Journal of East Asian Libraries, No. 148, June 2009

NCC in 3D:
CEAL AND THE NCC COMPARED1
Kristina K. TroostDuke University

This paper compares the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) and the North American Coordinating
Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC) in 3D – synchronically and diachronically. Originally written
as part of the planning for the NCC’s 3D (third decade) conference planned for March 2010, it examines theorigins and current foci of both organizations. Both CEAL and the NCC arose in response to increases in thedemand for library resources triggered by a dramatic expansion in faculty and programs. Both times
faculty were engaged in their creation, and foundations provided some of the financial support for theiractivities. As of 2009, however, they have carved out different niches. This paper will examine thedifferences between CEAL2 and the NCC in mission and structure, and assess the implications thesedifferences have for the future of the NCC.
The Council on East Asian Libraries is the fourth institutional expression of an idea conceived in June 1948
when, at a meeting of the American Library Association, a group of people interested in “Far Eastern”
libraries met to discuss problems of mutual interest and to form a committee, originally named theNational Committee on Oriental Collections in the U.S.A. and Abroad.3 The first issue addressed wascataloging; as Eugene Wu notes, “there were no national standards for cataloging Chinese, Japanese orKorean material. Every library was on its own . . . there was even disagreement as to whether the main
entry should be by author or title.”4
While librarians dealt with the cataloging issues, in the late 50s and 60s, faculty and librarians wereconcerned by the challenge of acquiring materials, particularly books published in China or needed for newcollections. CALFRE (Committee on American Library Resources on the Far East, CEAL’s immediatepredecessor) and AAS worked together to address this by establishing institutions to get books from Chinaand Taiwan; funding for these new organizations came from the American Council of Learned Societies andthe Council on Library Resources.5
Similar forces drove the founding of the NCC. It was a joint effort of faculty and librarians to address thechallenges posed by expanded needs for information, triggered by dramatic increases in the number ofJapanese Studies programs and the variety of fields that needed support. Yet while CEAL and the NCC
were both begun in response to structural problems, the causes were different. In the 1950s and 1960s,
East Asian libraries had faced structural difficulties in getting materials from China and Taiwan, but in the1

This paper was originally presented at the annual meeting of the NCC in Chicago, March 2009. It draws on myexperience as a member of CEAL from 1991, as President of CEAL from 2008-2010, and as the Chair of the NCC from1998-2000.
2For the history of CEAL, I am particularly indebted to two articles by Eugene Wu, “Organizing for East Asian Studies inthe United States: The Origins of the Council on East Asian Libraries, Association for Asian Studies,” JEAL, no. 110 (Oct.
1996), pp. 1-14; and Eugene Wu, “CEAL at the dawn of the 21st century,” JEAL, no.121 (June 2000), pp. 1-12. For an
earlier account, see Edwin G. Beal, Jr. “The Committee on East Asian Libraries: A Brief History,” Appendix I,Newsletter (Association for Asian Studies, Inc., Committee on East Asian Libraries) 41 (Sept. 1973), pp. 42-50.
3Beal, pp. 42-

4Wu, 2000, p. 3

5Wu, 2000, p. 5-6. Later the ACLS and the SSRC funded a study of acquisitions from China, and the Center for Chinese
Research Materials was established under the auspices of ARL with grants from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew Mellon
Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Journal of East Asian Libraries, No. 148, June 2009late 1980s, the structural problem was that the ability of outside funders, the Japan Foundation and theJapan United States Friendship Commission, to provide that support was diminishing at the same time that
more libraries were seeking support.6 Moreover, the types of libraries and faculty who needed materials
had changed. When CEAL and AAS had confronted the expansion of demands for access to information in
the 1960s, they had faced the challenge of helping major research universities build collections. By
comparison, the rapid expansion of Japanese Studies in the late 80s and early 90s went beyond research
universities and their libraries; the Japan Foundation’s study published in 1996 notes that Japanese Studies
programs had proliferated.7 There was a need to support Japanese studies specialists wherever they were.
Just as surveys had been made in the 1950s and 60s to assess the scope of the problem and identify
possible solutions, the Japan Foundation and the JUSFC undertook a number of studies and held
conferences to develop a plan for a new committee to address the needs for access to information about
Japan.8 A conference of faculty and librarians in June 1991 recommended the formation of a committee
which “would have to relate to CEAL but do more than CEAL; it must work exclusively on Japanesematerials. It must be multi-sponsored and have funding to be organized permanently in order to haveclout. It must include librarians from all tiers, as well as LOC (Library of Congress)” and “end users must
be on it.”9
The initial goals for the organization were to: “1) work with faculty and librarians in the field; 2) work
directly with funders; 3) help coordinate ongoing efforts at improving access to Japanese materials forfaculty and students in Japanese studies throughout the country; 4) develop strategies for resource sharing;and 5) establish means for cooperative collection development on a national level.”10
When one compares these goals with CEAL’s objectives as stated in the bylaws, there is considerable
overlap. CEAL’s objectives are: (a) to serve as a faculty-librarians' forum for the discussion of East Asianlibrary issues of common concern; (b) to formulate programs for the development of East Asian library
resources, bibliographic controls, and access; and (c) to improve and enhance interlibrary and international
cooperation in East Asian library development and services. 11
The most explicit difference is the connection between the NCC and the funders, the Japan Foundation andthe Japan United States Friendship Commission. In contrast to CEAL, not only were the funders involved inits conception, but they have also remained actively involved. And rather than establishing new centers topublish and acquire materials, the funding was used to create an organization to respond to changes ininformation needs. Rather than providing information, the NCC has facilitated access to information by

6

See Committee Activities: III. Report of the Subcommittee on Japanese Materials. CEAL Bulletin, no. 93, 1991, pp.
33ff. Dr. Gangloff said, “In the meantime, conditions affecting the libraries changed considerably. For example, thecost of books increased, the purchasing power of the dollar declined, technology advanced and the number ofapplications of the new technology for accessing existing collections increased. In 1990, the Commission was facedwith grave financial problems in funding. Consequently, the Commission reviewed the situation and made an initialdecision to shift from support for direct acquisitions to support for resource sharing in applications of technology.”
7“The number of institutions with a Japan specialist in 1995 [was] larger than the total number of Japan specialists in1970!” Quoted from Japanese Studies in the United States: The 1990s (Japanese studies Series XXVI), the JapanFoundation, 1996, p. 49, in Victoria Lyon Bestor, “The Founding of the NCC,” NCC Council Handbook, Section 1, p.1.
8Victoria Lyon Bestor, “The Founding of the NCC,” NCC Council Handbook, Section 1, pp. 1-4.

9

Cited by Bestor, p.2.

10Bestor, p. 2.

11

Quoted from current bylaws but the wording dates back to the 1980 revision of the bylaws which changed the second
objective from “for the improvement of library facilities” to the current focus on resources and access.

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Journal of East Asian Libraries, No. 148, June 2009teaching people how to find it, enhancing holdings in the U.S. while reducing duplication, and improving
access through interlibrary loan and digital licensing.12
There are other differences; the NCC explicitly must include librarians from all tiers, while CEAL was for along time dominated by librarians from the large collections. More importantly, the NCC has been focusedon defining user needs and developing programs to meet those needs. At the time the NCC was founded,
CEAL did not have a Public Services Committee, and user needs were assumed to be understood rather thansolicited. Even more importantly, by contrast with CEAL’s focus on its membership of East Asian librarians,
the NCC’s focus has been on faculty and students throughout the country, including those without a libraryor easy access to a library collection. The focus on “means” plus stable leadership has led toprogrammatic implementation, on building the institutions to enable cooperative collection development
over the long term.
To approach these differences systematically:
1.

Funding: Reliable and ongoing funding is the most significant difference between the NCCand CEAL; in particular, the funding for an executive director provided by the Japan United States
Friendship Commission has allowed the NCC to achieve many things: 1) the multi-volume setproject; 2) numerous training workshops for librarians and faculty alike; 3) negotiations with Japanon topics such as interlibrary loan, image protocols and digital resources; 4) the implementation of
the GIF project.
The executive director provides project management, office support,organizational management and public relations. He/she writes grant proposals, gathers
information, coordinates the activities of the NCC and its committees and in general, provides boththe day-to-day support and the broad vision that has enabled the NCC to implement its ideas. The
focus has been on flexible infrastructure support that can adjust to changing needs. While, as in
CEAL and AAS, faculty and librarians donate their time, such time is finite because all have fulltime obligations and serve for three-year terms. An executive director allows the NCC toaccomplish more, faster than it would without one, and has meant that it has continued to develop
new programs and undertake new initiatives while continuing the best old ones. Additionally thesupport from the Commission and, until recently the Japan Foundation, for two regular meetings ofthe NCC have allowed the NCC to do more, faster simply because it met twice a year rather thanonce a year. The amount that the NCC has accomplished since 1991 is remarkable, and is due inlarge part to the support provided by the funders for its activities, in particular, for an executive
director and biannual meetings of the council.

2.

Foundation support: The Japan Foundation and the Friendship Commission have provided
not only financial support but also connections, credibility and official standing. The JapanFoundation’s ties to the NCC have opened doors in Japan, and the NCC’s ties to the JUSFC and its
sister organization CULCON were of great benefit in the establishment of the Global ILL Frameworkand continues to facilitate work with Japanese organizations.

3.

National/International Focus: Another aspect of foundation support has been the focus onbuilding national collections rather than local ones. This was seen in the revisions to the JapanFoundation guidelines in 1991 and in the guidelines for the MVS project, which is funded by theCommission. As a result, there has been less duplication of titles throughout the United States,
while ensuring the availability of expensive research materials not easily obtainable from Japan.
The NCC provides a structure; librarians and faculty do the work, and the Commission makes it
possible.

4.

Faculty involvement: While CEAL was originally a faculty- librarian’s forum, faculty havenot been active participants in CEAL for over two decades.13 The NCC bylaws and history make

12

This difference is due, at least in part, to changes in the environment in which libraries operate. While in the 1950sand 1960s, there was no shared online bibliographic database to facilitate interlibrary loan nor was interlibrary loan as
efficient as it presently is–-both of these factors promoted duplication–-the NCC is increasingly operating in a digitalworld where information is widely shared and interlibrary loan is easy.

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Journal of East Asian Libraries, No. 148, June 2009

clear the important role faculty (and other end users) are to play: “The membership shallrepresent insofar as possible library and user interests, including representatives from currently
functioning organizations concerned with library and scholarly issues in Japanese studies, andlibrarians and scholars from major, as well as from second and/or third tier, academicinstitutions.”14 This active involvement of faculty has led directly to a number of initiatives,including access to NACSIS before there was NACSIS webcat, online reference (AskEASL), ILL in theU.S. and with Japan, the Image Use Protocol Task Force, and even the creation of CEAL’s publicservices committee. The MVS project, with its requirements for free ILL, letters of support fromfaculty and for publicity show a commitment to the involvement of end-users. Early efforts toexpand recon and current efforts at training have involved both faculty and librarians. As Sachie
Noguchi notes in her article on faculty involvement in the NCC, faculty “involvement has been vitalfor the NCC activities. . . librarians received a different kind of input from faculty while librarians
educated faculty about library functions and issues that they have not previously understood.”15
5.

6.

Membership: The NCC includes one representative from Japan, who has served as theofficial liaison between the NCC and the library community in Japan, as well as representatives
from the Library of Congress and ARL. By comparison, while members of LC have been active in
CEAL, and have occasionally served on various committees, this practice has not been
institutionalized, unlike the NCC bylaws which require such participation.16 The official roles ofthese members as representatives of various organizations has made it possible for NCC projects to
be national in scope and application. For example, because the charge for the Japanese
representative is as liaison to the library community in Japan, s/he has played an important rolebetween the NCC and various organizations, whether in establishing the GIF project or in thecurrent Image Use Protocol task force. The NCC also benefited in the past from ARL support on anumber of initiatives, most particularly the ILL initiatives. ARL garnered the support of library
directors and ensured the participation of interlibrary loan departments in the U.S.; it also
facilitated the discussions with OCLC on the adoption of the ISO protocol for interlibrary loan,
without which electronic communication between OCLC and NACSIS and payment through IFM
would not have been possible.17 These initiatives took national leadership and cooperation, andthe connection with various national organizations (ARL, ANUL, NII, NDL) was invaluable.
Areas of overlap: Similarities and differences

13The last faculty to serve on CEAL were Vivienne Shue who represented CIAC and Chae-Jin Lee who was appointed as
an at-large representative. At the end of their terms, Vivienne wrote a letter to the then Chair, Karl Lo, suggestingthat there was no need for faculty representation as “the flow of business between the two bodies” was very small,[emphasis added] and that “other area councils do not necessarily maintain representatives on the CEAL executivecommittee.” She continues that “…the two committees should approach each other freely and directly for
consultation, advice and coordination on and any all issues of mutual concern, as the need arose.” 31 July 1986.
14
Bylaws of the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources, last revised January 16, 2009.
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/bylaws.html. Accessed March 16, 2009.
15“Faculty involvement in the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC): The
Background,” Journal of East Asian Libraries, 124 (June 2001), p. 25.

16“…including at least three from major national associations with an interest in Japanese information, identified bythe Council as a whole, and originally including the American Advisory Committee (AAC) to the Japan Foundation, theAssociation of Research Libraries (ARL), the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL), the Northeast Asia Council (NEAC)of the Association for Asian Studies, and the Library of Congress, but not limited to those organizations.”
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ncc/bylaws.html#membership. Accessed March 16, 2009.

17
This project also benefited from the NCC’s ties to the JUSFC. The JUSFC is also the US Secretariat for CULCON, theUS-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange. In the past, the NCC has assisted CULCON with working
groups, especially the CULCON Information Access Working Group which has completed its work. The NCC’s Global ILL
Framework is an important bi-national collaborative project that grew directly from work through CULCON.

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Journal of East Asian Libraries, No. 148, June 2009a.

Training. For the past two decades, the NCC has assumed responsibility fortraining Japanese Studies librarians and faculty. As is still the case for the Chinese andKorean Materials Committees, training of junior librarians was once done by CEAL’sJapanese materials committee. The difference between CEAL and NCC training initiatives,
as I see it, has been partly one of quantity but more importantly of focus – the NCC has
required that all participants conduct workshops for faculty, not just at their own
institution but regionally or nationally. The focus has been a national one, targeted to theend user, not just the librarian.

b.

Digital Resources/Working with Publishers and Vendors. The presence of theNCC has led to a more systematic and national approach to these issues. A comparison
with Chinese and Korean Studies illustrates the benefits of one voice supported by nationalfoundations: Korean collections have the Korean Collections Consortium, which issupported by the Korea Foundation and modeled after the NCC; the KCC has negotiatedpricing for Korean databases that benefit any library interested in subscribing. Chinesecollections do not have a national organization, and each library or consortium must cut its
own deal.

c.

Programmatic Planning. CEAL operates on the basis of three year terms, and mostplanning is done on those cycles. This allows considerable autonomy to each chair, butassessment and long-term planning are often overlooked. By comparison the NCC had aconference in 2000 that looked both back18 and forward. Its goal was to identify new
directions for the NCC, and it is currently planning a conference for 2010, called the 3-D or
Third decade conference.

In sum, while the objectives of CEAL and the NCC have considerable overlap, there are significant
differences. While both organizations foster cooperation, for the NCC it is more than just cooperation.
The NCC is predicated on the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; the synergy gained
from cooperation allows the NCC to do more than any institution can do alone, and its activities have anational goal rather than a local one.
Over time, the NCC’s focus has changed from collection building to infrastructure support, and fromtraining librarians to creating programs for faculty and students that open the door to Japanese
information, but the common thread has been the development and implementation of projects based onuser needs, such as collaborations with vendors of digital resources and the owners of rights to visual
images for teaching, research and publication. Its charge is to be pro-active, to identify needs in thescholarly community and develop strategies to address them. Its official role as spokesman for North
American Japanese collections, the continuity of its leadership, faculty participation, and the ongoingsupport provided by the Japan United States Friendship Commission are central to its ability to achieve its
goals and are what differentiate it from CEAL.

18Kristina Kade Troost, “From Hoover to 2000: An Assessment.” Paper delivered at the Year 2000 Conference, SanDiego, March 6-7, 2000.

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