The SEALG Annual Meeting and Conference will take place in Frankfurt am Main on 28-29 June 2024 at J.W.Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main, Bibliothek Sprach & Kulturwissenschaften (BSKW).
In preparation of the SEALG Annual Meeting 2024, SEALG invites proposals for papers on three themes to choose from:
– collections, archives and library work as well as recent developments in the field of South East Asian Studies – acquisition, storage and access of born digital material – contested heritage and providing access to heritage communities
A paper presentation should not exceed 30 minutes (including time for questions / discussion). Paper abstracts should be no more than 200 words and must include a title, author’s name and affiliation, as well as contact details.
Please submit your paper proposal including abstract to Holger Warnk or Marije Plomp not later than by 31 May 2024. We encourage submissions from library and archive staff as well as from scholars and graduate students. Please help spread this Call for Papers.
The Annual Meeting will take place in hybrid form to allow colleagues who cannot travel to Frankfurt to participate.
The conference and annual general meeting of the Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG) took place in collaboration with CNRS / Maison Asie Pacifique at the University Aix-Marseille, on 15-16 June 2023.
It was attended by participants from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The first day, Thursday 15 June, started with a roundtable discussion of organisational news that was opened by SEALG chair Christophe Caudron and Louise Pichard-Bertaux, director of the Maison Asie Pacifique in Marseille.
The roundtable was followed by the annual general meeting, during which the minutes from the annual general meeting 2022 in Paris were approved, and financial matters following the stepping down of Margaret Nicholson as Treasurer last year were discussed. Next a question regarding the possibility to introduce membership certificates was raised and the attending members voted against the issuing of such certificates since the group has no capacity to carry out vetting. Christophe Caudron and Jana Igunma then gave an update regarding the migration of the SEALG website to a hosting platform that is free to use. All the content of the old website had been moved to the new site, except the section ‘Libraries’ which was still in progress of being updated. Plans have been made to improve the website and to make it more useful to researchers and librarians/curators working with Southeast Asian collections. The website is a ‘project in progress’. A link on the new website leads to the SEALG Blog which will be kept for the time being.
It was also discussed to find ways to secure good contributions for the SEALG Newsletter regularly. The participants agreed that graduate students could be invited to contribute, as it is not a peer-reviewed e-publication. To allow potential authors more time to work on their contributions, the Call for papers must be circulated earlier than in previous years. Other discussion points were ways to improve and intensify co-operation with the North American network CORMOSEA (Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia) and libraries in Japan, and the possibility of a joint online meetings or a joint online conference in the future.
Reports from the participants’ libraries included the following updates:
Recent completion of digitisation projects of Burmese, Cambodian, Javanese, Lao and Thai manuscripts at the British Library, London
Addition of original scripts to catalogue records of materials in Burmese, Lao and Thai languages, specifically back-transliteration of Romanised Burmese records with support of Aksharamukha at the British Library, London
Chevening project to research and catalogue manuscript textiles from Southeast Asia at the British Library, London, to be completed in September 2023
Provenance research related to an exhibition “Burma to Myanmar” with loans from the British Library to open at the British Museum in London later this year
Community event with a show & tell session for the Rohingya community in the UK to share knowledge about their history, held at the British Library in London
Development of a digital library of publications from Southeast Asia at the Maison Asie Pacifique, Marseille
Cataloguing project of a large donation of over 20,000 publications including many 19th-century materials from Thailand at the Maison Asie Pacifique, Marseille
Completion of the move of the Library of Southeast Asian Studies into the new building of the central library at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt
Conference on looted artefacts and repatriation was held at UCLA Library, Los Angeles
Community outreach activities that aim at informing different communities about the collections and engaging members of these communities at UCLA Library, Los Angeles
Planning of a future community outreach event with the theme ‘Diaspora’ to inform communities about the libraries collections with the aim to increase usage at UCLA Library in Los Angeles
Development of a new digital finding aid “Collection Guides” in form of a search tool that offers a full text search of 663 Collection Guides at the Leiden University Library
Trip of a delegation from Leiden University and the University Library to Indonesia for the purpose of networking and discussing cooperation in the field of education and research, during which a new cooperation program with the National Archives of Indonesia was signed
Three Lingling Wiyadharma fellowships started in 2022, and another three have been selected to arrive after the summer 2023 for a three-month stay in Leiden to carry out research in the Special Collections at Leiden University Library
Research and support for libraries regarding the application of existing and development of more UNICODE scripts for inclusion in catalogue records of materials in Southeast Asian languages; support with back-transliteration of Romanised catalogue records provided by Jennifer Wong, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco), Paris
Provision of advice for the development of an OCR method for the Digital Buddhist Library for advice on developing OCR for palm leaf manuscripts, Jennifer Wong, Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Inalco), Paris
Celebration of the 100th anniversary of the East Asia Department at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, with contributions of the Southeast Asia section to an anniversary publication and the lecture series „CrossAsia Talks“
Project to improve accessbility of Thai and Vietnamese materials at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, e.g. acquisitions from the 1960s and 1970s. Cataloguing of 500 Thai books with external support by the Thai Embassy in Germany , as well as cataloguing of a donation of approximately 280 Thai books from the collection of Heinrich Damm; online cataloging of futher 500 Thai and 200 Vietnamese titles has started
Project to sort and catalogue a large collection of newspapers from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, mostly in English and a few in French, and a small quantity in Thai and Myanmar languages at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Expansion of the collection of electronic resources at the Staatsbiliothek zu Berlin and revision and update of two large databases with over 18,000 digitised manuscripts: Digital Library of Lao Manuscripts and Digital Library of Northern Thai Manuscripts, which increased usage numbers drastically.
Finally, suggestions for the annual general meeting in 2024 were discussed. Suggestions included Amsterdam and Venice, with Amsterdam being the preferred option as the host city for the EuroSEAS Conference planned to take place in the city from 22-26 July 2024. Although a final decision about Amsterdam has yet to be taken, one idea for a panel has already come up: scripts and transliteration. It was suggested to await the Call for panels/papers and to discuss a final decision in an online meeting of the committee later this year.
In the afternoon session of that day, the latest research activities of participants were presented.
Maria Kekki, British Library, spoke about “Cataloguing Burmese Titles: The Burmese Script Conversion Project” highlighting work carried out at the British Library to add original script to approximately 20,000 existing catalogue records of Burmese materials.
Jennifer Wong, Associate researcher at ERTIM, Inalco, gave a presentation titled “Adventures with Myanmar Unicode – Challenges & Workarounds” concerning computerization issues faced by researchers working with Burmese, both in natural language processing and general research in Burmese, explaining specific details of encoding Burmese in Unicode, the subtleties of which can create confusion. She outlined some examples of the solutions she’s been using, such as error detection methods and online keyboards.
Christophe Caudron, Maison Asie Pacifique, Aix-Marseille Université, gave a talk on his ongoing research project “The Lao Archive Collected by Arthur J. Dommen. Contents and Valorization: First approach” giving an overview of the collection and approaches to analyse the contents and to catalogue the materials.
Next, Holger Warnk, Department of Southeast Asian Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt, presented his research on “The Collection of Professor Wilfried Lulei”, former Professor for Vietnam Studies at Humboldt University Berlin, which the library of the Goethe University Frankfurt acquired recently.
Marije Plomp, Leiden University Library, discussed new approaches to improving discoverability and accessibility of Southeast Asian collections at the Asian Library of the University in Leiden in her presentation with the title “Where to Find the Finding Aid? and Other Tales on Obstacles on the Users’ Journey”.
Jana Igunma, British Library London, and Noon Methaporn Singhanan, Chevening Fellow at the British Library, gave an overview on the “Chevening Fellowship 2022-23: Manuscript Textiles in the Southeast Asian Collections” which highlighted the discovery of rare and precious textiles in the Southeast Asian collection at the British Library.
Jade Alburo, UCLA, gave a talk on “Collection development of Southeast Asian and Asian American materials at UCLA Library” informing about acquisition strategies of Southeast Asian materials and increasing the involvment of and outeach to Asian American communities in collection development to increase usage.
Noon Methaporn Singhanan and Jana Igunma gave a talk on the “Chevening Fellowship 2022-23: Manuscript Textiles in the Southeast Asian Collections” at the British Library
On Friday, 16 June, the group visited the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (ANOM) in Aix-en-Provence. Isabelle Dion (Director), Sylvie Pontillo (Assistant Director), Anne Laure Vella and Bruno Poinas (archivists) welcomed the participants and gave an introduction to the collections related to Southeast Asia at the Archives, which was followed by a tour of the public areas where users can consult the archival materials. Afterwards, the group attended an outstanding show&tell session of selected archival materials related to the history of Southeast Asia during which the participants had the opportunity to ask questions about preservation and storage, collection management, digitisation and how to get access to these materials.
Display of archival materials relating to the history of Southeast Asia at the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer
After the visit to ANOM, the group travelled to the Blue Coast at Niolon where a final roundtable discussion gave participants the opportunity to network and to further discuss the presentations and talks from the previous day.
The committee of the Southeast Asia Library group wishes to express their utmost gratitude to the CNRS/Maison Asie Pacifique at University Aix-Marseille for their generous support and for hosting the conference and annual general meeting of the Southeast Asia Library Group.
Report by Marije Plomp and Jana Igunma
Excursion and Round Table discussion at the Blue Coast, Niolon
The SEALG Annual Meeting 2022 took place in Paris in collaboration with the 12th EuroSEAS Conference, 28 June to 1 July 2022. On this occasion, our group organised a conference panel with the title Southeast Asia Libraries between Open Science, heritage collections and ethical standards of custodianship, which was held on 1 July as part of the EuroSEAS Conference. The Annual General Meeting took place on the same day, following the panel presentations, at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), on the new Campus Condorcet, Paris-Aubervilliers.
The program on 1 July started with the SEALG panel which was chaired by Marije Plomp (Leiden University Libraries) and Jana Igunma (British Library). The theme of the panel was inspired by the fact that the foundations of European libraries holding Southeast Asian heritage collections are rooted mainly in the colonial enterprise. Both the collections and the accumulated knowledge about them bear the stamp of the values and beliefs of the European, nineteenth and early twentieth century collectors and scholars, whose assignments were inextricably bound up with the mission of the colonial state. Post-colonial voices from both academia and the broader society have exposed how some of these values have continued to influence the way European libraries manage, describe and present heritage material. As a result, some of these institutions have begun to critically investigate the make-up and provenance of their colonial collections, as well as the manner in which the collections are being managed. These endeavors have given rise foremost to policies directed at bridging the physical distance between heritage collections and the various stakeholders in Southeast Asia. Most libraries have begun taking measures to facilitate access to the collections and academic output through, for example, digitisation and digital collections, Open Access institutional repositories, research scholarships and facilities, and online catalogue tutorials, seminars and Open Access e-publications promoting the collections.
The panel explored these and other practices that can be taken up by libraries aimed at reducing inequalities related to access to heritage collections and knowledge production, next to other topics related to ethical custodianship. Topics for discussion included aspects of supporting Open Science and Open Access; opening up the collections for everyone, not just academia; providing free access to primary and secondary sources, independently from language/script, place of publication, peer-review, and format of publication; improving discoverability of material in non-European languages; critical re-evaluation of the language, scripts and standards used for cataloguing; heritage collection crowd sourcing projects; (re)discovery of collections; provenance research and acquisition transparency in the context of data protection and privacy legislation; optimization of the digitization process and projects; ethical issues arising from digitisation.
During two sessions, which were attended not only by librarians but also scholars and researchers, six papers were presented.
The first session was opened by Marije Plomp (Asian Library, Leiden University Libraries) with her presentation on “Bridging the gap: Managing colonial heritage collections, best practices and opportunities at the Asian Library”. With the transfer of the KIT and KITLV collections related to the former Dutch East Indies/Indonesia to Leiden University Libraries in 2013-14, the library’s Indonesia collection became the second largest in the world. A notable part consists of heritage material that was collected during the colonial period. In the last five years in particular, post-colonial voices from both academia and the broader society have called upon institutions holding colonial collections to critically assess their collections and the manner in which they manage them. Leiden University Libraries reacted with measures directed at bridging the physical gap between heritage collections and the various stakeholders in Indonesia. Marije discussed these measures in her presentation, as well as other actions directed more generally at accommodating Indonesian user groups and stakeholders in the library. Besides this, she looked into the best practices of other institutions that could perhaps be implemented at Leiden University Libraries.
The second presenter was Awang Azman Awang Pawi from the Academy of Malay Studies, University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, with his paper “From Malay to Malaysiana: Collection between Access and Preservation”. Since the establishment of University of Malaya (UML) of Kuala Lumpur’s campus in 1959, UML has been developing a collection of publications known as Malaysiana, which are technically defined as material about Malaysia published locally or overseas. The nucleus of the collection itself was inherited from a British colonial who initiated the field of Malay Studies at the UML in Singapore 1953. UML possesses a unique Malaysiana collection with research potential, however, in general the information about it is still superficial. Awang Azman Awang Pawi discussed the accessibility of the Malaysiana collection, as well as the preservation of the collection in the context of the Open Science concept. UML has started several digital initiatives to improve access to the collection for its users, alongside the library’s obligation to preserve this heritage collection. There is also a need for metadata and information enhancements of the materials in the collection to promote research and to encourage researchers from around the world to use this unique source.
The next speaker was Taufiq Hanafi, a researcher at the Royal Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) and the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden University, with his presentation “The Irony of Abundance: Open Science, Copious Resources, and yet Low Research Output”. According to recent research, with relatively low per-capita GDP, underdeveloped electronic text markets, and rapidly growing student population, Indonesia belongs to top users and largest downloaders of shadow libraries. It ranks second in the use of Library Genesis via the B mirror – after Russia – and becomes a major traffic source for data transactions. In addition, other channels for Open Science and data dissemination, such as the official mailing list group for Indonesia’s largest scholarship program LPDP and accompanying social media accounts, have a strong archival function and consistently address the lack of access to digital copies. In this regard, despite the seemingly-illegal nature of this mode of sharing, to date, Indonesia does not only have the ability to access knowledge but also to collect or even hoard. Nonetheless, Indonesia accounted for only 0.65% of academic publications in the ASEAN region and just over 0.2% of global publications, indicative of narrow engagement in science and a weak knowledge sector of the country. Taufiq Hanafi emphasized that his paper did not aim at negating the noble aim of libraries in the European setting at reducing inequalities related to access and opening up their collections for everyone, but rather questioned what can be done to address the issue of insularity in knowledge production.
Taufiq Hanafi presenting his paper during the first session of the SEALG panel
After a lively discussion of the first three presentations, the second session of this panel was opened by Jotika Khur-Yearn, SOAS Library, London, with his talk on “Digital Collections of Shan Manuscripts: Access, Discovery and Evaluation”. His paper discussed the digital collections of Shan manuscripts that have been made available for Open Access through digitisation projects with the support of generous funding from various organisations and institutions in the last few years. Through both Jotika Khur-Yearn’s participation in some of the digitisation projects and his own research interest in the Shan manuscript literature, these digital collections of Shan manuscripts have become treasure troves for exploration and discovery of rare literary material and information resources on various areas in the fields of humanities and social sciences as he illustrated with some examples in his talk. In addition to the digital collections of Shan manuscripts, he was also involved in a few projects to catalogue Shan manuscripts, and as a result he became aware of many more collections of Shan manuscripts that are still awaiting digitisation and preservation.
Jana Igunma from the British Library, London, followed next with her presentation on “The Thai tradition of manuscript copying and related curatorial challenges”. Until the introduction of printing technology in Thailand (then Siam) in the 1830s, the tradition and art of manuscript copying was one of the two main methods to preserve texts, the other being oral transmission by way of memorising texts. While some scribes and artists aimed to perfect their copying skills to produce luxurious manuscripts for the royal family, others explored ways to integrate their individual creativity and innovation with the process of copying, and yet others worked mainly for patrons who ordered custom-made manuscript copies for Buddhist ceremonies, rites of passage or personal use. For the curator or librarian working with Thai manuscripts certain aspects of the manuscript copying tradition pose challenges – especially in the context of establishing the provenance of manuscripts whose creators remain mostly anonymous – namely creation date/period of undated manuscripts, possible place of origin or art school, patron and purpose of manuscripts. Jana Igunma asked what the term “copy” means in the Thai cultural context, discussed problems that arise with the copying of colophons and art styles, and considered what constitutes the fine line between copy and forgery in the light of a revival of the tradition of manuscript copying in Thailand in the 21st century.
The final talk in this panel was given by Wahyu Widodo, Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Leiden University and Fakultas Ilmu Budaya (FIB), Universitas Brawijaya, Malang, on the topic “Whose Manuscripts are These? The Problems of Authorized Custodianships of the Exiled Clerics Manuscripts in the Nineteenth Century of Colonial Java”. In February 1886, accused of raising a rebellion against the Dutch colonial government, Mas Malangjoeda, a charismatic religious leader of the Banyumas-based Akmaliyyah Sufi order in Central Java, together with seventy-two of his loyal followers, was apprehended and sent to imprisonment in Buitenzorg, West Java. Shortly afterwards, he was tried in colonial court under the colony’s criminal law and exiled to Buru Island. To add insult to injury, the manuscripts on Islamic mystical teachings that he had authored were seized and brought to Batavia. With interference from Snouck Hurgronje, these manuscripts are now kept in Leiden University Library, coded as “notes of Malangjoeda” with Cod. Or. 7577-7588. Wahyu Widodo’s presentation aimed to investigate the detailed processes of the manuscripts’ acquisition by asking: Whose sinful hands were used to expropriate these manuscripts from their rightful owner? This aim is further problematized by the fact that the European library has treated these colonial loots with high regard, which suggest legitimate custodianship. Should these manuscripts find their way home through restitution, would they be treated with equally high regard and used to contribute to the knowledge production in the postcolonial country?
Q&A and discussion following Wahyu Widodo’s presentation during the second session of the SEALG panel
After the lunch break, the Annual General Meeting of the SEALG was opened by the group’s secretary, Marije Plomp. Members from France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US attended the meeting. Jana Igunma gave a short summary of the minutes of the last AGM 2019 in Leiden, which are also available on the SEALG website. Treasurer Margaret Nicholson informed the group in advance that, unfortunately, the financial report had to be postponed due to unforeseen circumstances resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic. There had been no expenses the previous two years.
The secretary received notifications from the group’s Chair, Doris Jedamski, and Treasurer, Margaret Nicholson, that they both wished to step down from their roles. This year, the election of the committee that had to be postponed twice due to the Covid-19 pandemic finally took place. Christophe Caudron was elected as the new Chair of SEALG, and the attendants of the meeting congratulated him to his new role. Jotika Khur-Yearn agreed to be interim co-treasurer to assist Margaret Nicholson until a new Treasurer can be found.
Jana Igunma presented the usage statistics of the SEALG blog which saw very good results in the previous year 2021, with 10,562 views in total. However, views for the current year were below average due to the fact that only four blog posts had been published so far. Generally, newly published posts, especially those with a topic related to heritage collections, trigger higher viewing numbers also for previously published blog posts.
Usage statistics of the SEALG blog for the past decadeby 30 June 2022
For example, the top five posts with the highest views during the past 12 months (as of 30 June 2022) were: An illuminated Malay Qur’an, A Treatise on Siamese Cats, Two early 19th-century Malay documents, Remembering the Black African Heroes of WWII in Burma, Buddhist manuscript textiles: Southeast Asia. The top ten countries from where the blog was accessed (all time) were the US, Thailand, the UK, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Myanmar, Singapore, Germany, Philippines which shows that the blog is reaching audiences in Southeast Asian countries.
The next points of discussion were General Data Protection Regulations which affect how we publish information on the SEALG website and blog. The challenge is to follow the regulations, while at the same time we have to fulfil the requirements of transparency and accountability in terms of leadership and how SEALG is run. Another issue that was raised was the cost of the SEALG website (domain name and file storage) which have increased recently, so that the group has to look at possible alternatives.
Last but not least, the attendees gave updates from their libraries, including new and ongoing projects, exhibitions, staff changes, significant new acquisitions, funding, fellowships, news from partner organisations in the US, the use of digital platforms etc. Details of the updates are included in the minutes of the meeting which were distributed to the members of SEALG. Various suggestions for locations to hold the AGM in 2023 were received, including Hamburg, Marseille and Venice.
Apart from attending the SEALG panel and AGM, members had the opportunity to visit two exhibitions that took place during the EuroSEAS conference: Remembering 1965 and its Aftermath and Yadeya & the Coup: Taking Action in Myanmar’s Revolution. In addition, there was a rich cultural programme to accompany the conference, including film screenings, concerts, and book prize award ceremonies.
The SEALG committee, on behalf of the SEALG members, would like to express their gratitude to the organizing team of the EuroSEAS Conference 2022 for their dedicated work and the excellent support given to our group, and especially for accommodating the SEALG panel and AGM!
Performance of Khmu musicians from Northern Laos at the EuroSEAS Conference 2022
In the past decade, various online tools and Open Source software that can be useful in Southeast Asian librarianship have been developed. This article looks at a selection of online tools that are available to help in areas like cataloguing and creation of Romanised versions of Southeast Asian scripts, text recognition, text and image annotation, date conversion, presentation and creative usage of digitised material.
Transliteration and Romanisation tools
Aksharamukha is a free online tool that facilitates the conversion between various writing systems that descended from the third-century BCE Brahmi script. It can be used for Sanskrit- and Pali-based Romanisation of many Southeast Asian scripts. In addition to the simple mapping of characters, Aksharamukha attempts to implement various script/language-specific orthographic conventions such as vowel lengths, gemination and nasalisation. It also provides several customisation options to fine-tune and to apply the correct orthography. Aksharamukha currently supports 120 scripts, including 40 extinct scripts like Ariyaka, as well as 21 Romanisationmethods. It is possible to upload images with printed text in any of the supported scripts, which the tool can process by way of automated text recognition and then can be Romanised or converted into any other of the supported scripts. A report on the conversion of Burmese script with Aksharamukha is available from the British Library. However, Aksharamukha is currently not yet suitable for the Romanisation of modern Thai and Lao scripts according to the ALA-LC Romanisation method. Aksharamukha was developed by Vinodh Rajan, a computer scientist and graduate in the field of Digital Paleography.
Screenshot of Aksharamukha displaying some of the supported scripts.
To assist with the Romanisation of modern Thai, the online transliteration tool Plangsarn offers a solution. This free tool, which is easy to use by inserting a Thai word or phrase into a mask and then convert it to the Romanised version according to the ALA-LC standard, was developed by Thammasat University Library, Bangkok, and the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC), a statutory government organization under the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Ministry of Science and Technology of Thailand. Problems encountered with Plangsarn are word/syllable separation and capitalisation, which can result in incorrect spacing within words and erroneous capitalisation of names or parts of names. For example, the conversion of the name “มหาวิทยาลัยมหาจุฬาลงกรณราชวิทยาลัย” resulted in “mahāwitthayālai mahā čhulā long kō̜n Na rāt witthayālai”, which acccroding to OCLC should be “Mahāčhulālongkō̜n Rātchawitthayālai”.
A free online tool for the Romanisation of modern Lao script is the Lao Romanisation converter, although it has its limitations since it does not support the ALA-LC Romanisation standard. The tool is based on the newly developed Romanisation system MoH 2020 which had been adopted by the Ministry of Health of Laos since 2020. In this system, each character corresponds to only one phonetic sound (with few exceptions). Diacritics (accents) and tone marks are not used, and short and long vowels are romanised the same. Geographic names are written in Roman script as a single word with only the first letter capitalised. The Romanisation is based on the Lao spelling reforms by the Lao government in 1975. The tool was initially developed for the Department of Planning and Cooperation, Ministry of Health of Laos, with the hope that it will be adopted as the national Romanisation system by the Lao government to mitigate the risks of the widespread “Karaoke” Romanisation of modern Lao script that is often used in social media.
Text recognition and annotation tools
Automated text recognition is becoming increasingly important in the work with manuscripts, not only among scholars and researchers, but also in the library world. Transkribus is a platform that uses machine learning technology to automate text recognition of handwritten and printed documents. By using a transcription editor to manually transcribe historical documents, members of the Transkribus community train specific text recognition models that are capable of recognising handwritten, typewritten or printed documents in any language. A pool of existing text recognition models is available for mainly European languages, which makes the process of training a specific model for an archive or manuscripts easier and faster. There are many models for non-western languages on Transkribus, but they are still mostly not available publicly. However, one can get in touch with the model creator/s and ask for them to be shared. Curators at the British Library have created a trained model on Arabic scientific manuscripts, for example. Transkribus was developed by the READ project. When the project ended, they have established a cooperative, the READ-COOP, a consortium of leading research groups from all over Europe headed by the University of Innsbruck, to continue the development and maintenance of the software and its community. Transkribus Lite is the web based instance of Transkribus. Users can upload documents, perform layout analysis, run text detection, and can experiment with their own digitised collection items.
Recogito is an online platform for collaborative document annotation with the aim to foster better linkages between online resources documenting the past. Recogito provides a personal workspace where users can upload, collect and organise source materials – texts, images and tabular data – and collaborate in their annotation and interpretation. Recogito helps to make research more visible on the Web more easily, and to expose the results of research as Open Data. An online tutorial explains in simple steps how Recogito can be used. For Southeast Asian librarianship the function of identifying geographical names within annotations as references to places and plotting them on a map, as well as the possibility to tag persons and events are useful functions to make connections between different sources in different collections. Recogito is an initiative of the Pelagios Network, developed under the leadership of the Austrian Institute of Technology, Exeter University and The Open University, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Date conversion
Southeast Asia librarians, cataloguers and curators are often confronted with various calendar or time recording systems that are used to date manuscripts, archival and early printed material as well as published books. There are numerous online tools to assist with date conversion, many of which are supported by adverts or religious contexts.
The website Ancient Buddhist Texts offers a selection of Buddhist-Christian/Common Era converters specifically for Buddhist calendar systems used in Thailand/Laos/Cambodia and Sri Lanka/Myanmar/India. In addition, it also provides date conversion for the Cūḷasakarat (Chulasakkarat) calendar. The Ancient Buddhist Texts website is maintained by the Theravada monk Bhante Ānandajoti.
A simple and advert-free tool for the conversion of Hijri A.H. (Islamic) dates and Christian (Common Era) dates is available from Islamic Philosophy Online, a website that was developed my members of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies at the University of Zurich.
A Javanese calendar (Saka era) online converter can be found on the front page of the website for Javanese literature, Sastra Jawa. This website is run by the non-profit organisation Sastra Lestari whose mission is to preserve and disseminate the literary works of the Indonesian archipelago.
Librarians and researchers working with manuscripts from mainland Southeast Asia often find themselves confronted with colophons mentioning dates according to the luni-solar calendar, like for example “eighth day of the waxing moon of the seventh month”. The website timeanddate offers a tool to calculate moon phases at any given place anytime in the past or future (not ad-free, but advertisements can be switched off). This website has been developed by Time and Date AS, a team of almost 30 programmers, designers, journalists, and administrative staff from four different continents based in Norway.
Screenshot of the timeanddate website displaying the moon phases of the year 1723 CE in Luang Prabang.
Presentation and creative usage
Digitisation projects of the past decade have resulted in huge collections of digital content that are accessible online via library websites. This has created the need to raise awareness, and to promote engagement and learning with these online collections. One useful free online tool is Exhibit, a user-friendly, fast, and responsive editor to create stories and quizzes with 3D models and IIIF-compatible high resolution images. Exhibit has a range of presentation modes including scrollytelling, slideshows, kiosks, and quizzes that can be embedded in websites or social media channels via an iframe. They can also be duplicated and remixed by users, which is perfect for online learning and classroom environments. Exhibit is supported by a group of the world’s leading libraries and museums and has a vibrant supportive community at its core. The tool was developed by Mnemoscene with the support of the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund. Initiated to meet the online teaching needs of The University of St. Andrews, it is now used by major organisations in the UK including The British Library, Bodleian Libraries, University of Cambridge and Royal Pavilion and Museums Trust Brighton. An example of an exhibit of the Vessantara Jataka with illustrations from a Thai manuscript at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, can be viewed by clicking on the image below.
Applications are open for the Asian Division Florence Tan Moeson Research Fellowship Program at the Library of Congress, Washington DC.
The Asian Division Florence Tan Moeson Research Fellowship Program is made possible by the generous donation of Florence Tan Moeson, who served as a cataloger at the Library of Congress for 43 years until she retired in 2001. Mrs. Moeson passed away on November 15, 2008.
The purpose of the fellowship is to provide individuals with the opportunity to pursue research in the area of Asian studies, using the unparalleled collections of the Asian Division and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The fellowships are for a minimum of five business days of research at the Library of Congress. The grants may vary from $300 to $3,000 and are to be used to cover travel to and from Washington, overnight accommodations, as well as other research expenses. All research trips need to be completed before September 15, 2023. Graduate students, independent scholars, researchers, and librarians with a need for fellowship support are especially encouraged to apply.
The fellowship application is accepted only via email submission of the completed acrobat application form and must be submitted by midnight Monday, January 16, 2023. For more details on the application process and contact information please consult the website of the Library of Congress.
Main reading room, Library of Congress. Image source: Wikipedia
Panel: Southeast Asia Libraries between Open Science, heritage collections and ethical standards of custodianship
The 12th conference of the European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS) will take place at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), on the new Campus Condorcet at Paris-Aubervilliers, France, from 28 June to 1 July 2022.
One of the panels is organised by Marije Plomp (Leiden University Libraries) and Jana Igunma (British Library) on behalf of the Southeast Asia Library Group, hoping to bring together librarians, archivists, area specialists, curators, and researchers. The title of the panel is “Southeast Asia Libraries between Open Science, heritage collections and ethical standards of custodianship”.
Panel Description The foundations of European libraries holding Southeast Asian heritage collections are found mainly in the colonial enterprise. Both the collections and the accumulated knowledge about them bear the stamp of the values and beliefs of the European, nineteenth and early twentieth century collectors and scholars, whose assignments were inextricably bound up with the mission of the colonial state. Post-colonial voices from both academia and the broader society have exposed how some of these values have continued to influence the way European libraries manage, describe and present heritage material. As a result, some of these institutions have begun to critically investigate the make-up and provenance of their colonial collections, as well as the manner in which the collections are being managed. These endeavors have given rise foremost to policies directed at bridging the physical distance between heritage collections and the various stakeholders in Southeast Asia. Most libraries have begun taking measures to facilitate access to the collections and academic output through, for example, digitization and digital collections, Open Access institutional repositories, research scholarships and facilities, and online catalogue tutorials, seminars and Open Access e-publications promoting the collections.
This panel wishes to further explore these and other practices that can be taken up by libraries aimed at reducing inequalities related to access to heritage collections and knowledge production, next to other topics related to ethical custodianship. Examples include supporting Open Science and Open Access; opening up the collections for everyone, not just academia; providing free access to primary and secondary sources, independently from language/script, place of publication, peer-review, and format of publication; improving discoverability of material in non-European languages; critical re-evaluation of the language, scripts and standards used for cataloguing; heritage collection crowd sourcing projects; (re)discovery of collections; provenance research and acquisition transparency in the context of data protection and privacy legislation; optimization of the digitization process and projects; ethical issues arising from digitization; opportunities of IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework); and digital and/or physical re-unification of archives and heritage collections that were split up historically. Papers can discuss theory, practices, cases or policy making.
Paper presentations on any of the aforementioned topics are invited from librarians, archivists, area specialists, curators, researchers and graduate students who are working with Southeast Asian collections. The deadline for paper proposals is 15 March 2022. If you wish to submit a paper proposal, please contact Marije Plomp or Jana Igunma before the deadline.
This year’s annual meeting of SEALG will take place in Leiden on Friday 6 July and Saturday 7 July in collaboration with the Asian Library Leiden. Early-comers who arrive on Thursday will have the opportunity to enjoy a “gezellige borrel” in the evening of Thursday 5 July.
As in previous years, we would like to have the presentation of selected papers on library and archive related issues on Friday, followed by the Annual General Meeting on Saturday. Therefore, SEALG invites proposals for papers on any theme relating to collections, archives and the library work as well as recent developments in the field of South East Asian Studies.
A paper presentation should not exceed 30 minutes (including time for questions/discussion). Paper abstracts should be no more than 200 words and must include a title, author’s name and affiliation, as well as contact details.
Please submit your paper proposal including an abstract to Doris Jedamski or to Holger Warnk not later than by 31 May 2018.
We encourage submissions from library and archive staff as well as from scholars and graduate students. Publication of a paper will be possible in the SEALG Newsletter which is online at www.sealg.org.
It would facilitate our planning enormously if you could let us know by email if you are planning to attend, and if you are planning to stay for the whole length of the Annual Meeting or only for one of the two days. A more detailed programme will be circulated soon.
Everyone will be most welcome and participation will not be restricted to library or archive staff.
More and more publications are being published worldwide. The last surveys show that within the 50 countries that publish the most, 5 are from Southeast Asia: #17 – Vietnam (24000+), #18 – Indonesia (24000+), #23 – Malaysia (18000+), #30 – Thailand (13000+), #35 – Singapore (12000+). Materials are being published, but are not necessarily easily accessible, for various reasons: small publishing company, small research center publishing its bulletin in a very small number of issues, geographical complexity, absence of bookstores that can cover an entire country/region, etc.
Furthermore, the process of building trust and cooperation with local partners can take a very long time. We all have our own connections and networks, but they might not cover all of Southeast Asia.
The aim of this workshop is to bring together all the actors concerned with Academic materials pertaining to Southeast Asia – publishers, librarians, scholars – to discuss how we could enhance access to these materials.
This workshop is planned to take place on 19 July 2017, just after the International Conference on Thai Studies (16-18 July) and before ICAS 10 (20-23 July) at the EFEO centre in Chiang Mai (École française d’Extrême-Orient, 131 Charoen Prathet Road, A. Muang, Chiang Mai 50100, Thailand). A library tour could be organized for those interested.
Tentative Agenda:
9:30: introduction
10:00 – 12:00: roundtable
12:15 – 13:30: lunch break
14:00 – 17:00: small group discussions on area subjects and e-resources
17:30: wrap up
For details and registration please contact Antony Boussemart at antony.boussemartATefeo.net.
Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG) 
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