No. 122 Journal of East Asian Libraries

              FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear Friends of CEAL:
This issue of the Journal of East Asian Libraries ( JEAL) is a full one, incorporating more
reports from our successful San Diego Conference as well as new contributions from
CEAL members on varied aspects of the East Asian Library field. Though March 2001
still seems far off, CEAL committee members are already working hard to prepare more
excellent workshops and programs for next year   s conference, to be held in Chicago.
The schedule is close to being finalized, and soon you should begin to hear more details
about themes, speakers and meeting times. It is still not too late to make your
suggestions known or to volunteer to participate in CEAL activities. Use the inside cover
of this issue as a guide and contact the chair of the committee that corresponds to your
interest.
As I write this message,     Day One    for Pinyin conversion is only one week away. The
Library of Congress, the bibliographic networks, and countless CEAL members are
    putting in overtime    training staff, preparing user aids, and educating constituents on
what to expect and how to cope with the enormous changes this will bring. Hopefully, by
the time we meet again, this massive project will be, as they say,     substantially complete   
and we can finally stop talking about it!
Another momentous project now coming to fruition is the publication of a new edition of
the CEAL Directory, scheduled to be mailed out to all of you later this week. Many
thanks are due to CEAL Secretary, Doris Seely who compiled it, to Eddy Harrison who
helped with proofreading, and to Rob Britt who is preparing the file for mounting on the
CEAL Webpage. Including East Asian scripts in both the printed and the online versions
has added an extra level of complexity to the preparation, but I know we will all benefit
from the extra effort these dedicated individuals have put into it.
Speaking of the CEAL Webpage ( http: Npurl. oclc. orrr/ net/ ceal), if you haven   t visited it
recently, please check it out. While the present reworking of the page began with basic
information about CEAL, more information is being added each day, including links to
other webpages dealing with East Asian Studies, to homepages of CEAL member
libraries, and ( soon) to CEAL statistics.
The subject of statistics needs some explanation. You will note that this issue of JEAL
includes a revised version of the CEAL statistics that were published in the February
2000 issue. It cannot be stressed enough that this is a highly unusual situation. It was
done because the University of Toronto   s Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library was
inadvertently left out of the February compilation though they submitted their statistics
before the deadline. The CEAL Executive Committee felt strongly that this wrong
should be righted while stressing that we will not be making a habit of issuing corrections
and additions. Some other CEAL libraries, for one reason or another, did not submit last
year   s revised statistical forms. Hopefully, with one more year to gather the new statistics,
our next compilation will be more complete and will more accurately reflect our entire
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membership, thus enhancing the research value of this important compilation. I would
encourage you to annotate the statistics pages in the February issue to refer to the new,
more complete compilation in this issue. Many thanks to Vickie Fu Doll for her
continuing work to make our CEAL statistics complete, accurate, up- to- date, and online!
Keep a watch out for the forms for the 1999- 2000 statistics. It won   t be long!
Bill McCloy, President
Council on East Asian Libraries ( CEAL )
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