works in far eastern lanau languages aRes in american collections in most of the newsletters I 1 have written during my term as CALRFE chairman I 1 have conveyed to you information which has come to me from various sources this time I 1 am placing a text before you to solicit your comments you are all aware that at our san francisco meeting we appointed a subcommittee to study the problems of union catalog control of the material with which we are concerned and to make recommendations for their solution this subcommittee has been at work and has made a good deal of progress progress I 1 have participated in some of the deliberations and in the preparation of the interim report which dr warren tsuneishi has written and is now distributing to you I 1 am however troubled by the fact that we still lack detailed thoughtful and comprehensive answers to the problem of why we should spend the very large amount of time money and effort which would inevitably be needed to develop a true union catalog of books in the languages of the far east this is not to say that I 1 do not have ideas on this I 1 have a number of ideas and opinions which however I 1 shall for the time being keep to myself the basic questions I 1 believe were raised in a letter which professor mary C wright wrote to our former chairman dr G raymond nunn on may 21 1958 this was a dittographed ditto graphed six page letter distributed to all who were members of CALRFE at the time A major portion of this letter pertained to the development of a nat national ional union catalog at our meeting in san francisco I 1 distributed copies of these portions and asked for comments I 1 have never received any at hand I 1 have only one statement on the importance of a union catalog of far eastern materials this statement however was written before the san francisco meeting and is not in direct reply to the questions mrs wright has asked the statement is helpful as far as it goes but it represents the views of only one person I 1 am therefore distributing these portionsagain portions again please read them carefully and send your written comments to dr warren M tsuneishi curator east asian collection yale university library box 1603a yale station new haven connecticut I 1 should be grateful if you would send copies of your comments to me also it would be futile to deny that developing a true union cat catalog alog of this material is going to require a lot of money I 1 do not believe that we shall ever be able to get the money to do the job either from the foundations or from other bounces bources sources unless mrs wrights questions are answered and are answered well she does not oppose the development of union catalogs of materials in far eastern languagesshe languages she merely makes the point in some detail that at the timeshe meshe timeche ti time neshe she was writing no convincing justifications had yet been beeri made lets see what you CALRFE members can doto do to provide the answers 1