**U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION**

# OFFICE OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION 

**INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS SERVICE**

## **TITLE VI**

## **TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND COOPERATION FOR FOREIGN INFORMATION ACCESS (TICFIA) PROGRAM**

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="3.05625in" height="3.05625in"}

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND PROJECT ABSTRACTS

FOR 2002-2005 FUNDING CYCLE

**CONTACT**

**Susanna Easton 202-502-7628**

[**Susanna.Easton@ed.gov**](../Susanna.Easton@ed.gov)

**Gale Holdren 202-502-7691**

[**Gale.Holdren@ed.gov**](mailto:Gale.Holdren@ed.gov)

![](media/image2.wmf)**U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION**

**TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND COOPERATION FOR FOREIGN INFORMATION
ACCESS PROGRAM**

**CFDA NUMBER 84.337**

**PROGRAM DESCRIPTION**

The Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information
Access (TICFIA) Program is authorized under Title VI, Part A, of the
Higher Education Act of 1965 as amended. The purpose of TICFIA is to
support projects that will develop innovative techniques or programs
using new electronic technologies to collect information from foreign
sources. Grants will be made to access, collect, organize, preserve, and
widely disseminate information on world regions and countries other than
the United States that address our Nation's teaching and research needs
in international education and foreign languages.

## **ELIGIBILITY**

To be eligible for assistance under this program, an applicant must be
an institution of higher education, a public or nonprofit private
library or a combination of these institutions or libraries.

### 

### AUTHORIZED ACTIVITIES

Grants under this section may be used---

\(1\) to facilitate access to or preserve foreign information resources

in print or electronic forms;

\(2\) to develop new means of immediate, full-text document

delivery for information and scholarship from abroad;

> \(3\) to develop new means of shared electronic access to
> international data;

\(4\) to support collaborative projects of indexing, cataloging, and

other means of bibliographic access for scholars to important research

materials published or distributed outside the United States;

\(5\) to develop methods for the wide dissemination of resources

written in non-Roman language alphabets;

\(6\) to assist teachers of less commonly taught languages in

acquiring, via electronic and other means, materials suitable for

classroom use;

\(7\) to promote collaborative technology-based projects in foreign

languages, area studies, and international studies among grant

recipients under this title; and

\(8\) to support other eligible activities consistent with the purposes
and intent of the legislation.

**MATCH REQUIRED**

The Federal share of the total cost of carrying out a program supported
by a grant under this section shall not be more than 66 2/3 percent. The
non-Federal share of such cost may be provided either in-kind or in
cash, and may include contributions from private sector corporations or
foundations.

### PROGRAM FUNDING

In FY 1999, 8 projects were funded for 3 years. In FY 2001 10 new
projects were funded for 3 years. The funding per project ranges from
\$85,000 to \$195,000 per year. The next program competition is
tentatively scheduled for September 22, 2004 for grant awards from
October 1, 2005 -- September 30, 2008. The official closing date notice
will be published in the Federal Register. Abstracts of funded projects
are posted on our web site.

If you wish further information, contact Susanna Easton or Gale Holdren,
TICFIA Program, IEPS/OPE, U.S. Department of Education. 1990 K. St.,
N.W. Washington DC 20006-8521. Contact: <Susanna_Easton@ed.gov> ,
202-502-7628 or <Gale.Holdren@ed.gov>, 202-502-7691.

<http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/iegps/index.html>

Please also check the following web site, which will link you to contact
information and access to the funded projects:
<http://www.crl.edu/areastudies/ticfia/index.html>

###### 

###### AUTHORIZATION 

Section 606 of Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended
by the Higher Education Amendments of 1998.

**TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND COOPERATION FOR FOREIGN INFORMATION
ACCESS (TICFIA) PROGRAM**

**2002-2005 GRANTEES**

**APPLICANT UNIVERSITY AND PROJECT TITLE**

##### Funding for Year I of Grant Cycle

#####  

##### 

Michigan State University \$150,000

S. African Collaborative Film and Video Project

Yale University \$145,000

\"OACIS\" for the Middle East: On-Line Access

to Consolidated Information on Serials

University of California, Los Angeles \$175,000

Language Resource Program

University of California - Los Angeles \$195,000

Latin American Research Resources Project

University of Chicago \$195,000

South Asian Information Access

University of Kansas \$85,000

Access to Russian Archives

University of Southern California \$195,000

Access Indonesia

University of Southern California \$195,000

Website on Development in

Japan in On-Line Journalism

University of Virginia \$170,000

Tibetan Digital Library Access

University of Wisconsin \$195,000

Portal to Asian Internet Resources

***The program is funded at \$1,700,000 per year.***

***Project funding ranges from \$85,000 to \$195,000.***

##### MICHIGAN STATE U

Number range CHAPTER**South African Collaborative Film and Video
Project:\
Innovation for an Intercontinental Distributed Database and U.S.
Academic Access**

David Wiley, Director; Mark Kornbluh, Executive Director

The South Africa Film and Video Project (SAFVP) will provide access for
American scholars, professionals, and the general public to the broad
and deep heritage of the film and video that recorded the panoply of the
world's most extraordinary political and racial transition of the
twentieth century -- from colonialism, to the apartheid state, to the
coming of majority rule in South Africa and other countries of the
Southern Africa region.

Three of the South African partners in SAFVP hold the premier
collections of film and video in South Africa: the ***National Film,
Video and Sound Archive*** (Pretoria)***, UWC-Robben Island Museum
Mayibuye Film and Video Archive*** (Cape Town), and the ***African
National Congress (ANC) Archive*** (Johannesburg). Using the new
electronic technologies and the Internet, the project will build on the
10,000-item database that already has been created by the ***MSU African
Media Program*** (East Lansing, MI) and the long history of film and
video reviewing and indexing of the Program in ***Cultural and Media
Studies*** (CMS) at the University of Natal (Durban). CMS is South
Africa's most important cultural studies center focusing on media.

This project will establish a distributed system to allow simultaneous
searching of the multiple databases maintained by the five collaborating
partner institutions containing cataloging and descriptive data about
their collections. The networked database will provide access to
information about these rich collections of South African film and
videotape for scholars and other users in the U.S., South Africa, and
worldwide via the Internet. Copies of selected materials from these
collections will be transferred to the MSU Library for access by U.S.
scholars either at MSU or through Interlibrary loan.

The materials are immensely rich with historical and content, depth and
breadth. The *National Film, Video and Sound Archives* (NFVSA) of the
South African National Archives holds images and narrative on colonial
South Africa, World War II, and the coming to power of the Nationalist
State in 1948; the interpretation of apartheid by the State; academic
and state-sponsored ethnographies of African peoples; presentations of
popular culture of Afrikaner and English South Africans; and much more.

The *UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Film and Video Archive* contains
the unique Afravision video archive of 5,000 videotapes of the mass
struggles and the pro-democracy movement of the 1980s and early 1990s;
largely unedited 8mm & 16mm amateur film of South African political
history of the 1970s; videos of the liberation struggles in the
Frontline States; and interviews with leaders of the ANC, South African
Communist Party (SACP), South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU),
Congress of South African Trade Unions, and United Democratic Forum.

The *African National Congress Archive* contains approximately 10,000
units of video and film materials, most not yet incorporated into
finished productions. These materials focus on the activities in exile
of the ANC, SACP, and SACTU with videos and films from Zambia, Angola,
Lesotho, Botswana, Uganda, Tanzania (especially the Solomon Mahlangu
Freedom College at Mazimbu). Featured in this footage are most of the
famous ANC leaders who were in exile and also the training activities of
Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC.

Yale University

OACIS for the Middle East: Online Access to Consolidated Information on
Serials

Funded by TICFIA 2002-2005

**Project URL: <http://www.library.yale.edu/oacis/>**

**First year award:** \$145,000

**Lead Personnel at Yale:**

• Ann Okerson, Project PI, Associate University Librarian,
ann.okerson@yale.edu, 203-432-1764

• Kimberly Parker, Project Co-PI, Head of Electronic Collections,
kimberly.parker@yale.edu, 203-432-0067

• Simon Samoeil, Project Manager, Near East Curator,
simon.samoeil@yale.edu, 203-432-1799

• Elizabeth Beaudin, OACIS Technical Administrator,
elizabeth.beaudin@yale.edu, 203-432-0067

Address: Yale University Library, P. O. Box 208240, New Haven, CT
06520-8240

**Collaborating Libraries in Initial Phase:**

***1. United States partners and advisors include:***

• Ali Houissa, Middle East & Islamic Studies Bibliographer, Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY

• Jonathan Rodgers, Head, Near East Division and Coordinator of Area
Programs, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

• Dona S. Straley, Middle East Studies Librarian, Ohio State University,
Columbus, OH

• Dennis Hyde, Director, Collection Management & Development, University
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

• Abazar Spehri, Middle East Studies Librarian, University of Texas,
Austin, TX

• Mary St. Germain, Head, Near East Section, University of Washington
Libraries, University of Washington, Seattle, WA

***1. Europe:***

• Lutz Wiederhold, Curator of the Oriental Books, Universitaets- und
Landesbibliothek, Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle, Germany

***2. Middle East:***

• Abdel Basset Ben Hassen, Director, Arab Institute for Human Rights,
Institut Arabe des Droits de l\'Homme, Tunis, Tunisia

• Mrs. Shahirah al-Sawi, Director of the Library, American University in
Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

• Ali Aydi, General Director, National Library of Syria, Damascus, Syria

**Target Countries and Languages**: Target countries are those of the
Middle East, specifically: Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia (Republic),
Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Comoros, Cyprus, Djibouti, Egypt, Georgia
(Republic), Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon,
Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian National Authority, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey,
Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen. The range of
languages will include Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Turkish, among others.

**Abstract Submitted to TICFIA for Initial Grant:**

The Yale University Library proposes to lead and coordinate a
collaborative project to make important Middle Eastern language
resources widely available. First, Project OACIS (Online Access to
Consolidated Information on Serials) will create a publicly and freely
accessible, continuously updated union list of Middle East journals and
serials, including those available in print, microform, and online.
Project OACIS will be available via the World Wide Web for readers
anywhere in the world, provided they have access to networked computers.
Designed to exploit electronic networked information technologies via
the progressive plan described below, the union list will contain full
bibliographical information and precise holdings (with owning libraries
identified) for journals and serials related to the Middle East and
published in numerous languages. Far more than a union list, Project
OACIS will also serve as a gateway to several thousand (from well-known
to rarely held) serial and journal titles published not only in
traditional formats, but also increasingly electronically, for delivery
via the World Wide Web. At the moment, perhaps 80 Middle Eastern
full-text journal titles -- including those in Arabic languages \-- are
available electronically, but the numbers are growing rapidly, offering
significant improvement in access and convenience to readers.

Project OACIS will also lay the foundation for enhanced content delivery
from Middle East-related journals and serials. For print or microform
titles, the project will develop a pilot project for electronic delivery
of Middle Eastern articles. For online electronic titles, Project OACIS
will offer direct links either to the full content (where the titles are
available for free) or to the site (if licenses or payments are
required). Project OACIS will also begin to facilitate and coordinate
selection of core journals in Middle Eastern languages for digitization,
preservation, and easier access.

Project OACIS is international in scope. Because the first titles and
holdings loaded into the union list will be contributed by U.S. partner
libraries, the initial phases will be of greatest impact for scholars,
teachers, and students in the United States. Soon, however, the project
will expand to include titles and holdings not only of additional U.S.
institutions, but also of targeted institutions in Europe and the Middle
East. We will broaden the initial supporting and advisory group as the
project expands.

To further its reach and effectiveness, Project OACIS will establish
companion or mirror sites abroad, in order to facilitate information
updating and access by users in Europe and the Middle East. This
expansion will be accomplished through cooperation with partner
institutions abroad, at the same time promoting long-term access to the
contents of these foreign partners\' resources. The partners\' librarian
interns will come to Yale to contribute to the project design, as well
as to learn to input records from their own institutions. They will
return home to carry on, within their own institutions and regions, the
work they began in the U.S. While they are on site at Yale, we will
enlist the interns\' help in two additional ways: (1) assist in
developing vernacular (non-Roman language) representation for their
institutions\' titles; and (2) serve as online information resource
consultants to Yale\'s Center for Language Study.

The three-year period covered by the grant will be devoted to the
following activities:

> • Develop a MARC-compliant database for Middle East journals and
> serials records and load into it contributors\' records and holdings.
> (MARC is the national and international library standard format for
> \"machine-readable catalog\" records.)
>
> • Develop mechanisms and procedures for continuous updating of the
> resource, both titles and holdings.
>
> • Make this database publicly available online for user viewing and
> testing via the World Wide Web, initially through a server at Yale
> University.
>
> • Seek feedback via specific surveys, focus groups, and through
> measuring use of the resource; the information will be used to improve
> user interface and functionality.
>
> • Identify several domestic and foreign institutional partners willing
> to lend materials to each other for the document delivery phase of
> this project. With that small group, identify economic, policy, and
> procedural issues surrounding such delivery.
>
> • Implement a pilot electronic document delivery project for partners
> who do not have that capability already.
>
> • Identify a core group of important and infrequently held serials for
> the study of the Middle East to be digitized by a subsequent phase of
> this project.
>
> • Identify ongoing costs of the OACIS online union list and develop a
> funding strategy for supporting the project in the longer term.

In short, we will orchestrate initial loading or entering of the bulk of
Middle East serials titles into a searchable database, with accurate
holdings and location information being a key focus. Once these critical
pieces of OACIS are in place and the impact of loaded records begins to
reach a steady state, the emphasis will shift to planning for improved
access to the documents themselves. The database will enable Middle
Eastern studies librarians to see what journals are most needed and/or
least available and to plan digitization projects accordingly.

The primary technical goal of the OACIS project is the development of a
MARC-compliant database for Middle East journals and serials records
that includes the contributors\' records and holdings. (MARC is the
national and international library standard format for
\"machine-readable catalog\" records.) This database will be publicly
available online for user viewing and testing via the World Wide Web,
initially through a server at Yale University. Open Source
methodologies, incorporating UNICODE for Arabic script display, will
offer a shareable solution at a reasonable cost by avoiding expensive
licensing and software tools. OACIS will include object-oriented
modularity based on a flexible database design to assure continuous
updating of the resource.

In later phases, the project will implement a pilot electronic document
delivery project, taking advantage of digitizing methodologies and XML
as a transfer language, particularly targeting partners who do not have
that capability already. The work done to populate the database will, in
turn, identify a core group of important and infrequently held Middle
Eastern serials to be digitized in a post-grant preservation stage of
the project.

**University of California, Los Angeles**

SOURCES OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS FOR THE LESS COMMONLY TAUGHT LANGUAGES

**Sponsoring Institution:**

**UCLA International Institute, UCLA Language Resource Center,**

Kinsey Hall 360, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Project website: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu

**Project Directors:**

Prof. Thomas J. Hinnebusch, Director of the Language Materials Project

hinnebus@humnet.ucla.edu 310-995-9746

Dr. Olga Kagan, Director of the Language Resource Center

okagan@humnet.ucla.edu 310-825-2947

**Project Management:**

Dr. Ariann Stern, Language Materials Project Manager

anstern@humnet.ucla.edu 310-267-4720

Dr. Barbara Blankenship, Authentic Materials Coordinator

blankens@humnet.ucla.edu 310-267-4720

Dr. Donna Brinton, Pedagogical Specialist

brinton@humnet.ucla.edu

Kaya Mentesoglu, Senior Web Developer

kaya@isop.ucla.edu

**First year allocation:** \$175,000

## 

In cooperation with the Language Resource Center of the UCLA
International Institute, and the National Council of Organizations of
the Less Commonly Taught Languages, the UCLA Language Materials Project
is developing an online tool for bringing Authentic Materials into the
classroom for Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs). Over a three-year
period, the project will accomplish the following goals.

1\. IDENTIFY SOURCES OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN AT LEAST 15 LCTL'S

Languages will be selected from among those shown in the following
table, depending on the potential for cooperative alliances in the
target countries.

  ----------------------- ----------------------- -----------------------
  Croatian                Modern Arabic           Serbian

  Czech                   Modern Greek            Swahili

  Hausa                   Modern Hebrew           Swedish

  Hindi                   Norwegian               Tagalog

  Indonesian              Pashto                  Tajik

  Japanese                Persian                 Uzbek

  Kazakh                  Polish                  Vietnamese

  Korean                  Portuguese              Yoruba

  Mandarin                Russian                 
  ----------------------- ----------------------- -----------------------

Pilot languages for the first year will be Russian, Swahili, and Kazakh
\-- enabling us to establish criteria for non-Roman writing systems, set
up cooperative agreements for data access in three countries and, in the
case of Kazakh, to familiarize ourselves with the challenges in
identifying and accessing permanent sources in a language with a limited
quantity of published materials. We have established alliances at
universities and other institutions in Russia, Kenya, and Kazakhstan for
cooperation in data collection.

2\. PROVIDE ACCESS TO DIGITIZED AUTHENTIC MATERIALS

Digitized materials that are not otherwise available will be housed on
our host computer for teachers to download and incorporate into their
lessons. Prominent among those materials will be such realia as
brochures, schedules, programs, calendars, currency, stamps, posters,
and maps, that can readily be put to use at any level of language
instruction.

3\. PROVIDE EFFECTIVE ABTRACTS OF THE MATERIALS IN AN ONLINE DATABASE

The database is modeled on the Language Materials Project's widely
consulted database of citations to published second-language pedagogical
materials, www.lmp.ucla.edu, adapted to the descriptive requirements of
Authentic Materials. The database will be enhanced with a new web
interface that offers a choice of classical Boolean searching or the
more intuitive link browsing familiar to modern web users.

4\. PRESENT AN ILLUSTRATED ONLINE GUIDE TO THE USE OF AUTHENTIC
MATERIALS BY LCTL TEACHERS

The guide will delineate pedagogical principles and methodology for
developing lessons around Authentic Materials. It will provide sample
lessons based on digitized Authentic Materials (audio, still pictures,
and video), and a point-by-point set of procedures for teachers to
develop effective lessons as efficiently as possible.

## Authorized Activities

The Authentic Materials project is implementing five goals of the *Title
VI Program for Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign
Information Access*, namely to facilitate access to or preserve foreign
information resources in print or electronic forms; develop new means of
shared electronic access to international data; support collaborative
projects of indexing cataloging, and other means of bibliographic access
for scholars to important research materials published or distributed
outside the United States; develop methods for the wide dissemination of
resources written in non-Roman language alphabets; assist teachers of
less commonly taught languages in acquiring, via electronic and other
means, materials suitable for classroom use; promote collaborative
technology based projects in foreign language, area studies, and
international studies.

## Need and significance

Authentic materials are everyday items with language content developed
for native speakers rather than second-language learners. The teaching
profession has increasingly recognized the importance of such materials
in foreign language pedagogy. The use of real language has become an
integral part of programs that espouse a proficiency-oriented approach,
which emphasizes learning to *use* a second language rather than
learning *about* it.

A major problem facing teachers of LCTLs is the lack of systematic
identification and access to Authentic Materials, and for some teachers
a lack of methodology for their use. Authentic materials for the
commonly taught languages are relatively abundant and easily obtainable
in the United States. But for LCTLs, there is little opportunity to
collect the materials needed to maintain this pedagogical approach.

The archive of online Authentic Materials, easily accessed through a
bibliographic database with abstracts and descriptive citations,
combined with the online guide to the use of Authentic Materials in the
language classroom, will advance the standards for teaching LCTLs in the
United States.

## Evaluation 

A permanent committee advises the Language Materials Project. The
committee will meet twice during the course of the Authentic Materials
Project to review product design and implementation. Current members of
the National Advisory Committee are:

Dr. Richard Brecht, Director, National Foreign Language Center (NFLC),
University of Maryland

Dr. Nina Garrett, Director, Center for Language Study, Yale University

Dr. Dora Johnson, Director of Less Commonly Taught Language Project,
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), Washington, DC.

Dr. Louis Janus, Network Coordinator, LCTL Project, Center for Advanced
Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), University of Minnesota.

Dr. Pauline Yu, Dean of Humanities, Professor, East Asian Languages and
Cultures, UCLA

The Authentic Materials Project is subject to annual evaluation by the
UCLA International Institute. We have arranged for additional evaluation
by a committee of experts, who will report to the National Advisory
Committee twice during the course of the project. The evaluation
committee is headed by:

Dr. Scott McGinnis, Associate Professor and Academic Training
Specialist, Defense Language Institute, Washington, DC

For the Authentic Materials project, we are initiating an additional
level of evaluation by the end users. This will be accomplished using a
version of the Language Materials Project's online survey instrument
that was beta-tested in 2002. Two essential survey questions will be:

(1) How well is the project identifying sources of Authentic Materials
    and related materials for the users' respective languages?

(2) What other sources of Authentic Materials do they suggest we include
    in the bibliography?

Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access,
2002/2005

**Mining Hidden Gems:**

**Building a Latin American Open Archives Portal for Scholars**

> **University of California, Los Angeles Library**

**and**

**Other Participating Libraries**

Terry Ryan, UCLA, Principal Investigator

Eudora I. Loh, Project Co-Director and Co-Manager

Charles E. Young Library A1540Q

UCLA Box 951575

Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575

Tel: 310-825-1125; Fax: 310-206-4974

eloh@library.ucla.edu

Dr. Ning Lin, Project Co-Director

LANIC

Sid Richardson Hall 1.310

University of Texas at Austin

Austin, TX 78712

Tel: 512-232-2418; Fax: 512-471-0151

lin@mail.utexas.edu

Carolyn Palaima, Project Co-Manager

LANIC

Tel: 512-232-2408; Fax: 512-471-3090

c.palaima@mail.utexas.edu

Project URL: <http://www.lanic.utexas.edu/project/arl/>

Award Allocation Year 1: \$195,000

## Description of the Project

Latin American studies encompass scholarly, strategic, instructional,
commercial, cultural, and civic dimensions, each of which requires a
solid information base to support research. Though traditional
collections of Latin American trade books are by now quite strong,
libraries have had only mixed success in capturing materials not
controlled by commercial publishers. Students and scholars increasingly
seek new kinds of resources, just as production of available materials
from Latin America's informal organizations, often operating outside of
established commercial channels, have mushroomed. New formats for
information, most notably electronic publications, significantly
complicate the tasks of identifying, providing access to, and preserving
information resources.

This proposal is aimed at addressing the need for improved control of
and access to Latin America's "grey literature," the publications,
working documents, and other materials produced by research institutes,
non-governmental organizations, and peripheral agencies produced in
print and electronic formats, but which are not controlled by commercial
publishers. These publications are difficult to identify and acquire,
are often only available in limited printings, and may appear in low
quality photocopies. Even when these materials are digitized and mounted
on the Web, they remain hidden away for unpredictable lengths of time on
often-fragile institutional websites. The project will identify
appropriate organizations in Latin America, focusing on groups that
produce research materials in the social sciences, digitize the
publications produced by them, and apply the Open Archives Initiative
Protocol Metadata Harvesting to these documents to ensure systematic and
enhanced Web access to distributed resources. The Latin American Network
Information Center (LANIC) will develop an Open Archives Protocol
Metadata Harvesting portal service for harvesting the metadata from
participating repositories. To support these activities, LANIC will
develop a training program to train staff at the Latin American partner
sites in file conversion and application of the Open Archives Protocol
Metadata Harvesting. LANIC also will serve as a mirror site for the new
electronic resources and host digital files for Latin American
institutions whose server capacities are limited. Further, the proposal
will conduct research on the economics of information delivery and
develop a plan to address the financial implications of cost recovery
for the project's services within a context of equitable, sustainable,
open access among an international membership of institutions with
widely varying financial resources.

The University of California, Los Angeles submits this application on
behalf of the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project (LARRP), a
consortium of forty-eight North American libraries with major Latin
American collections, and seven Latin American partner libraries, under
the sponsorship of the Global Resources Program, a joint initiative of
the Association of American Universities and the Association of Research
Libraries. The project will form a new partnership with the Facultad
Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales-Chile (FLACSO-Chile) and expand its
collaboration with the Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de
Mesoamérica (CIRMA) in Guatemala, both highly respected, important
research institutes that produce social sciences research materials.
Both institutes are well positioned to assist the project in forming
partnerships with additional organizations in the region. By the
conclusion of the three-year collaborative effort, the project expects
to significantly expand access to important, but elusive, "grey
literature" research materials, and to put in place the infrastructure
for a Latin American Open Archives scholars portal at LANIC that will
provide ever-expanding and sustainable Web access to Latin American
resources.

## 

## Authorized Activities

This proposal responds to all seven of the authorized activities
outlined in the TICFIA legislation. The project will digitize grey
literature in accordance with current technical standards and "best
practices" concerning file formats, resolution, and compression schemes,
and apply the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
(OAIPMH) to the digitized material. The OAI has taken a lead role in
ensuring that digital data content providers utilize consistent
metadata, descriptive elements, and searching protocols. By applying
established norms for the creation of standardized metadata appropriate
to the special characteristics of electronic products, sophisticated
searches of the "Deep Web" are possible beyond what is supported by
commercial browsers and search engines. This capability facilitates
increased access to and allows the harvesting of digital resources in
many different locations. LANIC will serve as a mirror site for the
digital resources and host digital files of Latin American organizations
that lack strong Internet capabilities. LANIC will create a multilingual
PMH portal service to guide access to the related archives, explain
search parameters, and facilitate file download. The project will
promote national and international collaborations with FLACSO-Chile,
CIRMA, and other Latin American organizations to identify, describe, and
provide Web access to bibliographic description and full-text grey
literature. The information will be organized and accessible through a
new OAIPMH portal service at LANIC, the most important Latin American
regional portal. The project's partnerships in Chile and in Guatemala
will enable us to incorporate materials produced in association with
each country's large and active indigenous communities, in particular,
with CIRMA whose research interests encompass linguistic studies. Though
materials from Latin America, including those in the region's indigenous
tongues, are represented in Roman script, many are in autochthonous
dialects. Internet access to Latin America's grey literature will ensure
that these materials will be easily accessible to students, teachers,
and scholars. Materials suitable for classroom units on tribal
identities, indigenous rights, or the hole in the ozone layer, as
examples, will be readily accessible where they presently are difficult
or impossible to consult. LANIC is a well-known portal for higher
education as well as K-12, ensuring that the new targeted resources will
be easy to locate. Finally, this project is founded upon collaboration
among U.S. libraries, LANIC, and leading research libraries in Latin
America. This proposal will add the dimension of collaboration with
Latin American organizations that publish research information, the data
content providers themselves. The training component ensures continuity
and growth of the program in the region. The technological approach of
introducing the use of OAI and the creation of a harvesting portal
service will promote further collaboration in the region to bring new
foreign language resources in Latin American area studies and in
international comparative studies to a worldwide audience.

## Selection Criteria

To improve access to the literature of non-governmental organizations
was one of the primary goals in the establishment of LARRP in the
mid-1990's. Early efforts to address the need fell short of
expectations. Yet interest continues to grow because grey literature
tends to convey viewpoints and analyses that fall outside the political
and intellectual mainstream and to represent the most current research
on emerging topics. Increasing demand for new resources from a rapidly
expanding constituency of users studying Latin America and seeking
Spanish-language materials on current topics from this dynamic and
strategic region intensifies the importance of addressing the gaps of
this type of material in library collections. The proposed project is
significant in developing a strategy to capture and provide enhanced
access to elusive, but important, research materials in the social
sciences through innovative use of technology. By establishing
collaborative partnerships with data content-producing research
institutions, the project will introduce state-of-the-art technology and
"best practices" to the region to take advantage of the sophisticated
features of OAIPMH. The development of an open archives PMH portal
service at LANIC will add a new dimension to

the premiere scholars portal on the Latin American region.

The project design is based on three interrelated initiatives: to
develop partnerships with Latin American institutions and organizations
that produce grey literature; to develop the OAIPMH infrastructure at
LANIC; and to research the economics of information delivery in order to
form a model for sustainable cost recovery of Internet-based services.
The design, work plan, and services emphasize technological innovation:
the assignment of expert personnel; the collaboration of key groups and
organizations; training to produce quality results and to ensure
continuity and sustainability of the endeavor; the development of
infrastructure capable of delivering the new services; and reasonable,
achievable time frames in which to produce results. The commitment of
key project personnel and adequate resources have been carefully planned
and budgeted, ensuring successful completion of the proposed project.
Ongoing review and evaluation of progress, adequate oversight by LARRP's
Advisory Committee, and use of well-established organizational
structures for communicating and achieving collaborative results are key
features of the management and evaluation plans.

In summary, this project extends the knowledge, experience, and
commitment of the Latin Americanist Research Resources Project to new
areas of collaboration with Latin American institutions and with LANIC
to achieve a long-held goal of improving access to elusive grey
literature. The use of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol and the
development of an PMH portal service will open new avenues to scholars
and other users to achieve enhanced access to Latin American research
materials.

**The University of Chicago**

A[pplicant]{.smallcaps}

The University of Chicago

1100 East 57^th^ Street

Chicago, Illinois 60637

F[unding Awarded]{.smallcaps}

\$195,000 per year

T[itle]{.smallcaps} [of]{.smallcaps} P[roject]{.smallcaps}

South Asian Information Access: A Federated Program to Expand the
Resources for Understanding the Subcontinent

P[roject]{.smallcaps} D[ates]{.smallcaps}

Oct. 1, 2002 - Sept. 30, 2005

**Personnel**

P[roject]{.smallcaps} D[irector]{.smallcaps}

> James Nye
>
> Bibliographer for Southern Asia
>
> The University of Chicago Library
>
> 1100 East 57^th^ Street
>
> Chicago, Illinois 60637
>
> Telephone: 773-702-8430
>
> E-mail: jnye@midway.uchicago.edu

P[roject]{.smallcaps} C[o-]{.smallcaps}D[irector]{.smallcaps}

> David Magier
>
> Director of Area Studies and South/Southeast Asian Studies Librarian
>
> Columbia University Libraries
>
> 304 International Affairs
>
> 420 West 118th St.
>
> New York, NY 10027
>
> Telephone: 212-854-8046
>
> E-mail: magier@columbia.edu

P[roject]{.smallcaps} A[dvisor]{.smallcaps}

> Bernard Reilly
>
> President
>
> The Center for Research Libraries
>
> 6050 South Kenwood Avenue
>
> Chicago, IL 60637
>
> Telephone: 800-621-6044, ext. 334
>
> E-mail: reilly@crlmail.uchicago.edu

P[roject]{.smallcaps} M[anager]{.smallcaps}

> Position to be filled after a national search

P[roject]{.smallcaps} C[o-]{.smallcaps}M[anager]{.smallcaps}

> James Simon
>
> Program Officer - Area Studies
>
> The Center for Research Libraries
>
> 6050 South Kenwood Avenue
>
> Chicago, IL 60637
>
> Telephone: 800-621-6044, ext. 324
>
> E-mail: simon@crlmail.uchicago.edu

**Overview**

In order to maintain and improve access to vital resources for the study
of South Asia, a federation of research institutions led by the
University of Chicago proposes a three-year collaborative project to
deliver digital research materials to users both in the United States
and throughout the world via the Internet. It has become increasingly
evident that in an era of static or decreasing budgets research
libraries will need to develop innovative and collaborative strategies
in order to acquire and maintain the resources necessary for research.
In no area of study is this necessity more apparent than in the case of
South Asia. Given the size and diversity of interest, both inside and
outside of academia, it is clear that cooperative acquisition alone can
not provide readers with the increasingly vital materials in South Asian
regional languages or certain highly sought after resources in an
effective or timely fashion. This new project builds upon the
accomplishments of the Digital South Asia Library, funded by TICFIA at
the same time that it forges a new approach to addressing the needs of
scholars and other members of the public. As hallmarks, this unique
collaboration will:

-   forge a new library federation for sustainable and innovative
    digital projects in cooperation with foreign libraries focused on
    South Asian studies;

-   create on-line information about contemporary and historical South
    Asia -- across the social sciences, humanities, and sciences;

-   use Federal funds for providing access to resources now only
    available overseas;

-   stimulate the generation of substantial matching funds from
    federation members and foundations for improved electronic access to
    resources in the United States;

-   develop a Web interface fostering easy discovery of resources in
    different formats and from different locations and make available
    the computer programs for manipulating those resources;

-   use Unicode electronic character encoding for non-roman language
    data disseminated under the project; and

-   face questions of cultural patrimony in South Asia with sensitivity
    while furthering a \"new library movement\" in the subcontinent.

This project will encompass the subcontinent which lies south of the
Himalayan range and comprises India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldive Islands. Language materials
selected from among the twenty-seven modern literary languages of South
Asia will be a special focus. Those languages include: Assamese,
Baluchi, Bengali, Divehi, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada,
Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali,
Newari, Oriya, Panjabi, Pashto, Persian, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Sinhala,
Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

**Need and Significance**

As a site of major civilization for more than four thousand years, South
Asia continues to comprise an enormous geographical and intellectual
domain representing more than twenty-two percent of world\'s population.
More than forty years of sustained government support for language
training and acquisitions has produced a sizeable body of informed
scholars whose contributions to the study of South Asia have been
unmatched outside the subcontinent itself. This **project\'s large
target audience** will be well served by the digital resources provided.
The Association for Asian Studies lists more than 760 of its members as
having South Asian countries as a major focus of academic interest. In
addition, many members of other scholarly associations have a primary
interest in South Asia \-- the American Academy of Religion, the
American Political Science Association, the American Anthropological
Association, and the American Oriental Society, to name a few. Looking
to the larger body of citizens, the 2000 U.S. census shows that slightly
more than one million Americans trace their heritage to the cultures of
South Asia. This project\'s resources will serve \"heritage learners\"
among this population. Finally, those outside the U.S. will be well
served by the resources freely available over the Internet.

This project achieves significance through effectively addressing needs
registered by national foundations and associations of scholars and
librarians. Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Association
of Research Libraries published a review of problems in scholarly access
as well as suggested remedies entitled Scholarship, Research Libraries,
and Global Publishing. Building on that report, the Association of
Research Libraries and the Association of American Universities
inaugurated the Global Resources Program (GRP). Its principal goals are
to improve access to international research resources and help libraries
contain costs through the creation of cooperative structures, the use of
new technologies, and the expansion of international document delivery.
Funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the GRP promotes
a distributed, interdependent approach to collecting scholarly materials
from abroad. This approach ensures more focused collection development
at individual institutions resulting in access to a broader array of
these often difficult-to-acquire resources. The GRP coordinates its
efforts with those of other libraries and organizations that share
common interests with the Association of American Universities and the
Association of Research Libraries. During the pilot project and first
phase, the Digital South Asia Library has developed an Internet-based
infrastructure for intercontinental electronic document delivery to and
from selected South Asian libraries.

This project proposes to **meet the needs of these diverse readers by
providing electronic access to seminal resources** from the subcontinent
for the study of South Asia over the Internet. Examples of use by
patrons of the South Asian Information Access resources substantiate the
significance of this project. **Scholars in virtually all disciplines**
of the social sciences and humanities will be able to consult the
project\'s Web site for an array of documents, statistics, images, and
bibliographic data supporting their research, teaching, and planning
efforts. Beyond the art historical and museological uses of photographs
scanned from the British Library's collection, anthropologist and
historians will consult the finding aids for photographs made accessible
under this project to locate and view images. Language teachers will be
able to direct their students to the pedagogical resources for
instruction in less commonly taught languages, knowing that the best
available materials created under U.S. Department of Education grants
will have been converted for easy access. News reporters and others in
the media will find it easy to consult background articles from
full-text documents created from key reference books.

**Project Design and Activities**

The South Asian Information Access project includes all seven of the
"authorized activities" outlined in the legislation providing for this
grant. The project will facilitate access to resources for the study of
South Asia from both the subcontinent and elsewhere. The project
contains three units, each of which reinforces the others: 1)
preservation and access for a highly select body of information,
supported with Federal funds; 2) parallel activities undertaken by
twelve federated institutions using their own funds and other
non-Federal support; 3) creation of a sophisticated Web interface that
will enable searching across the South Asia resources created under this
project and earlier, related projects. This structure enables the
federation to use Federal funds exclusively for access to resources that
are not currently available in the United States. At the same time,
members of the federation will use local support to digitize highly
valued reference resources, making them more readily available to a
broader audience of scholars and citizens.

In order to accomplish these goals this project proposes to use existing
software and technology, such as Ariel for Windows and the Wicks and
Wilson Microfilm Scanner system, that comport to existing international
standards. Furthermore, the staff of this project will use the
experience gained under the Digital South Asia Library and the Digital
Dictionaries of South Asia projects to continue implementation of the
Unicode encoding standard as means of displaying texts in the numerous
scripts of the regional languages in South Asia. For all of its
activities, **this project will build upon a network of established
collaborative relationships with institutions in the U.S., the
subcontinent, and Europe**.

**Resources, Management, and Evaluation**

The support requested for the project is modest relative to its
benefits. Contributions of staff time and support from the participating
institutions have reduced the labor costs. In addition computing
facilities and material infrastructure are already in place in the U.S.
Travel expenses will be modest and scheduled to coincide with national
South Asia meetings. In the subcontinent, the project will benefit from
the capable administration and technically proficient staff of its
partner institutions that are members of the Center for South Asia
Libraries as well as considerably lower costs for labor and materials.
This project will purchase a limited amount of special equipment needed
by collaborators in South Asia. A grant from the U.S. Department of
Education will enhance the likelihood that sister institutions in the
subcontinent will also receive support from governments and foundations
in the region. Along with the present grant, the project can expect to
benefit from further increased contributions in kind from collaborating
institutions, charitable matching funds and the proven-track record of
its proposed directors in obtaining and managing grants.

Management and evaluation of the project will be the responsibility of
the Principal Investigator, Co-Director, Project Advisor, Project
Manager, Project Co-Manager, Advisory Board and Selection Panel selected
under procedures outlined in the main body of this proposal. They will
assess the progress and success of the program not only by soliciting
evaluations from users but also by an empirical consideration of the
costs per transaction as well as a highly specific computer record of
resources actually used by patrons.

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS ACCESS TO RUSSIAN ARCHIVES

**Funding Dates:** October 2002 through September 2005.

**URL (Temporary):** <http://www.ku.edu/~slavlib/2003TitleVISummary.htm>

**First Year Award:** \$85,000

# Key Contact Information:

+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ## Co-Principle Investigator      | ## Co-Principle Investigator      |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Bradley L. Schaffner              | ### Dr. Maria Carlson             |
|                                   |                                   |
| Head, Libraries' Slavic           | #### Professor of                 |
| Department & International        | Slavic Languages & Literatures an |
| Programs;                         | d Russian & East European Studies |
|                                   |                                   |
| Coordinator, Collection           | Department of Slavic Languages    |
| Development                       | and Literatures                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| University of Kansas Libraries    | University of Kansas -- Wescoe    |
|                                   | Hall                              |
| 303 Watson Library                |                                   |
|                                   | 1445 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 2139     |
| 1425 Jayhawk Boulevard            |                                   |
|                                   | Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7590       |
| Lawrence, KS 66045-7544 USA       |                                   |
|                                   | \(785\) 864-2350                  |
| \(785\) 864-3957                  |                                   |
|                                   | <Mcarlson@ku.edu>                 |
| fax: (785)864-5311                |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| <bschaffn@ku.edu>                 |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| <http://www.ku.edu/~slavlib>      |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ##                                |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ## Project Director               | ## Technical Work - subcontractor |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Brian J. Baird                    | Kirill Fessenko                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Preservation Librarian            | East View Publications, Inc.\     |
|                                   | 3020 Harbor Lane N.\              |
| University of Kansas              | Minneapolis, MN 55447 USA         |
|                                   |                                   |
| 134 Watson Library                | \(763\) 550-0961\                 |
|                                   | fax: (763) 559-2931               |
| 1425 Jayhawk Blvd.                |                                   |
|                                   | <kirill.fesenko@eastview.com>     |
| Lawrence, KS 66045-7544 USA       |                                   |
|                                   | [http://www.eastvi                |
| \(785\) 864-3568                  | ew.com](http://www.eastview.com/) |
|                                   |                                   |
| fax: (785) 864-5311               |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| [bbaird@ku.edu]{.underline}       |                                   |
| <htt                              |                                   |
| p://www2.lib.ku.edu/preservation> |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ##                                |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ## Tec                            | ##### Collaborating Partner       |
| hnical Work -- KU Digital Library |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ## **Beth Warner, Director**      | Rosarkhiv: Federal'noi arkhivnoi  |
|                                   | sluzhby Rossii.                   |
| Digital Library Initiative        |                                   |
|                                   | [http://www.rusarchive            |
| Information Services/Libraries    | s.ru](http://www.rusarchives.ru/) |
|                                   |                                   |
| 1450 Jayhawk Blvd                 |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| Lawrence, Kansas 66045-7535       |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| \(785\) 864-4999                  |                                   |
|                                   |                                   |
| bwarner@ku.edu                    |                                   |
+-----------------------------------+-----------------------------------+

**Abstract:**

The *Access to Russian Archives* project will create a digital database
of regional and national guides to the Russian Archives. The project
will digitize both the printed and handwritten guides to the approx. 270
central and regional archives in Russia. This digital database would
provide the most comprehensive access to the holdings of the entire
Russian archive system in one simple, user-friendly electronic format.
Creation of this database will allow students and scholars from anywhere
in the world to quickly and efficiently identify important archival
holdings related to their research or areas of interest.

Since the fall of the Soviet government there has been a new era of open
access to information in Russia. Since 1991, it has been much easier for
Slavic scholars to gain access to archives. Unfortunately, even as
access to the archives themselves has opened up, prospective researchers
continue to face a lack of access to information about and indices of
holdings of individual archives, or the ability to do comprehensive
searches in all archives simultaneously. Information about the location
of archival resources is essential for researchers in planning research
trips to Russia. Russian archives, which were restricted during the
Soviet period, may now be increasingly open for research, but without
improved access to the key reference literature, they will effectively
remain as inaccessible to the public as they were under Soviet rule.

Rosarkhiv, which administers the Russian archive system, holds guides to
both the central and regional archives in Russia that provide a summary
of the holdings of each archive. In total, about 270 guides have been
created. Many of the regional guides were published in very limited runs
of fewer than 20 copies and some were never published but created for
in-house use only and are therefore inaccessible outside of Russia, or
in some cases, even outside of the specific archive. In addition, the
guides can be very difficult and time-consuming to use. For example, if
a scholar were conducting research on the Russian poet Pushkin, he would
have to search through all 270 guides, one at a time, to determine where
in Russia the archival holdings pertaining to Pushkin are housed.

After the approximately 270 guides are digitized, the text will be
marked up utilizing standardized XML tagging---making the information
fully searchable. The final steps to completing the project will involve
the conversion of the text from Cyrillic into Library of Congress
Russian transliterated text. The converted text, identical to the
original Russian text, will also be available for use. Such a conversion
makes the digital database completely searchable in Russian and in
English transliteration and allows scholars who do not have Cyrillic
capabilities on their computers to access the information through
transliteration. The text will also be machine-translated into English
making the vast majority of the text available to non-Russian speaking
researchers. The database will be made available to any students,
scholars and others free of charge via the World Wide Web. The end
result will be the creation of a major research tool that will literally
revolutionize the way we access materials in Russian archives.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACCESS INDONESIA

Funding Dates: October 2002-Septmeber 2005.

URL: <http://cippad.usc.edu/access_indonesia>

World Area Covered: Indonesia

Foreign language: Bahasa Indonesia

Topics and Intended Audience

The Center for International Policy, Planning, and Development in the
School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern
California (CIPPAD, USC), and the Center for Urban and Regional
Development Studies of the Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia
(CURDS, ITB), jointly propose a three-year *Access Indonesia* project
for disseminating information on Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth
populous nation in the world. It is one of the strong trading partners
in Southeast Asia with a dynamic economy, and it has a pivotal role in
the regional security and stability of the overall region. Further,
since Indonesia is transitioning toward becoming the world's third
largest democracy, the country is strategically important for the United
States whose mission is to promote democratic institutions in the
region. Most important of all, Indonesia is the largest Muslim country
in the world and provides a fertile ground to understand the Muslim
culture and society, which has become imperative following the September
11, 2001 tragedies. Yet, Indonesia is among the least known countries in
the United States and sources of in-depth, scholarly information on the
country are limited.

The main purpose of the *Access Indonesia* project is to foster a fuller
interdisciplinary understanding of Indonesia by using recent advances in
Internet technology (e.g., Web-GIS, Multimedia). To this end, the
project has the following specific objectives:

-   To identify, collect, and collate information on Indonesia, with a
    focus on information that is not yet accessible in the United States

-   To broaden access to existing information sources on Indonesia To
    develop and implement interactive and user-friendly web-based
    methods of disseminating up-to-date information on Indonesia

-   To mobilize resources from international and domestic organizations
    for continuation and expansion of this project.

To achieve these objectives, CIPPAD, USC, and CURDS, ITB, will undertake
a number of major tasks, including (a) *Web-site development* for
broadening access to existing information sources and for disseminating
up-to-date information on Indonesia, which is not yet accessible in the
US; (b) *Annual workshops* for identifying information needs and sources
and for receiving feedback on the website; (c) *Outreach* for
establishing mutual contacts with our target audience and for receiving
feedback on the website; (d) *Resource mobilization* for continuation
and expansion of the project once the DOE funding is over; and (e)
*Evaluation* for improvement of the project web-site (e.g. through peer
reviews, reviews in reputable publications, mail survey and
questionnaire, web-based survey form and questionnaire, and monitoring
number of website visitors). The overall structure of the Access
Indonesia project is summarized in Figure 1.

**Figure 1. Summary structure of Access Indonesia Project**

![](media/image1.wmf)

As we envisage, the *Access Indonesia* website will act as a virtual
storehouse of interdisciplinary information on Indonesia both in English
and in Bahasa Indonesia. The website will be organized around five major
disciplinary themes: Economy, Politics, History, Culture, and Geography.
One section will be devoted to each of these themes, under which the
website will provide an in-depth overview of the theme with respect to
Indonesia. It will also provide access to full-text scholarly articles
(e.g. policy and research papers), audio and visual materials (e.g.
multimedia streaming videos, maps, pictures), bibliographies, and
annotated links to existing worldwide websites. The themes will be
summarized in the *Indonesia at a Glance* section, and interactive
Web-GIS maps based on each theme will be provided in *Map Indonesia*
section.

The website will have three additional sections: *Learning Toolkits*,
*Current News*, and *Dialogue Indonesia*. *Learning Toolkits* will
include classroom instruction materials and interactive "fun" quizzes
for teachers and students respectively. *Current News* section will
provide links to news sources on Indonesia. The *Dialogue Indonesia*
section will facilitate online discussion through email and bulletin
board. The sections will contain both general and customized
information, which will fulfill both general and specific information
needs of the target audience. The potential audience is sizeable, as it
includes U.S. educators and students interested in Southeast Asia in
general, and Indonesia in particular; U.S. policy makers and civic
leaders; researchers and international development practitioners; and
U.S. business executives interested in trade with Indonesia

The *Access Indonesia* project will build on the existing partnership
between CIPPAD, USC and CURDS, ITB. Since January 2000, these two
institutions have been collaborating on another project called "Capacity
Building for Decentralization in Indonesia" (CBDI), which is supported
by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The
two institutions complement each other and have demonstrated synergistic
collaboration in terms of technical ability, country knowledge, and
language capacity to implement the *Access Indonesia* project. CIPPAD,
USC, will be responsible for the overall management and implementation
of the website. CURDS, ITB, will provide strategic field support in
collecting and collating information. ITB is a preeminent educational
institute in Indonesia, often referred to as the "MIT of Indonesia." USC
has a Southeast Asia Regional office in Jakarta, Indonesia, which will
coordinate activities between CIPPAD, USC, and CURDS, ITB.

The Principal Investigator of the CBDI project, Dr. Koichi Mera, will
also serve as the Principal Investigator of *Access Indonesia* project.
Dr. Mera is the Director of CIPPAD, USC and has joint appointment in the
School of Policy, Planning, and Development, and the Marshall School of
Business at USC. He is an expert on international regional and economic
development and has worked extensively on Indonesia in particular and on
the Pacific Rim in general. Dr. Benedictus Kombaitan, who is the Head of
the Center for Urban and Regional Development Studies at ITB, will be
leading the project from Indonesia.

University of Southern California

Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access

2002-2005

Funding Level (2002-2003) \$195,000

*Japan Media Review
([www.japanmediareview.org](http://www.japanmediareview.org/))*

An English-Language Web site on Developments in Japan in Online
Journalism and Information/Communications Technologies

University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication

Online Journalism and Communication Program

3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, Calif. 90089-0281

Larry Pryor, Program Director/Principal Investigator, <lpryor@usc.edu>,
213-740-9083

Co-Directors: Dr. Gordon M. Berger, Director, East Asian Studies Center,
University of Southern California, <gberger@usc.edu>, 213-740-2991; Dr.
Takahiro Miyao, Professor, Center for Global Communications,
International University of Japan, <miyao@glocom.ac.jp>, +81-3-5411-6757

The Project

The University of Southern California's Online Journalism Program (OJR),
in partnership with USC's East Asian Studies Center and the Center for
Global Communication at the International University of Japan, has
developed and launched an English-language Website that examines
developments in Japan in Online Journalism and Information/
Communications technologies. *Japan Media Review* \[
[www.japanmediareview.com](http://www.japanmediareview.com/) \] monitors
and collects relevant data from Japan relating to electronic media and
broadband, wireless and Internet communications technology. This site's
most unique feature is its ongoing publication of up-to-date, in-depth
articles written by freelance writers \-- both Japanese journalists and
Western journalists who cover these topics. *Japan Media Review* also
provides a regularly updated Web Log linking to publications on the
Internet; serves as a venue for scholars to publish -- or republish --
articles about Japan's media; and includes online discussion forums,
archives, and collections of data and background material on the subject
matter.

*Japan Media Review* builds on and extends the Online Journalism Review

\[ [www.ojr.org](http://www.ojr.org/) \], which was started by USC's
Annenberg School for Communication in March, 1998. Since then, OJR, with
the help of the Ford Foundation, has grown steadily as a specialized Web
site with a global focus on online journalism and electronic publishing.
It now has about 50,000 unique visitors per week, as well as an e-mail
list of more than 5,000 subscribers. *Japan Media Review* is closely
linked to OJR, and OJR readers \-- including journalism students,
educators and communications scholars -- have provided and enthusiastic
base of readers for the new Web site. The Center for Global
Communications also runs a substantial Web site in Japan, the *Global
Communications (GLOCOM) Platform for Japan* \[
[www.glocom.org](http://www.glocom.org/) \], which provides a forum for
Japan's opinion leaders to communicate in English with their
counterparts in the international community. *Japan Media Review* is
also prominently tied to the GLOCOM Platform.

Need and Significance

Many factors once worked against the growth of online infrastructure and
services in Japan. But starting in the mid-1990s, the Japanese
government and communications industry tore down regulatory barriers and
promoted the growth of fiber, DSL, CATV, wireless, next-generation
mobile networks, satellites and other delivery paths. As a result,
personal computer sales soared. By 2000, Japan had become a digitized
nation with Internet penetration rates equivalent to the United Kingdom
and greater than Europe. This surge in Internet traffic, both online and
wireless, led to rapid changes in the media environment in Japan. All of
the major media outlets now produce some form of electronic information,
news and services, and many of these products are also in English. Much
of this rapid development has occurred with relatively little scrutiny
by Western scholars and journalists. Filling that void is the goal of
*Japan Media Review*.

Understanding the media in Japan leads to understanding an important
part of Japanese society. This Website is setting out to help build a
body of content on this topic from which scholars, students, media
analysts and others can draw. Globalization makes it imperative that
areas of rapid economic growth and innovation, such as the
information/communications scene in Japan, receive close attention. What
happens in the Japanese media environment could affect U.S. technology
and the U.S. domestic economy, as well as the future of news and
information delivery systems worldwide. The experience in Japan could
lead to great innovation; it could also introduce intense competition.
Similarly, Japanese information technology and media markets represent a
great opportunity for U.S. trade.

Audience

More information on this topic needs to be shared between the two
countries. The U.S. audience needs greater access to
information/communications developments in Japan. Much of the
information that now exists is in Japanese or is not widely published at
all. Western and Japanese publications cover the media environment and
electronic publishing developments in Japan, as do several Web sites,
but much of this coverage is delayed and written for U.S. or U.K.
business readers. It can also be expensive to acquire. *Japan Media
Review* addresses this problem with immediately accessible and
constantly updated material that is also authoritative and
comprehensive; it thus functions as a "niche" Web site with significant
depth in coverage of its subject. Moreover, it is freely accessible to
its users with no fees, subscription or other charges.

The content developed for *Japan Media Review* is designed to serve a
broad audience within the United States. Not only professionals in the
information technology industry, electronic publishers and journalists,
but also educators and researchers who study East Asia and Japan,
Communications and Computer Science scholars, and the academic community
in general. *Japan Media Review* will be valuable to anyone who follows
the latest developments in Japan, including economists, people in
government and members of professional and trade organizations.

Project Design

The three-year *Japan Media Review* project is led by USC faculty
Lawrence Pryor (director of the Online Journalism Program and assistant
professor of journalism in the Annenberg School) and Gordon M. Berger
(director of the East Asian Studies Center and professor of Japanese
History in USC College), joined by Takahiro Miyao in Japan (senior
research fellow at the Center for Global Communications with faculty
appointments at both the International University of Japan and USC). The
editor of *Japan Media Review* is USC lecturer and veteran journalist
[**Michelle Nicolosi.**](http://www.inserttexthere.com/resume.htm)

*Japan Media Review* also draws from a pool of Japanese-speaking
graduate students in the Annenberg School and from across the
university, who work as Web log writers and sub-editors. Two student
editor/writers have been trained to survey the Japanese media,
professional literature and government materials to write the Web logs
and make relevant links.

In addition to providing day-to-day supervision of *Japan Media Review*
operations, Annenberg's Online Journalism Program staff -- in
consultation with the East Asian Studies Center and the Center for
Global Communications -- contribute story ideas and review proposals for
original articles, with the aim of publishing at least one substantive
story each week. Japan Media Review editor Michelle Nicolosi and lead
project director Larry Pryor, together with the other senior editors of
the Annenberg School's Online Journalism Program, are responsible for
day-to-day editorial content. But as project partners, USC's East Asian
Studies Center and the Center for Global Communications in Japan
contribute to oversight, evaluation and by providing feedback to *Japan
Media Review* editorial staff.

As traffic expands and interest grows, other sources of revenue from
foundations and other non-profit organizations will be found to expand
the site. The Annenberg development staff will assist in finding these
sources. The goal is to make the site financially self-sufficient after
the third year.

Conclusion:

Japan Media Review provides a valuable source of information that cannot
be found elsewhere and benefits many constituencies in the United States
and elsewhere. Japan is a major source of innovation in electronic
journalism and information/communications technology. The body of
knowledge on this topic deserves to be expanded and made widely
available in English.

### University of Virginia

**The Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library and Information Community:**
**A Technological Model for the Nexus of Information and Community in
the Academic Study of Other Cultures**

**Applicant**: The University of Virginia, PO 400126; Charlottesville,
Virginia 22904.

Key Contact Information

**Project Director**: David Germano, University of Virginia
\<<germano@virginia.edu>\> 434-924-6728

**Co-Directors**: Kathryn March \<ksm8@cornell.edu\> 607-255-6779.

**Project Management**: David Newman; University of Virginia
\<<dl4n@virginia.edu>\> 434-243-5579; Mark Turin; Cornell University
\<mt272@cornell.edu\> 607 273 0202 .

**Computer Implementation**: Nathaniel Garson \<ndg8f@virginia.edu\>
434-924-6011.

**Project Web Site**: \<www.thdl.org\>

**Project Dates:** October 1, 2002 - September 30, 2005

**Award amount**: \$170,000 for year 1.

**Collaborators**: Universities of Virginia and Cornell are the grant
partners, but the project involves a wide range of collaborating
entities around the world, including University of Chicago, University
of California at Santa Barbara, UCLA, Rice University, Colombia
University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, CNRS-Lacito,
Paris 8 University, Tibet Academy of Social Sciences, Tibet University,
and others.

**Countries and Languages**: languages -- Tibetan, Nepali;
countries/cultures - Tibet, China, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Pakistan.

The Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library (THDL) and its sister project,
the Tibetan and Himalayan Information Community (THIC), constitute an
innovative initiative utilizing technology to transform how scholars and
educational institutions cooperate in the generation, processing,
organization, and dissemination of knowledge about cultural regions of
the world. It is building the world\'s preeminent on-line archive and
communication hub for research and documentation in Tibetan and
Himalayan Studies. Using the most recent in Web-based technology, much
of which is being specifically designed for these purposes at the
University of Virginia (UVA) and Cornell University, we are building a
collaborative infrastructure for the remote networked management of a
wide array of projects to generate and disseminate knowledge about the
Tibetan and Himalayan cultural region from multiple disciplinary
perspectives. The Digital Library initiative provides an overarching
publishing and archiving arena for multiple institutions and projects
which it seamlessly integrates with standard interfaces, tools, and
classification systems. In its \"Information Community\" dimension, the
library also promotes communication, communal standards and tools, and
interoperability among projects that are currently entirely distinct
from each other. The end result will be the technical, intellectual and
political basis for an impressive synergy of scholarly activity around
the world in relationship to this massive and crucially important region
of Asia.

To date, THDL has been built upon relatively narrow content-specific
initiatives rather than funding designed for the full infrastructure.
Thus many pieces require further development, and the broader
integration of these diverse components has become an urgent priority.
In addition, the Tibetan and Himalayan portions of the project have
distinct developmental pedigrees that have not been yet integrated. Our
*Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information
Access* grant is providing crucial support to complete the model and
begin to accept submissions from around the world. It will result in
three major contributions of national significance: (i) the world\'s
premier Web-based archive of interdisciplinary knowledge about Cultural
Tibet and the Himalayas, (ii) international partnerships across North
America, Europe and Asia for scholarly research into Cultural Tibet and
the Himalayas, and (iii) an innovative open source, generalized and
well-documented model for Web-based collaborative and interdisciplinary
research, dissemination, and education focused on a particular region of
the world.

We define \"Tibet\" on linguistic and cultural criteria, rather than
political ones, as a zone that embraces a large part of the Himalayan
region, but also extends far north to include a huge region beyond the
Himalayas proper. By \"Himalayas\", then, we mean an overlapping region
which includes much of the southern areas of Cultural Tibet, as well as
many other cultural regions, most notably the modern areas of Kashmir
and Nepal. While there are strong linguistic and cultural reasons behind
the separate evolution of Tibetan and Himalayan/Nepal Studies, there are
equally strong reasons to consider this world area as an integrated
region across these boundaries. Too often this massive region of Asia
has been squeezed between the dominating political forces of South and
East Asia, represented primarily by the contemporary nation-states of
India and China, and research and resources have been fragmented across
various domains.

THDL is the primary initial implementation of the powerful FEDORA
(Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture)
technological initiative to create a comprehensive digital library
system for academic institutions. Virginia and Cornell are the primary
architects of FEDORA with Mellon funding, and THDL/THIC constitutes one
of its most important testbeds. The happy coincidence that Cornell and
Virginia are both the primary partners in building the FEDORA digital
library system, and internationally renowned centers for Himalayan and
Tibetan Studies respectively, provides the basis for this powerful
collaboration. Our work lies in adapting the evolving digital library
system to suit the needs of area studies, as well as building the
associated model for exploiting international collaboration to the
fullest extent:

-   Bringing the full integrated technical and intellectual
    infrastructure to completion with a special focus on Web-based
    collaborative input mechanisms and processes, which will be the
    common foundation for all individual projects initiated and run
    internationally in the future, as well as the generalized model for
    other area studies initiatives to draw upon and adapt for their own
    purposes

-   Fully processing extant multimedia and textual resources as well as
    developing systematic reference resources and cataloging indices
    needed across all projects, and generating supplementary materials
    as necessary from collaborating scholars in Tibet, Nepal, and
    potentially other Himalayan regions

-   Opening up Web-based partnerships on multiple fronts to finalize the
    intellectual, technological and organizational issues involved with
    such collaboration, developing basic foundational content across the
    Library\'s various domains, and building the communal scholarly
    network that will provide the basis for the Library\'s endurance as
    a premier international resource

This threefold process will go hand in hand with the expansion of the
model to be systematically implemented for Nepal and the broader
southern Himalayan zone as well with Cornell and other scholars and
librarians whose work pertains to the Himalayan region.

#### 

#### 

#### The content basis: Collections, Reference, Community, 

#### 

#### Tools and Education 

The digital library in our model is divided into five domains of
resources termed Collections, Reference, Community, Tools and Education
upon the model of the traditional library, but each redesigned to
reflect the transformative possibilities of a fully digital library.

\"**Collections**\" are the equivalent of the \"stacks\" in a
traditional library, and constitute its major holdings of texts, videos,
images, maps and other data that are at the heart of the library. Unlike
traditional libraries, however, these different forms of collections can
be accessed independently, as well as through a variety of integrated
presentations. Users of the library can thus search across all videos,
texts, images and so forth in the entire library according to various
criteria (place, theme, date, etc.), or they can consult specific
organizations of these resources constituting collections based on
thematic, spatial or temporal criteria.

There are four overarching types of such collections:

-   Environment and Cultural Geography Collections

-   Thematic Collections

-   Special Collections

-   Resources

All of these draw from the library\'s underlying full array of holdings
of texts, videos, images, maps and other form of data, but they
emphasize different structures and perspectives. In summary, the
\"resources\" are searchable databases of all the texts, videos, images,
maps and other objects within the library. These are then organized
according to theme or subject in the Thematic Collections - such as Art,
Music, etc. - which accords more or less with current academic
disciplines. The same materials are organized in an interdisciplinary
manner according to attributes of space and time within the Environment
and Cultural Geography Collections. Finally, there are also Special
Collections which present materials cohering by virtue of the creator,
such as a collection by a photographer or explorer.

Collections include the peer-reviewed and refereed *Journal of Tibetan
and Himalayan Studies*, which provides academic credit and a high
profile for major pieces of scholarship, as well as the facility for
them to reference and incorporate items from the library\'s multimedia
content and other databases. Articles are archived within relevant areas
of Collections for permanent access in conjunction with like resources.
Journal editions can be thematic in character, as well as broadly based.
Guest editors can take on responsibility for single editions, while
institutions can also host individual editions or even series of
editions.

\"**Reference**\" is the equivalent of a reference room in a traditional
library, where users can find bibliographical references, consult
dictionaries and so forth. It contains standard reference resources,
including a bibliography, encyclopedia, gazetteer, dictionary, web links
to other digital resources, and rosters of contemporary people and
organizations involved in the field. The reference resources will be
fully integrated with the collections, so that users at any point within
the Library can look up a term, person, place or movement. All reference
resources incorporate diverse media, and allow for extremely granular
contributions as well as extremely detailed contributions. In addition,
each is searchable by multiple criteria. The resources are all
collaboratively built by international teams of scholars over the Web,
and enhanced in an ongoing and daily fashion. Thus each area -
dictionary, bibliography, etc. - consists of multiple components and
projects managed by different scholars and librarians. For example, the
bibliography has a series of thematic bibliographies that can be viewed
separately or in an integrated fashion.

Bibliographical resources are provided in an online system that allows
various scholars and librarians to manage particular subjects. The
Encyclopedia project facilitates essay length studies of subjects
grouped into different classes, such as terms, individuals, places,
movements, and organizations. The places and times section provides more
direct access to place names and descriptive information about those
places, as well as chronologies and periodizations of Tibetan history.
The dictionary is an online lexical resource for colloquial and literary
Tibetan language. It aims to provide detailed documentation of the
historical occurrence of terms in diverse texts along the lines of the
Oxford English Dictionary. Community provides users with an interactive
roster of the community of scholars, students, librarians and archivists
in the field. These rosters include information about the scholarly
activities and publications of these figures for public searching and
consultation. Resource Links organizes information and access to other
projects and resources outside of the Library with a particular focus on
digital and Internet based initiatives, thus representing a type of
bibliography of digital projects. All resources are grouped together
under the broad rubrics of Community, Collections, Reference, Tools and
Education, as well as into subareas within each rubric.

\"**Tools**\" in the traditional library include interactive catalogs on
computer work stations, microfilm readers, photocopiers and so forth to
allow users to search and access its collections, as well as in limited
ways also compile their own collections of information. Similarly, the
digital library provides integrated software systems, tools and fonts in
general to enable users to work with the collections with search and
access procedures considerably more powerful than the traditional
library. In particular, though, the digital library goes far beyond the
limited traditional tools of a library in its enabling of users to
creatively interact with the digital collections and reference
materials, as well as generate new user-defined collections for their
own private purposes. The simplest level of functionality includes
extraction of images and composing sequenced slide shows on line, while
more advanced features are, for example, the ability to make HTML pages
drawing upon library resources, compile private dictionaries, create new
videos from segments of existing videos and so forth. This site also
provides a suite of Tibetan fonts along with software developed by the
THDL that enhances the use of these fonts both in word processors and on
the Web. Together these tools aim to help other projects and individuals
take advantage of technical work done by the Library, as well as provide
a way to facilitate communication, exchange, interoperability and
project building among all scholars, students and others interested in
Tibet and the Himalayan regions. In particular, the Library is committed
to developing digital tools to assist the teaching of Tibetan and
Himalayan languages, literatures, environments and cultures. The
evolving multilingual capacity of the digital library system also offers
the promise of a single integrated library that serves different
communities with distinct language bases, as well as promote
communication between them.

\"**Education**\" represents an innovative extension of the library into
a non-traditional space, namely the dynamic center of the classroom. The
Education area primarily publishes modules for instructional programs in
different areas of Tibetan studies, with a particular but not exclusive
emphasis on creative programs directly drawing upon the resources of
digital technology and the Web. These modules ultimately aim not only to
serve higher education, but also extend into the K-12 educational
levels. In addition, they aim to serve remote education needs of the
populace as a whole interested to further their knowledge for either
professional or personal reasons. The Education area also highlights
specific case studies and examples of student work in Tibetan studies
using technology. Finally, this area of the library also disseminates
elements of the Tools area that facilitate the incorporation of
technology, digital content, and Web resources into the classroom on the
part of teachers and students alike.

**\"Community\"** is the very center of the digital library. We thus see
the digital library as servicing a broadly conceived \"information
community\", and using knowledge to help create and sustain communities
that help bridge the various divides that characterize the world. We
believe one of the most central virtues of the use of digital technology
is its ability not only to transform creation of, and access to,
knowledge, but also in its extraordinary ability to transform the
communal basis and use of knowledge. Practically this involves the
creation of online community rosters allowing organizations and
individuals to maintain their own entries documenting their activities
and resources, the provision of discussion forum to promote
conversation, and an interoperability initiative aiming to facilitate
exchange between the major Web-based projects in Tibetan and Himalayan
Studies. Finally, we have built the project to be an international
network of institutions, and not simply the work of one or two
universities. This includes a wide range of Asian universities,
including Tibet University, the Tibet Academy of Social Sciences,
Tribhuvan University and others.

**THDL thus embraces a wide variety of projects**, each with independent
administration and institutional bases, but all agreeing to the basic
protocols and standards of THDL. The following is a highly edited list
of a few of the most important:

-   Immersive study of the **neighborhoods of Lhasa** using high
    resolution satellite imagery, architectural databases, videotaped
    neighborhood interviews, three dimensional reconstructions of
    buildings, ethno-historical documentation, and visual images

-   **Thematic research collection on scriptural canons** in Tibet using
    deep cataloging as an integrated front end to access scholarship,
    translations, editions and summaries of the texts in question

-   **Historical video and image collections** ranging throughout the
    Himalayan areas

-   New generations of **language learning materials** for literary and
    spoken Tibetan utilizing natural speech video shot in Tibet and
    delivered with software synchronizing video and transcripts

-   **Rich historical dictionary** of Tibetan language, itself
    integrating many diverse lexical projects

-   Documentation of Tibetan **medical, music and other cultural
    traditions** using video, images and text

-   Building a **Gazetteer** of Tibetan and Himalayan places

-   Extensive studies of **Nepali culture** with images, videos and
    ethnography

-   Online, interactive **community roster** allowing scholars and
    organizations to manage their own entries

-   **Discussion forum** with various target audiences

-   **Video, audio and image repositor**ies with powerful collection
    management tools

-   **GIS model** of the region integrating census data, environmental
    land use and other datasets

-   **Historical GIS** project

-   **Ethno-historical studies** of many other specific places using
    multimedia resources and textual documentation, including
    comprehensive study of one of Tibet\'s largest monasteries (Sera)

Our project involves **a number of different technical initiatives**.
The following lists some of the major ones -- please consult the Web
site or us directly for details on any of them:

-   Building support for use of **Tibetan fonts** in various digital
    contexts, including Java, HTML, XML, Word

-   Currently working on building Open Type **Unicode** Tibetan font

-   **XML DTD for Cataloging** Tibetan Literature

-   **XML DTD for Gazetteers**

-   Video-Audio **Workflow** and Presentation System for video-audio
    media and transcripts (currently in Cold Fusion, but being migrated
    in part to other technologies)

-   Java software named \"QuillDriver\" for creating **timecoded XML
    transcripts** of audio-video media

-   Java-Java script system for **playing video-audio with
    synchronized** with multilingual XML transcripts

-   **Flash-XML system** for dynamically displaying GIS data

-   Rich historical **collaborative dictionary infrastructure** based on
    MYSQL, Java and other technologies

-   Web-based XML system for **managing collaborative bibliographies**
    over the Web

-   **FEDORA** -- Flexible Extensible Digital Object Repository
    Architecture -- digital library system

-   **XML \"GDMS\" DTD** (General Descriptive Modeling System) for use
    in managing collections

### 

**UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN**

**The Portal to Asian Internet Resources**

Applicants

The General Library System of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the
University of Minnesota Library System and The Ohio State University

Key Contacts

Project Director: Edward Van Gemert, Deputy Director

General Library System, University of Wisconsin-Madison
\<evangemert@library.wisc.edu\> 608-262-0950

Project Manager: Wayne R. Hayes, Ph.D.

\<whayes@library.wisc.edu\> 608-262-5493

Cataloger/Database Manager: Matthew Appleby

\<mappleby@library.wisc.edu\> 608-262-5493

Information Processing Consultant: Dolores Sirek

\<dmsirek@wisc.edu\> 608-261-1407

Technology Librarian: Charles Dean, Library Technology Group

\<cdean@library.wisc.edu\> 608-265-2844

Project URL:
[http://pair.library.wisc.edu](http://pair.library.wisc.edu/)

Project Funding Cycle: October 1, 2002 -- September 30, 2005

Target Areas:

> Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan,
> Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
>
> East Asia: China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea (North), Korea (South),
> Macau, Taiwan
>
> South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives,
> Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tibet
>
> Southeast Asia: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos,
> Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore

Project Overview

Growing in strategic significance almost every day since the attacks of
September 11^th^, 2001, Asian information is essential to America, its
citizens and their vital interests. Indeed, at no other time in the
history of the United States has it stood in such dire need of
information -- and education -- on an area so misunderstood and
routinely ignored as Asia. A massive continent, with vastly divergent
peoples, cultures, histories and agendas, Asia has ever been a mystery
to the West. At the same time, however, it has also been an object of
curiosity and even wonder. With interest in all of Asia on the rise
across many sectors of American society, from business and industry to
the academy and the general population, the Internet has an unparalleled
role to play in informing a country and a people in need of accurate,
up-to-date and authoritative Asian area information. However available
and even prolific Asian information may be at this point in time, much,
if not most of it is in languages Americans don't comprehend. And even
when they can and do, there quickly arises a saturation point when it
comes to the laborious process of sorting through the dross to find
hidden online gems. To aid America in its efforts to better understand
and appreciate Asia, the PAIR Project has assembled an internationally-
recognized collection of annotated Web sites on Asian area subjects and
fields of interest.

To address America's immediate need for more profound and useful Asian
information, the General Library System of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, together with The Ohio State University Libraries and
the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Libraries, proposed to develop a
Portal to Asian Internet Resources (PAIR). Since its inception and
before, as a first-round TICFIA grantee, PAIR has offered users a solid
set of value-added records and services to improve access to Internet
resources from Asia -- in its vernacular languages. To support and
extend the Asian information needs of various user communities \--
faculty and students at the secondary and university levels, instructors
and students of less commonly taught Asian languages, business
professionals, and government officials, for example \-- PAIR employs a
three-pronged approach encompassing teaching, outreach and preservation
strategies.

> Teaching: By organizing Asian Internet resources in easy-to-use
> subject categories and regional access points. Equally critical,
> however, the project helps educate through online tutorials and
> workshops. The project also promotes the use and integration of
> language learning resources in teaching at secondary schools,
> colleges, and universities by providing access to online pedagogical
> resources across a broad spectrum of proficiency levels and topic
> interests.
>
> Outreach: Through current awareness modules, mediated online reference
> services, and area expert guest presentations, the project provides
> Asian studies outreach to various user communities, such as faculty
> and students lacking ready access to significant Asian library
> collections and Asian studies librarians, distance education
> instructors and learners, teachers and students of less commonly
> taught Asian languages, business professionals, and government
> officials.
>
> Preservation: By rigorously investigating preservation models and
> technologies and applying them to Asian Web site content, the project,
> in collaboration with peer research projects and institutions, hopes
> to provide long-term access to information frequently lost in a matter
> of months in the rapidly changing topography of the Internet.

PAIR\'s strategies to facilitate and improve access to Asian Internet
resources builds on the accomplishments of the Digital Asia Library
(DAL), which created an award-winning catalog of quality Asian Internet
resources evaluated and selected by Asian studies librarians,
bibliographers and area experts. As informed users quickly discovered as
they interacted with the DAL database, its catalog offered distinct
advantages over existing finding aids such as Internet search engines
and static collections of Internet links; however, additional methods
and services were needed to facilitate better and greater access to
Internet resources and meet the needs of specific user communities. The
professionally maintained PAIR catalog provides superior quality control
and deft, sophisticated search capabilities, something even the best
Internet search engines simply cannot do as they retrieve far too many
irrelevant, false or look-alike resources. Managed collections such as
PAIR's also provide access to resources of greater informational depth
-- such as journal titles, annual reports, working papers, and Web sites
of non-governmental and community organizations -- that are extremely
difficult to access without direct knowledge of their existence.
Further, the PAIR catalog and its suite of user services allows for
scholarly and intellectual collaboration, minimizing redundancy of
content and effort. Committed to maximizing user efficiency, PAIR
strives to render Asian information yet more accessible through
implementation of the following set of value-added enhancements to its
existing online presence:

1)  A browse interface offering geographically arranged subject terms
    based on a standardized classification system;

2)  Subject bibliographies on general subjects and particular topics;

3)  Instructional support through an online tutorials and workshops for
    faculty, students, and librarians providing assistance in using the
    Web site and introducing project practices to libraries and
    librarians;

4)  \"Current awareness services\" (electronic mailing lists) customized
    for specific

> user communities;

5)  Online reference service; and

6)  Archiving of Web sites to preserve their content, especially because
    of their often timely and transient nature

PAIR not only supports but positively affirms the call of the
Association for Research Libraries for a \"scholars portal\" providing
\"highly functional, dependable, and academically credible access\" [^1]
to Asian Internet resources for teaching and research. Unlike the
information.coms, PAIR not only provides access to quality resources
with informational depth but also services designed with consideration
of the particular needs of a broad range of potential user communities.

A well-developed plan and the considerable experience and expertise of
key personnel and participating institutions ensure that PAIR\'s
objectives are being met. Kenneth Frazier, the project's principal
investigator, is a leading figure in American research libraries, as
well as an internationally recognized leader in the application of
information technologies within major research libraries. The
Coordinators for Public Services and Information Technology have
extensive experience in administering, planning, implementing, and
evaluating public services and information technologies. PAIR's area and
bibliographic specialists are leaders in the Asian studies library
community and have been involved in administering national and local
Web-based information projects. Wayne Hayes, the Project Manager, brings
to PAIR a dynamic blend of experience and expertise in the provision of
online language learning resources. PAIR\'s Advisory Board includes
experts with ties to vast and highly varied user communities. Project
resource selectors draw on these connections as well as their own
relationships within the Asian studies and library communities to
develop services that dovetail with the needs of these groups.

To ensure that the project is aware of the needs of rapidly growing user
communities and is working towards serving them, PAIR conducts an array
of on-going assessment activities that provide both formative and
summative measurements of the effectiveness of its services. For
example, these activities include the compilation and interpretation of
statistics and transaction data on selection and cataloging of more than
7500 assiduously annotated Web sites, maintenance of information in the
PAIR database, and Web site usage; evaluations of project activities
through surveys and focus groups of user communities and of overall
dissemination, including surveys of users and non-users; and development
of a decision tree for determining Web sites for preservation as well as
evaluations of archived Web sites.

Finally, PAIR\'s implementation strategy includes multiple means for
disseminating information about the project, its collection, area
experts and user services. PAIR actively distributes information through
its Web site, current awareness and reference services, workshops, and
participation in panels at Asian area studies and library conferences.
Also, it notifies user communities by means of coverage in relevant
trade and professional publications, postings to appropriate listservs,
and press releases. Additionally, PAIR communicates and partners with
organizations such as the Center for Research Libraries, the Library of
Congress, the Association of College and Research Libraries, as well as
groups for Asian libraries and librarians, and other digital library and
online reference projects.

[^1]: Jerry D. Campbell, \"The Case for Creating a Scholars Portal to
    the Web: A White Paper,\" *A Bi-Monthly Report on Research Library
    Issues and Actions from the ARL, CNI, and SPARC*, 211 (August 2000):
    http://www.arl.org/newsltr/211/portal.htm