Dear Friends,

As a footnote, and perhaps a slim chance of creating a window (??), I recall very clearly discussions I had quite some time ago with Prof Saito Akira about the Japanese Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies (IBK). The reasoning in the beginning was that the copyright for all articles in the journal rested with the authors, and therefore it would not be possible to place on line those contributions for which permission could not be obtained. This of course would be impossible, all the more so as contributors to the earlier volumes were in many cases no longer among us.

I do not know how they resolved the question, but not so many years after our conversation (I don't recall how long it took) everything appeared online, and in a wonderful fashion, quite unlike --still a scandal I think-- what one sees from France with the Journal Asiatique, for instance, which is often virtually illegible.

Also by the way, the IBK scans are linked to the inbuds.net database, which while not perfect is searchable in many ways, and is a genuinely great beginning to not only making bibliography available but linking it to scans, in some cases-- along with the CiNii database (https://cir.nii.ac.jp/), this is a more than good model for making such material accessible, since unlike jstor etc the inbuds database also has keywords and the like.

Anyway, with regard to the French situation, perhaps Matthew could motivate some of his contacts in Paris to bring to bear modern technology on that currently difficult matter. Reading scans from Gallica sometimes evokes nightmares of trying to read the old b/w microfilms of the Narthang Kanjur...

best,

Jonathan

On Mon, Jul 31, 2023 at 12:08 AM Karin.Preisendanz via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear colleagues,

Thank you for your interest.

I had responded to Matthew immediately after he had sent his inquiry.

Here is a slightly abbreviated version of my reply to him back then.

***

The pre-1991 volumes are not available in scanned form. Even though in
2013 I spent a lot of (eventually wasted) time on this matter, together
with the legal department of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (inasmuch
as its publishing house is functioning as publisher since 1991), the
Academy finally withdrew from the project of making the earlier volumes
available on JSTOR because of 1) the demand of an inordinate amount of
money by the still-extant successor of the Vienna publishing house
Hollinek that had published the earliest volumes (and, of course, long
forgotten about this until the inquiry came), and 2) their reluctance to
get into complicated negotations with Brill which was subsequently
acting as international "publisher on commission" until the Academy
publishing house took over in 1991, together with Vienna-based Gerold,
the second "publisher on commission", which is, however, definitely
defunct.

To my knowledge, Brill never responded to the inquiry by the Academy.
The former Department of Indology (succeeded by the Department of South
Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies) of the University of Vienna was the
main copyrighted publisher back then, but my (or the University's)
consent would not have been sufficient from the legal point of view to
provided scanned versions of the volumes before 1991. Even though no
online publications existed at the time the contracts were drawn up with
Hollinek and Brill, the agreed-upon rights for analogue publication (in
the latter case: the international dissemination of printed copies on
commission) would automatically apply to any future, different types of
publication.

In the end, the Academy decided that they would not pursue the matter
further as the volumes were not published by them in the first place and
because it did not see much of a benefit for itself if these volumes
were available on JSTOR at their cost. The task of negotiating with
Hollinek and Brill would be up to JSTOR whose request had actually
started our deliberations. This was communicated to JSTOR, but I have
not heard from them again.

However, almost all back-issues of the Journal are still available in
perfect condition for sale by the Department; please refer to
https://stb.univie.ac.at/publikationsreihen/wiener-zeitschrift-fuer-die-kunde-suedasiens-wzks/bestellung/
or
https://stb.univie.ac.at/en/publication-series/vienna-journal-of-south-asian-studies-wzks/order/.

I would be delighted to arrange for these volumes to be sent to you or
your library.

***

With best regards,

Karin Preisendanz

Am 29.07.2023 22:27, schrieb Oliver Fallon via INDOLOGY:
> Matthew Kapstein sent this enquiry about the WZKS almost two years
> ago, but it does not seem to have had a reply.
> I'm sure many of us would like to access early numbers of this
> journal. Does anyone know if there has been any progress in making
> them available?
> With thanks,
> Oliver
>
> On Fri, 12 Nov 2021 at 20:35, Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY
> <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
>
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> From 1991 on the WZKS is available on JSTOR.
>> Is there a accessible source for scanned copies of the pre-1991
>> issues?
>>
>> with thanks in advance,
>> Matthew
>>
>> Matthew Kapstein
>> Directeur d'études, émérite
>> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris
>>
>> Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
>> The University of Chicago
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
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