Minutes of the general meeting of the EAJRS closing the 16th conference of the EAJRS atLund.
1. Approval of the minutes of the 15th conference held in Salamanca, September 2004. Theminutes, as reproduced in Newsletter 13, are approved without alteration.
2. The board including Izumi Tytler, Hamish Todd, Peter Pantzer, Noboru Koyama, Annie
Troedsson, Willy Vande Walle and Paul Wijsman met informally on the first day of theconference to prepare the 17th conference and the general meeting of Lund.Kato Ruri, from theJapan Foundation attended the meeting as an observer.
3. Venue of the next conference
Ms. Laura Moretti from the University of Ca’ Foscari, Venice, has volunteered to be next year’s
host. The University of Venice is one of the two major centres of Japanese Studies in Italy. It
has good facilities, a committed and an expert host, who is familiar with Japanese resources.
Other strengths: possibility of visit to the Oriental Museum, and the ? book collection. Easy
access: flights into Venice.
The conference will not have a restricted special topic. It wants to give as comprehensive andfull a picture as possible of recent developments in the field of Japanese resources. It is hopedthat this will be attract the greatest possible number of librarians and resource specialists.
3. Funding
The Japan Foundation again agreed to fund the conference. We are very grateful for thecontinuing support.
5. Next year’s timing
6. Membership and how to widen it?
By appointing national representatives for each country. He/she would be responsible toidentifying and contacting new prospective members. We will post the names and possibly a
short introduction of these representatives on the website. Prof. A. Falero for Spain, Antony
Boussemart for France and Sergio Levi for Italy have been asked to stimulate participation in
their respective countries.
7. Publication of the proceedings in full text on the portal site.
Proposal by the chairman:
All participants are requested to hand in a text to be put on the portal site with restricted access.
This text preferably would be the text of their presentation plus the handout, or a merged
version of the two. If the handout is detailed enough it can be the handout alone. In the final
analysis it is left to the individual to decide what he/she will send in, but it is important that wehave the text in electronic version. The password will be very straightforward, such as e.g.
“Salamanca”, so that every participant can access it easily and also others close to him/her orcolleagues find it easy to access. It will thus have a readership of about hundred or hundred fifty
persons. Posting under this semi-closed regime will run from end of October to end of January
next year. Corrected and edited versions will be sent in by early January and will be put openly
on the portal without any password at the end of January. The reproduction of images or othergraphic material may involve problems of copyright. In the final analysis it is up to the author toclear these problems, and decide what images he/she wants to include, but Hans Coppens will
look into the matter so as to give some guidance to the authors. As long as the texts remain
under restricted access, it is not likely that serious problems will arise.
9. Nacsis-Webcat Union Catalogue of Japanese Books in European Holdings
Izumi K. Tytler gives a brief progress report. She regrets she has been unable to make steadyheadway, due to the absence of a German library forum taking the lead in their NACSIS-CAT
implementation, and also shortage/turnover of staff at some libraries. Nevertheless through thegood offices of Ms Mariko Adachi of Zurich, who has contacted individual members of theArbeitskreis Japan-Bibliotheken group (those using the NACSIS-CAT), 8 out of 11 have sent
their consent.
For further European involvement, there remain to be overcome a wide range of impediments
though, it is hoped more colleagues, such as those from France who are planning to create aunion catalogue, would be able to participate in this collaborative effort, by adopting theNACSIS-CAT database.
A fuller text about the background to this initiative is appended to these minutes.
10. Report from the secretary
51 participants were present at 15th Annual Meeting of the EAJRS during September 22 to 25,
2004: fifteen persons from Spain, nine from Japan, six from the United Kingdom, four from
Sweden, four from the United States, three from France, three from Belgium, two fromGermany, two from Holland, one from Austria, one from Italy, one from Russia.
During the Meeting a record of 27 papers were presented, five in Japanese, 22 in English.
Sixteen papers dealt with the special topic of the meeting: “Japan and Spain: Resources forStudy”.
11. Conclusion
In terms of the number of participants and of papers the conference may be considered a realsuccess. Also the number of papers on the special topic was beyond expectation. We hope thatthe conference will have made a small contribution to the further development of JapaneseStudies in Spain.
The chairman thanks all participants and expresses his gratitude to the following persons fortheir great contribution to the success of the Salamanca conference:
Mr. Annie Troedsson, the local organiser, for the arrangements she made,Prof. R. Greatrex for his hospitality and support
Paul Wijsman for his excellent work as a secretary,Hans Coppens for the logistical support.
On behalf of all the participants of the 15th Annual Meeting, Mrs Izumi Tytler expresses hergratitude to prof. Vande Walle for his excellent chairmanship during the Salamanca conference.