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Bibliography of Asian Studies 

  Members of this list gave me some helpful advice about pricing and
licensing issues.  For anyone who is interested, I thought I would let you
know what we decided, in the form of a leaflet handed out at our just-
concluded annual meeting.  I go into no detail about the licensing issues
that have absorbed this group but in general we expect to be quite liberal
in meeting the interests of librarians.  Any questions or comments are
welcome.  Since I am a member of the email group now, please just send
comments that might be of general interest to the group.
  
John Campbell

THE BAS IS ON-LINE!

The Association for Asian Studies is delighted to announce that the
Bibliography of Asian Studies will be available over the Internet via
library subscriptions starting July 1, 1998.  This leaflet provides basic
information on the on-line BAS, including pricing for libraries and
consortia.  

What is it?--Since 1941 the BAS has been the standard bibliographical tool
in the field of Asian studies, published in increasingly bulky annual
volumes. The on-line version of the  BAS will initially contain about
420,000 references to books, journal articles, individually authored
monographs, chapters in edited volumes, conference proceedings,
anthologies, and Festschriften, etc., published from 1971 until today.  It
encompasses the full content of the annual printed volumes of the BAS from
the 1971 to the 1991 editions (the 1992 edition will not be published in
printed form).  In addition, there are many references to publications
after 1991, including citations to all articles from the 100 most-used
journals in Asian studies (nearly up to the present in many cases), and a
substantial number of additional citations from earlier years in South
Asian studies. BAS compilation continues and the dataset will be augmented
regularly, with the intention of bringing it up to date as quickly as
possible.

The BAS will be accessible to faculty, staff, and students at subscribing
universities via their computer systems, with validation by IP address.
With Netscape or Explorer, users can browse or search across the entire
20+ years of the bibliography, based on the information contained in the
citations and the subject headings used in the printed BAS.  Citations can
easily be printed or downloaded.  Librarians who have had a chance to try
this on-line version testify that it provides far better access to Western
language materials on Asia than anything available before.

We are now exterminating bugs and improving how program features look and
work.  For example, we are working to incorporate in the downloads almost
all the diacritical marks used in the printed BAS. We expect to finish
enough of the job to make the entire data set available for demonstration
during the month of May, with provision by subscription on or before July
1.  More fixes and improvements will be added over time. Individual
subscriptions to the on-line BAS are not possible at this time; they may
become so, and AAS still intends to produce a CD-ROM version for
individuals and small libraries in the future.

Pricing.--The goals of the AAS are to provide as much access to the BAS as
possible for the benefit of members, students, and others, and to ensure
that the operation will be continued into the future.  The first argues
for prices as low as possible, but the second means that we must generate
enough revenue on an annual basis to cover all or most of the costs of
compilation and electronic provision.   After considerable discussion we
have decided on the following initial pricing scheme.  It will be reviewed
next year by the AAS Publications Committee and Board.

The annual fee will vary by size of institution, meaning a single campus.
We will follow the classification scheme developed by JSTOR, which is
based on the Carnegie definitions.  (For institutions not participating in
JSTOR, see the basis of classification on its web page, at
http://www.jstor.org/about/class.html.)  The basic annual fee is:  Large,
$1,200; Medium, $900; Small, $700; Very Small, $500. Universities and
colleges outside North America, public libraries, and other institutions
will be classified by analogy with this scheme, except that libraries in
the Third World will be offered substantial additional discounts.

We are happy to encourage consortia among libraries and will discount the
subscription prices listed above as follows:  consortia of two to five
institutions, 10 percent; six to 15 institutions, 20 percent; more than
15, 30 percent.  As a special encouragement to provide the BAS to
institutions that have not hitherto been active in Asian studies, we will
allow institutions that have NOT previously subscribed to the print BAS to
be included at $50 per year each, for at least three years, so long as
they make up less than a majority of the consortium.  For our purposes, a
consortium means a group with a single contact for billing, provision of
IP addresses, and other communications.

First-year discounts.--The following discounts will be available to single
institutions or consortia for the initial year's subscription (excluding
the $50 category).  First, subscribing before the start date of July 1,
1998, will earn a $100 discount.  Second, any institution that has prepaid
for the 1992 edition of the print BAS may select a $100 discount in lieu
of a cash refund.  The discounts may be used together, and they can be
also be used with the consortial discount.  The initial subscription for
single institutions then could be $1,000, $700, $500, $300 depending on
size, and consortial discounts could reduce that amount by up to an
additional 30 percent.

Check it out.--The AAS annual meeting is the best time to get an early
look at the BAS.  There will be a presentation with an on-line
demonstration during the Electronic Resource Development meeting on
Saturday, March 28, 7:15-9:00 PM in the Thoroughbred Room (BAS will be on
first).  Access will also be possible from the ERD computer booth (#131)
in the exhibition area, and we will have committee members available there
when possible on Friday and Saturday to demonstrate.  Keep in mind that
this is a developmental version, with some bugs and lacking some features
that will be added soon.

Credits.--Thanks are due to the National Endowment for the Humanities,
which provided the funds for electronic provision of the BAS, to Bill
Hauser who as chair of the BAS advisory committee managed the process, and
to David Wyatt who prepared the files (including scanning in the early
volumes by hand).  The job of getting the dataset onto the Internet is
being carried out by Digital Library Production Services at the University
of Michigan Library, best known for the Humanities Text Initiative.  The
editor of the BAS is Anna Shulman; the Advisory Committee is Martin
Heijdra, chair, Charles Hayford, David Magier, Allen Riedy, and Henry
Smith.

For Subscriptions or Information:  Subscriptions will be handled by the
publications office of the AAS.  We will send the subscription form and
licensing agreement when they are ready.  When those are submitted, the
subscriber will need to provide us with a list of IP addresses.  

Get the most up-to-date information on our website at
www.aasianst.org/bassub.htm and reply from there, or write to 

BAS Subscriptions
Association for Asian Studies
1021 E. Huron Street
Ann Arbor MI 48104
Fax:  734 665 3801
Email:  bassub@aasianst.org

Anyone with comments or questions regarding prices, licensing, etc. may
get in touch with John Campbell at jccamp@umich.edu (in Japan from April
10 but on email) or Michael Paschal at mpaschal@aasianst.org, telephone
734 665 1947.

AAS MEMBERS:  PLEASE BRING THIS LEAFLET TO YOUR LIBRARIAN!



____________________________________________________________________________
John Creighton Campbell, Prof. of Political Science, University of
Michigan, and Secretary-Treasurer, Association for Asian Studies. Tel 734
998 7558; Fax 734 998 7982; Mail Corner House, 202 S Thayer St, Ann Arbor
MI 48104-1608.


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