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.
A six-year collaborative research program in global and diplomatic history that investigates the often overlooked role of international treaties in imperial expansion is currently being hosted by Linnaeus University in Kalmar and Växjö, Sweden. Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia is a project to systematically analyse all of the approximately one thousand bilateral treaties concluded between a European, American or Japanese imperial power on the one hand, and a Southeast Asian state or sovereign on the other hand, from the middle of the eighteenth to the early twentieth century. The project aims to develop new ways of understanding the causes and effects of colonialism in Southeast Asia and beyond. The program started in 2022 and runs for six years, until the end of 2027. The core research team consists of historians from Europe and Southeast Asia, and research assistants.
The program organises a conference and several online seminars this year, starting with a Conference on Treaty-Making and Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in Asia (16th-20th centuries) on 29/2/2024-2/3/2024 in Manila. Details about the upcoming online seminars and registration can be found on the project’s events page.
Presented on the project website are also news and blog posts summarising research activities of members of the project team, conference reports and related topics, as well as publications most of which can be accessed freely online. The program also offers research opportunities for guest researchers, graduate students and people with particular language skills.
The Association of Southeast Asian Studies announced that their 32nd Annual Conference will take place at Universitas Indonesia, 27–30 November 2023. This is the first ASEAS conference to be held in Southeast Asia and it will take place at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Indonesia, Depok. It will be a hybrid conference with online panels taking place on 27 November and in-person events on 28–30 November.
Proposals for panels and papers on any subject in Southeast Asian Studies are now invited for this upcoming conference. ASEAS particularly welcomes submissions from Southeast Asia-based scholars and proposals that would develop cross-disciplinary collaboration. Multimodal presentations suitable for the online environment and proposals for screenings of documentaries or fiction films from Southeast Asia are also welcome. The deadline for proposals is 15 September 2023.
Submission guidelines, contact details and detailed information about the venue, accommodation, registration, fees and ASEAS membership can be found on the ASEAS website.
Universitas Indonesia, Depok campus, one of the greenest campuses in Indonesia. Source: ResearchGate
Since 2004, the Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) has helped to preserve cultural heritage and to make it available globally to as wide an audience as possible. To achieve this, grants are provided to digitise and document archives that are at risk of loss or decay, and which are located in countries where resources and opportunities to preserve such material are lacking or limited. ‘Archives’ refers to materials in written, pictorial or audio formats, including manuscripts, rare printed books, documents, newspapers, periodicals, photographs and sound recordings. The material can date from any time before the middle of the twentieth century, though archives that cross over to some extent into the second half of the twentieth century may be accepted if the majority of the material is earlier. One of the key principles is that the original material remains in the country in which it is located. EAP projects create digital material in a format that facilitates long-term preservation, and at least two copies of these are stored: a primary copy that remains at an appropriate repository in the country of origin, and a secondary copy held at the British Library and made available freely on the EAP website. Thanks to generous funding from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, EAP has provided grants to several hundred projects in over ninety countries worldwide, in more than a hundred languages and scripts. In this blog post, we introduce six recently completed EAP projects in Southeast Asian countries that provide access to manuscripts and archival materials relevant to research in the field of Southeast Asian Studies.
Identifying and Digitising Eastern Salient Manuscripts of Java (EAP1334)
The project identified and digitised 97 Eastern Salient manuscripts of Java, in 24 collections located in Banyuwangi, Jember, Bondowoso, Situbondo, and Lumajang. They are written in Arabic, Perso-Arabic, Carakan, and Javanese scripts. Data on the contents, subjects, custodial history and original location of the manuscripts were recorded. In many cases, also biographical data of the manuscripts collectors or owners were added to the item descriptions. The contents of these manuscripts cover aspects of pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), religion, history, culture, metaphysics, etc. Due to the vulnerability of the manuscripts, they were digitised by being photographed on location. This project was carried out by Mrs Wiwin Indiarti in collaboration with Universitas PGRI Banyuwangi and Library of Universitas PGRI Banyuwangi. For this pilot project, a grant of £12,795 was awarded in 2021. The digitised manuscripts and a short promotional film can be accessed on the EAP1334 project page.
EAP1334 Digitisation training, November 2021
Personal Manuscripts on the Periphery of Javanese Literature: A Survey and Digitisation of Private Collections from the Javanese North Coast, its Sundanese Hinterlands and the Fringes of Court (EAP1268)
In this project 399 items in 22 collections were digitised. These materials highlight the periphery of Javanese and Sundanese literature and provide insights into the more personal sides of Javanese and Sundanese writing. They cover tales written by scribes residing near shrines, administrative handbooks, notebooks and recipe books scribbled by commoners and works produced by courtiers on their own behalf without apparent patronage from nobles or sovereigns. Their vernacular provenance increases their obscurity and simultaneously limits their preservation due to a lack of patrons. This project was carried out by Mr Simon Carlos Kemper in cooperation with University Gadjah Mada and MAIS archival systems Indonesia. For this pilot project, a grant of £15,057 was awarded in 2019. The digitised manuscripts can be accessed on the EAP1268 project page.
Survey, Preservation and Digitisation of Palm-leaf Manuscripts (lontar) in Private Collections of Bali and Lombok. (EAP1241)
The main outcome of this project has been the digitisation and cataloguing of about 100 lontar manuscripts of the private collection of Balinese man of letters Ida Dewa Gede Catra, which until 2021 were stored in the premises of the Museum Pustaka Lontar Dukuh Penaban (Karangasem, East Bali, Indonesia). The project has also surveyed nine private collections of manuscripts in Bali and five collections in Lombok, gathering information about the extent, history, and state of the material, and putting into effect basic conservation interventions on the manuscripts. 29 manuscripts from the Balinese collections and seven manuscripts from the collections in Lombok were digitised and catalogued. A significant achievement of the project has been in the domain of knowledge-transfer, through the training of a team in Bali that is now able to work independently on the identification, preservation, cataloguing, digitisation and permanent digital storage and retrieval of palm-leaf lontar manuscripts. Equally importantly, this project has contributed to raise the awareness among the owners of manuscripts as well as the general population in Bali and Lombok about the importance of this fragile heritage that forms an important part of the literary and cultural life of Bali and Lombok, and about the need to not only preserve it, but also make it more accessible to interested parties both locally, nationally, and worldwide. This project was carried out by Dr Andrea Acri together with the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), PSL University and National Library of Indonesia. For this pilot project, a grant of £14,000 was awarded in 2019. The digitised manuscripts can be accessed on the EAP1241 project page.
EAP1241 Inspecting manuscripts in Karangasem
Survey of Lao Manuscripts in Vientiane and two neighbouring provinces (EAP1319)
The project surveyed the manuscript holdings of 166 temples within Vientiane using data from previous surveys as a baseline to investigate changes. As anticipated based on prior isolated inspections, the project confirmed that significant manuscript losses had taken place over the past 20-35 years (depending upon the date of the previous surveys). The overall findings show that out of total of 21,383 manuscripts based on previous survey records, only 12,457 remain in 2022, i.e. the number of manuscripts lost is 9,179 or 42.93% of the expected total. The overarching reason for this very significant loss are lack of care, compounded by termites, rain damage, fire, etc. This project highlighted the need to reconsider existing policies and practices for manuscript preservation in Laos. In addition to a detailed comparison of previous records with current holdings, the project also built on the basic manuscript catalogue data to include information at the repository level, conservation data, records of microfilming or digitisation, contact details of resource persons for the production and use of manuscripts, a photographic record of conditions before and after preservation work, and causes of manuscript loss. The resulting database provides the foundation for a comprehensive ‘national database of Lao manuscript cultures’ to be used as a tool for future preservation, digitisation, and research efforts. A sample of 28 manuscripts from four locations were digitised during the survey project, with dates from 1770 to 1973. This project was carried out by Dr David Wharton in collaboration with the National Library of Laos. For this major project, a grant of £55,070 was awarded in 2021. The surveys and 28 digitised manuscripts can be accessed on the EAP1319 project page.
EAP1319 Manuscript survey in Vat That Khao temple, Vientiane, Laos
Digital Library of the Lanten Textual Heritage – Phase II (EAP1126)
This project continued the digital preservation of manuscripts of the Lanten ethnic group in North Laos that began in a previous EAP project (EAP791). The follow-up project identified a larger number of manuscripts than the ones initially listed to be preserved; it also discovered seriously threatening conditions. The targeted manuscripts contain the information enabling shamans and priests to engage Daoist Deities in the rituals that ensure the continuity of the Lanten society’s socio-cosmological order. The depletion of this corpus following the political and economic turmoil after the Indochina War and the establishment of the centralised socialist Lao State have been affecting the social foundations of this society. This project, which was carried out by Dr Helene Basu in cooperation with Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster and the National Library of Laos, catalogued and digitised 1352 manuscripts in 44 collections. For this phase-II project, a grant of £27,500 was awarded in 2018, and the digitised manuscripts are accessible via EAP1126 project page.
EAP1126 Manuscript owner in Luang Namtha, Laos
Recalling a Translocal Past: Digitising Thai-Mon palm-leaf manuscripts (EAP1123)
The Mon people of Thailand and Burma were regional cultural and religious intermediaries and supported a palm leaf manuscript tradition into the 1920s. Although there are important collections of such manuscripts in Thailand, no official Thai body has ever digitised these manuscripts. Among them are texts unknown in Burma, which are key to understanding recent history and the Mon role in intellectual history. The collections have been exposed to various hazards, like vermin and flooding. Disinterest has also led to damage and loss. Today, young Thai people with Mon ancestry are interested in their heritage and the need to preserve these collections became urgent. Over the course of two months (January to March 2019), the research team gathered the names of some 28 Mon temples/collections in and around Bangkok. This was done by word of mouth from the initial temples visited and through conversations with local experts. Of the 28 temples, a total of 25 were visited; the remaining three were far away from Bangkok in places like Chiang Mai, some 400 miles north. Six temples did not have, or no longer had, Mon-language manuscripts. A survey was produced and 48 manuscripts in six collections were digitised. This project was carried out by Dr Patrick McCormick in collaboration with SEA Junction (Southeast Asia Junction) and Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre. For this pilot project, a grant of £11,463 was awarded in 2018. The catalogued records and digitised manuscripts can be accessed on the EAP1123 project page. A major follow-up project “Recalling a trans-local past: digitising Mon palm-leaf manuscripts of Thailand. Part 2 (EAP1432)” is currently underway.
The Endangered Archives Programme continues to offer approximately 30 grants each year to enable researchers to identify and preserve culturally important archives through digitisation. Applications open usually in September every year. The website also offers free access to useful resources and guides to assist with applications and the methodology of successfully carrying out digitisation projects. An immersive yet informative video (14 min) on the important work carried out in projects of the Endangered Archives Programme is available on the EAP blog.
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
The annual meeting of the Southeast Asia Library Group is taking place on 1 July 2022 at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Campus Condorcet, Paris-Aubervilliers. It has been organised in cooperation with the 12th conference of the European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS) which will be held from 28 June to 01 July 2022 at the same venue.
On this occasion, a conference panel has been organised on behalf of SEALG with the title “Southeast Asia Libraries between Open Science, heritage collections and ethical standards of custodianship“, to be held in two sessions on 1 July 2022, prior to the annual meeting.
Paper presentations in the panel include:
Bridging the gap: Managing colonial collections, best practices and opportunities at the Asian Library, Leiden University Libraries (Marije Plomp, Leiden University)
From Malay to Malaysiana: Collection between Access and Preservation (Awang Azman Awang Pawi, University of Malaya and Haslan Tamjehi, University of Malaya)
Researchers archives online and Open Science diktats (Louise Pichard-Bertaux, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
The Irony of Abundance: Open Science, Copious Resources, and yet Low Research Output (Taufiq Hanafi, Leiden University)
Digital Collections of Shan Manuscripts: Access, Discovery and Evaluation (Jotika Khur-Yearn, School of Oriental and African Studies/University of London)
Searching for ‘the real’ Doctor William Bosch in the Dutch colonial collections (Rupalee Verma, Delhi University)
The Thai tradition of manuscript copying and related curatorial challenges (Jana Igunma, British Library)
Whose Manuscripts are These? (The Problems of Authorized Custodianships of the Exiled Clerics Manuscripts in the Nineteenth Century of Colonial Java) (Wahyu Widodo, Leiden University/Universitas Brawijaya)
Visitors are welcome to attend the panel. Registration is still possible through the EuroSEAS website which will give access to the entire programme of the conference, including all panels, roundtables, film screenings, book prize, special events etc . The annual meeting of SEALG is open to members only. For more information please get in touch via the SEALG website.
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.
The European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS) will hold its 12th conference at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), on the new Campus Condorcet, Paris-Aubervilliers, France, from 28 June to 1 July 2022.
EuroSEAS invites scholars and PhD students from all academic disciplines with an interest in Southeast Asia to submit panels that explore relevant research topics from an interdisciplinary perspective as well as discuss theoretical and methodological aspects of research generated in the field of Southeast Asian Studies.
Proposals are invited for classical panels, roundtable discussions, laboratories that would develop cross-disciplinary collaboration, and for screenings with academic discussion of documentaries or artistic movies on various topics from Southeast Asia. More experimental formats are also welcome.
The deadline for sending proposals for panels, roundtable discussions, laboratories, screenings with academic discussion or alternative formats (for example book forums) by email to euroseas@kitlv.nl is 3 December 2021. The selection committee preserve the right to advise on how to strengthen less clearly articulated proposals or on possible merges of similar panel proposals.
Exhibition on Occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Maison Asie-Pacifique in Marseille, December 9 to 19, 2019 – Now Virtual
Organized by the Maison Asie-Pacifique in Marseille, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, and on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the CNRS (the French National Centre for Scientific Research), the exhibition “Asia – Pacific: Research Routes” pays tribute to the research work carried out from India to Easter Island by members of the Institut de recherches asiatiques (IrAsia) laboratories and Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l’Océanie (CREDO), and highlights the very specific and complementary skills of all research assistance professions at Maison Asie-Pacifique. By reflecting on themes developed by the IrAsia laboratories with regard to the different regions of Asia and the Pacific – history, anthropology, the study and translation of Asian literatures, etc. – the exhibition offers a closer look at the activities of the Maison Asie-Pacifique. Resulting from this collaborative endeavor involving the pooling of knowledge and know-how of all participants, the exhibition invites you to travel (virtually), to explore and to learn about the work of others.
The contribution of the head librarian of the Asia library at the Maison Asie-Pacifique consisted in the collective development of the exhibition, in supporting researchers on Asia according to their research areas, in the production of the various thematic posters (choice of themes, proofreading and corrections) as well as a summary of thematic bibliographies.
Posters concerning South East Asia in the exhibition:
The Irrawaddy, birthplace and fulcrum of Burma [L’Irrawaddy, berceau et pivot de la Birmanie]
City and literature in Thailand [Ville et littérature en Thaïlande]
Pencak and Silat: Malayo-Indonesian martial arts [Pencak et Silat : les arts martiaux malayo-indonésiens]
Transmission of shamanic knowledge among the Lebbo’ of East Kalimantan, Indonesia [Transmission du savoir chamanique chez les Lebbo’ de Kalimantan Est, Indonésie]
The petroglyphs of Sapa, Lào province, Vietnam [Les pétroglyphes de Sapa, province de Lào, Viêt Nam]
Ethnic tourism on Chinese borders [Tourisme ethnique aux frontières chinoises]
Cosmopolitanism: migration dynamics in Southeast Asia [Cosmopolitisme : dynamiques migratoires en Asie du Sud-Est]
Migration in Southeast Asia: growth and feminization [Les migrations en Asie du Sud-Est : essor et féminisation]
Vietnam, land of migrants [Le Vietnam, terre de migrants]
Southeast Asia is not the only region represented in this exhibition. Altogether 51 posters (with text in French language) expose a variety of exciting themes from across Asia. While the physical exhibition was open for only a short period in December 2019, it can now be viewed online to make it accessible to a wider audience, especially at a time when travelling is very restricted due to the corona virus pandemic.
(Report by Christophe Caudron, Maison Asie-Pacifique, Marseille)
With over 100,000 volumes, the Southeast Asia Collection of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is the most extensive collection of its kind in Germany and one of the most important Southeast Asia collections worldwide. The collection includes publications from all eleven Southeast Asian countries. In addition to a wide range of western language literature on these countries, extensive holdings of original-language literature and more than 2,000 Southeast Asian manuscripts are particularly noteworthy.
Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG) 
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