v.5, no.3, Sum 2000

Table of Contents:

1. President’s Message 
2. Summary of Membership Activities (1999-2000) 
3. Membership News 
4. Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council Chairwoman Cossette Sun 
5. Contents of AALLC Time Capsule 
6. Letter to AALLC members in 2025. 
7. Minutes of FCIL-SIS Asian Law Working Group Meeting 
8. Recent Publications on Japanese Law 
9. Words from the Editor

AALLC's greatness is its members. It is through the contributions of so many AALLC members that the Philadelphia AALL Annual Meeting was such a success from an AALLC perspective. We had members (1) presenting at official programs (John Lai, Joan Liu, and Wei Luo), (2) speaking at the AALLC Post-Business Meeting Session (Bill McCloy and Heija Ryoo), (3) serving on the AALL Executive Board (Cossette Sun and Frank Liu) and (4) otherwise contributing in numerous capacities so that others could benefit from their expertise.

The Caucus has been under superb leadership the past year with Wei Luo as President. It was his foresight to keep the business meeting brief enough to allow sufficient time for the session on Careers in Middle Management. Thank you to Wei for a wonderful year. The Caucus also owes its thanks to Bob Hu for his service as Secretary/Treasurer. During his term, the AALLC has prospered. Great job, Bob. Although the Annual Meeting is but once a year, due to the ongoing efforts of Hua Li, we have a fine newsletter to keep us up-to-date on Caucus activities and member news throughout the year. Thank you, Hua. I am grateful to Pin-sheng Hisao who has volunteered to be the new editor of the newsletter, succeeding Hua. I am sure you all will give her your full support.

This year will bring new challenges and I look forward to any comments or suggestions about any of the following:

1. It is hard to believe, but it is almost time to start scheduling the Annual Business Meeting in Minneapolis. I know that almost all timeslots will conflict with something, but I hope to avoid having the AALLC Business Meeting conflict with the FCIL-SIS Business Meeting and the Committee on Diversity Meeting. I will work with the heads of those two groups to avoid a conflict in Minneapolis. Are there other groups whose interests so parallel those of our membership that we should make an effort to avoid conflicting with them as well? Please let me know.

2. AALLC has a tradition of excellent programming at the business meeting. We have had Paul Fu and Frank Liu speak on Career Development and Bill McCloy and Heija Ryoo speak on Careers in /Middle Management. It is already time to start planning the session for the AALLC Business Meeting in Minneapolis. Please contact me or Mila Rush, President-Elect and Chair of the AALLC Program Committee if you have any ideas for this session. The topic will be announced in the next President's column.

3. Serving on an AALLC committee is a great way to get involved in and contribute to AALLC. We are looking for members for the Membership & Recruiting, Mentorship, or Publicity committees. All committee membership rosters will be set in the next few months, so please let me know soon if you would be willing to serve on any of these committees.

Thanks again to all of you for such a successful year and I look forward to the promising year ahead. 

Although AALLC is a relatively small group, its members are talented, hard-working, and active in professional, educational and social settings. AALLC members have accomplished a great deal, and sharing their success stories among ourselves can make us feel proud and inspired. The following are summaries of member activities.

Clement Chu-Sing Lau [cclau@UBmail.ubalt.edu], University of Baltimore Law Library. 
Clement was elected Vice President and President-Elect (for term 1999-2001) of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of Chinese-American Librarians association. On October 29, 1999, he served as Program Coordinator for a library book reservation workshop held by the Technical Services Division, Maryland Library Association. On December 30, 1999, Clement was interviewed by Voice of America about second language acquisitions and learning. He published two articles: "Planning to Implement an Outsourcing Project," in Bulletin of Library and Information Science, no. 30., pp. 68-81 (August 1999) and "U.S. Department of Education Character Education Pilot Project" in New Waves: Educational Research & Development, v. 4, no. 3 (Sept. 1999). In addition, he gave two presentations: (1) "Character Education Projects in America" and "The Educational Role of Libraries in Education Reform" at the 1999 Annual Conference of Chinese American Educational Research and Development Association, Oct. 30-31, 1999 at George Mason University, Virginia.

Dorothy Li, John Marshall Law School Library, Chicago. 
The John Marshall Law School and Chicago Sister Cities Committee jointly received a grant of $135,000 from the State Department to set up a series of Rule of Law workshops in Shanghai and Shenyang. Dorothy recently traveled to Shanghai and Shenyang to finalize the program. In September 2000, she will receive a group of 16 lawyers, judges and law professors from Shanghai and Shenyang coming to John Marshall Law School to receive two weeks of legal training.

William B. McCloy [wbmccloy@u.washington.edu], University of Washington Law Library, Seattle. 
Bill currently serves as President of the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL). He presided over CEAL's last meeting in March, 2000 in San Diego.

Wei Luo [LUO@wulaw.wustl.edu], Washington University Law Library, St. Louis. 
Wei has had two books published by William S. Hein & Co. since last July. One is entitled "The Contract Law of the PRC with English Translation and Introduction," and the other "The Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC with English Translation, Introduction and Annotation." In addition, Wei recently attended a conference in Beijing on comparative studies of Chinese and American statute codifications.

Jonathan Franklin [jafrank@u.washington.edu], Washington University Law Library, Seattle. 
Jonathan changed jobs this year and became Assistant Librarian for Library Service at University of Washington Law Library. He was a reference librarian at University of Michigan Law Library in Ann Arbor.

Robert H. Hu [hhu@lawschool.gonzaga.edu], Gonzaga University Law Library, Spokane, WA. 
Robert moved to the position of Head of Reader Services at Gonzaga University effective August 1999. Previously he had been at Wake Forest University Professional Center Library (Winston-Salem, NC) as a reference librarian. He has, since last July, chaired the AALL Committee on Mentoring and Retention, which is responsible for conducting Conference of Newer Law Librarians (CONELL) in connection with the AALL annual convention.

Crystella Kauka [ckauka@sacredhearts.org] Crystella recently retired from law librarianship and now works at a private high school. She misses friends and colleagues from the Caucus. 

I'd like to introduce Yan Hong to AALLC members. Many of you may already have met her. Yan has been the insurance law librarian at University of Connecticut School of Law Library since 1998. Prior to her current position, Yan worked as Documents and Maps librarian, Patents and Trademarks librarian, Head of Documents at the University of Vermont. She likes to be involved in AALLC activities.

Robert H. Hu has accepted a position as Head of Public Services at Texas Tech University School of Law, effective August 2000. Prior to this position, he served as Head of Reader Services at Gonzaga University Law Library. Robert also had his book about Chinese copyright law published by William S. Hein recently.

Joan Liu, formerly Serials Libarian at New York University Law Libary, was promoted to Head of Acquisitions & Serials in September of 1999. Many congratulations, Joan!

Snow Zhu, Librarian at the Legal Services of New Jersey Library, won a Public Relations Award for her design, the logo of Legal Services of New Jersey Library. Snow walked away with the second prize in the category of logos awarded by the New Jersey Library Association at the NJLA Spring Conference on April 28, 2000. Please visit the library's homepage to see the logo (http://206.165.233.174/winnebago/index.asp). 

Here is a group photo taken at Philadelphia after the AALLC business meeting. I regret that the picture was not available for inclusion in the AALLC time capsule. 

Cossette T. Sun, Director of the Bernard E. Witkin Alameda County Law Library, Oakland, California received a commendation and a flower bouquet from the County Board of Supervisors on June 26, 2000 for her eight years of service on the Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council (MAC). Residents, county officials and law library staff were present to witness the ceremony at the board chambers.

County Supervisor Mary King appointed Cossette in November 1991 to the Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council. She made history as the first Asian on the seven-member council in the unincorporated area of Alameda County twenty miles south of Oakland. Supervisor King, who represents Castro Valley, said Cossette brought her skills as Director of the Alameda County Law Library to the MAC post. "Cossette brought that kind of discipline to her position, one of researching the issues, and then she brought the understanding of her community and compassion to those decisions; she brought a great deal of confidence to her role as a member and chairwoman," King said.

Castro Valley is an unincorporated area with a population of 55,000. Although not a city, the Municipal Advisory Council is the closest thing to a city council. Along with residents in Castro Valley, Cossette views cityhood as a viable issue. The Municipal Advisory Council meets on the first and third Monday night of the month to advise county supervisors on land use, zoning and development, and other planning issues. Cossette and her family have been residents of Castro Valley for 25 years.

Cossette continues her service to the County of Alameda as President of the Alameda-Taoyuan Sister County Association, and on behalf of the County of Alameda, she has received many foreign delegations from the Sister County in Taiwan. She is also an advisor to her local public library, which is in the process of building a new library. Her service to the local community and the county government has helped maintain close contact with the county officials and the Board of Supervisors, thus promoting good will for the law library. Cossette is on the American Association of Law Libraries Executive Board. 

AALLC time capsule was sealed on July 18, 2000 at Philadelphia along with other time capsules from AALL Executive Board, Committees, SISs and Chapters. The time capsules will be stored for twenty-five years and will be opened at AALL annual meeting in 2025. The followings are what in the AALLC's time capsule. Future Asian American Law Librarians can get a glimpse into the past through those materials. On our behalf, Mon Yin Lung wrote a letter to future AALLC members to convey our good wishes. Mon Yin's letter is included in this newsletter.

1. Letter to future AALLC members by Mon Yin Lung

2. AALLC homepage and listserv (brief information about AALLC)

3. AALLC bylaws and list of presidents

4. AALLC Directory (July 2000)

5. AALLC minutes (1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1998)

6. Samples of AALLC newsletter

7. Profile of AALL executive board member Cossette T. Sun, including biography, reports, article and newspaper clippings related to Cossette's community activities (some in Chinese).

8. Biography of AALL executive board member Frank Y. Liu

9. Correspondence on AALLC activities by AALLC members, including 1986 Mon Yin Lung's letter to Asian-American Law Librarians to form this group.

10. Entries in Who's Who among Asian Americans and the AALS Directory of Law Teachers (1999-2000), members' achievements

11. AALLC handouts and activities 

Dear future Asian-American law librarians and law librarians interested in Asian legal materials,

As the founder of the Asian-American Law Librarians Caucus (AALLC) and the last AALLC President of the 20^th Century, I am writing this letter to convey our best wishes.

Asian-American Law Librarians Caucus was founded to provide a vehicle for Asian-American law librarians and librarians interested in Asian legal materials to interact with each other and to further our collective interests within AALL.

Although we know that there have been Asian legal materials in several law school libraries for a long period, there is no record on the beginning of Asian-American Law Librarianship. According to data at hand, Paul Fu, one of our past presidents, was appointed law librarian and associate professor of law in 1962, which is the earliest year I can verify. Since then the population of Asian-American Law Librarians in AALL has been increasing steadily, likewise the interest in Asian legal materials. The last count (July 1, 2000) shows that we now have 116 librarians on our directory.

Not only that we are the oldest, but also we are the largest caucus affiliated with AALL. I am proud to report that we also have the most diversified membership. As evidenced by our caucus name written in many Asian languages on this time capsule, our membership includes folks with origins in China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippine, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. Many of us are first generation immigrants. Some of us are good old Americans who are interested in Asian legal materials. We use our caucus as a vehicle to exchange information and promote Asian-American law librarianship. We sponsor educational programs. We gather for annual Asian dinner, and we alert each other on new developments in Asian legal fields. Best of all, we form lasting friendships.

This time capsule is to be opened in 2025. By then some of us may not be around. Even the caucus may have changed its form of existence. But I am sure that there will still be, or even more, Asian-American law librarians and librarians interested in Asian legal materials. Dear librarians, whoever you are, may you stay together like we do. May you participate actively in AALL activities. May you be inclusive. And may you find friendship as we do. Remember, there is always power in number.

Very sincerely,

Mon Yin Lung

Public Services Librarian, University of Kansas Law Library 

Attendees:

Joan Liu, New York University Law Library

Yuan Yao, Georgetown University Law Library

Bill McCloy, University of Washington Law Library

Frederick Chan, Columbia University Law Library

Yan Hong, University of Connecticut Law Library

David Fain, China Online

Telle Zoller, University of Wisconsin Law Library

Dan Wade, Yale Law Library

Maria Smolka-Day, University of Pennsylvania Law Library

Wei Luo, Washington University Law Library

Nongji Zhang, Harvard Law School Library

The Asian Law Working Group business meeting was held at the Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 18, 2000. The current chair of the group, Joan Liu, Head of Acquisitions & Serials from New York University Law Library, convened the meeting. Twelve people attended the meeting this year. The meeting started with librarians introducing the new developments on Asian law collections from their institutions. The main issues discussed were:

Joan Liu discussed NYU's Japanese Law CD-ROM acquisition. With a special fund, NYU was able to purchase two major Japanese legal CD-ROM products,Horitsu hanrei bunken joho : Current Legal Information and Hanrei taikei : Judicial information system. These two products are fully cataloged on the OPAC.

Nongji Zhang, Bibliographer for East Asian Law at the Harvard Law School Library, discussed the Harvard Law School Library's plan for filling a 20-year gap in the Japanese law collection. The library has earmarked a special budget for the acquisition of over 2000 titles to fill this gap. Harvard Law School has a new Japanese Law faculty member, Mark Ramseyer.

There was a discussion about collecting Asian legal materials, other than Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. The lack of expertise in cataloging these materials, and the fact that the Library of Congress does not collect these materials were some of the barriers to collecting them.

Wei Luo, Director of Technical Services at the Washington University School of Law Library, mentioned that Washington University has a new Chinese Law faculty member, John Haley. Professor Haley was from the University of Washington Asian Law Program before coming to Washington University School of Law. In addition, there have been several new vernacular Chinese acquisitions at Washington University Law Library.

Wei Luo recently spent four weeks in China. While there, he visited the State Legal Information Center and ChinaLawInfo.com at Beijing University Law School and helded a symposium in Beijing with the Legislative Affairs Office of State Council. The issue of codification of Chinese law was discussed at the symposium.

Wei Luo's two recent publications were mentioned: The 1996 Amended Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China: with English Translation, Introduction and Annotation, Buffalo, New York: William S. Hein & Co., 2000 and The Contract Law of the People's Republic of China: with English Translation and Introduction, Buffalo, New York: William S. Hein & Co., 1999.

There was also a discussion by the attendees concerning purchasing vernacular legal materials as a consortium in order to minimize the cost for these materials.

Bill McCloy, Assistant Librarian for East Asian Law at the University of Washington Gallagher Law Library, mentioned that the University of Washington East Asian and Comparative Law Program had several major changes occur within the past year. Professor John Haley left for the Washington University School of Law and Dan Foote left for a teaching position at Tokyo University. On the bright side, Veronica Taylor will join the faculty as a tenured Professor of Law and Director of the Program in Asian and Comparative Law. Her law degree is from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She is a graduate of the University of Washington Asian and Comparative Law Program in 1992. The program is looking for another faculty member to concentrate on Southeast Asian laws, in addition to a Korean law faculty slot. The Chinese, Taiwan, Japanese, and Korean legal research guides are available on the Gallagher Law Library East Asian Law web site at < http://lib.law.washington.edu/eald/eald.html>.

Frederick Chan, Cataloger at the Columbia Law School Library, mentioned that the Columbia Law Library received as donations materials from a Chinese law faculty member. Columbia Law Library also has a person in China who purchases materials for Columbia and thereby reduces the cost for these materials.

Electronic Asian Legal Resources

Joan's guide to Chinese electronic legal materials, Beyond the Border: the Construction of the Chinese Legal Information System in Cyberspace <http://www.llrx.com/features/china.htm>, was mentioned at the meeting, which compiled comprehensive e-resources on China law.

The attendees also discussed the web version of some vernacular China law databases including CEILaw and ChinaLawInfo.com. There was some discussion of the difficulties in downloading materials, purchasing the service and overall customer service problems with CEILaw. There was discussion about the ChinaLawInfo.com at Beijing University. There seems to be differing prices for this online service. Wei Luo will supply the working group attendees the information about the possibility of group pricing or other advantageous pricing arrangements. There was an overall discussion about sustainability and reliability of the Chinese law web sites and the superior nature of the CD-ROM products over the web versions: especially the indexing and the search capabilities.

Wade-Giles/Pinyin Conversion Project

Bill McCloy reported about the Library of Congress Pinyin Conversion Project. He set forth some of the important date in the Pinyin Conversion Project, which were given as a handout. The handout is available at the Library of Congress web site at < http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/timeline.html>. Important dates discussed were the following: (1) October 1, 2000 all new original cataloging must be done in Pinyin. (2) August 1, 2000, the moratorium begins on the contribution of new and changed Chinese headings (LC and NACO). (3) August 12, 2000, OCLC begins to convert authority records with Wade-Giles syllable strings to pinyin. (4) April 2001, RLG and completes conversion of Chinese bibliographic records. (5) April 2001, OCLC completes conversion of bibliographic files.

Bill McCloy mentioned that the University of Washington is a conversion tester site. The University of Washington has a conversion task force, which is involved in training user and dealing with other conversion issues. In RLG libraries, there will be clusters of library conversion. RLG will notify each library when its records have all been converted, after which the library can request a snapshot file to load into its local system and OPAC at its convenience. RLG will add a "Current Pinyin Conversion Status" page to the RLG Web site indicating which Library's records have been completely converted and which ones are in process. All libraries' records will be converted between August 2000 and April 2001. For more information, refer to the Library of Congress Pinyin Conversion Project RLIN FAQ homepage at http://www.rlg.org/eas/pinyinfaq.html>.

Generally, refer to the Library of Congress Pinyin Conversion Project homepage at <http://lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/>. Attendees discussed the impact the Pinyin Conversion will have on their online catalogs. 

Ando, Nisuke, ed. Japan and International Law : Past, Present and Future : International Symposium to Mark the Centennial of the Japanese Association of International Law. The Hague ; Cambridge, MA : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.

Feldman, Eric A. The Ritual of Rights in Japan : Law, Society, and Health Policy. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2000 (Cambridge Studies in Law and Society).

Fujita, Hisakazu, Suzuki Isomi & Nagano Kantaro, eds. Senso to Kojin no Kenri : Sengo Hosho o Motomeru Furukute Atarashii Michi = War and the Rights of Individuals : Renaissance of Individual Compensation. Tokyo : Nihon Hyoronsha, 1999.

Hattori, Takaaki & Dan Fenno Henderson. Civil Procedure in Japan (loose-leaf). 2nd ed. [Yonkers, N.Y.] : Juris Pub., 2000-

Hondius, E.H. ed. Modern Trends in Tort Law : Dutch and Japanese Law Compared. Cambridge, Mass. : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999.

Hosokai, ed. Ei-Wa Taiyaku Nihon no Minji Soshoho, do Kisoku [=Code of Civil Procedure, Rules of Civil Procedure]. Tokyo : Hosokai, l999.

Kawamura, Akira, ed. Law and Business in Japan. Tokyo : Commercial Law Center, 2000.

Kawanishi, Hirosuke, ed. The Human Face of Industrial Conflict in Post-War Japan. London ; New York : Kegan Paul International, 1999 (Japanese Studies).

Kitaguchi, Suehiro. An introduction to the Buraku Issue : Questions and Answers. Richmond, Surrey : Japan Library, 1999 [English translation ofNymon Buraku Mondai by Alastair McLaughlan].

Matsushita, Yukiko. Contemporary Japanese Family Law. Tokyo : Minjiho Kenkyukai, 2000.

McNelly, Theodore. The Origins of Japan's Democratic Constitution. Lanham, Md : University Press of America, 2000.

Oda, Hiroshi. Japanese Law. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999.

Oyama, Yukifusa, trans. Copyright Law of Japan. Tokyo : Copyright Research and Information Center, 1999.

Rabinowitz, Richard W. The Genesis of the Japanese Foreign Investment Law of 1950. Hamburg : Dohu-Nichi Horitsuka Kyokai, [1999] (Publication of the German-Japanese Lawyers' Association ; v. 10).

Ramseyer, J. Mark & Minoru Nakazato. Japanese Law : an Economic Approach. Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press, 1999 (Studies in Law and Economics).

Setting up Enterprises in Japan = Tainichi Toshi Handobukku. 4th ed. Tokyo : JETRO, 1999. 

I am glad to announce that Pin-sheng Hsiao, Automation Librarian at Reed Smith Shaw & McClay will be the new editor of Asian Law Link. Ms. Pin-sheng Hsiao received her masters degree in Library Science at the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan in 1987. After coming to United States in 1992, she received a MA in Educational Media from Temple University and a MLS from Drexel University. Ms. Hsiao served as Library Manager and Lecturer at Der Yuh Nursing Junior College and as Research Associate at the Library of Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission in Taiwan. She is now primarily responsible for her law firm's library automation system, technical services, and maintaining her library intranet as webmaster. She may be reached by email at Phsiao@ReedSmith.com.

Ms. Pin-sheng Hsiao will bring new ideas to the Caucus newsletter. Because one of her interests is graphic design, I am sure she will enhance the newsletter's format, as well as contents, with her special interests and enthusiasm. I sincerely wish her the best and look forward to reading future issues of the newsletter.

It has been my pleasure to serve AALLC as the editor of Asian Law Link. I thank everyone for your contributions to the newsletter and for the help, support, and encouragement you have offered me. I have learned a great deal and made many wonderful friends like Mon Yin Lung, Wei Luo, Xinh Luu, Heija Ryoo, Robert Hu, Joan Liu. I especially like to thank Mon Yin Lung, the founder of AALLC. Many of you might know that Mon Yin is a full-time librarian and a part-time law student. One can imagine how busy she is. Yet, she has never let me down when I need help and advice. What a great friend and mentor Mon Yin is!

Even though I will not be the editor of Asian Law Link after this issue, I will continue to support and participate in AALLC activities. I look forward to meeting you all next July in Minneapolis. 

This Newsletter is edited by Hua Li, Cataloging/Reference Librarian, Creighton University Law Library. For comments or suggestions, please call the editor at (402) 280-2283 or email: huali@culaw.creighton.edu.

For technical assistance, please contact the webmaster for the Newsletter Wei Luo (LUO@wulaw.wustl.edu), Washington University School of Law Library, St. Louis, MO.