Social Sciences Academic Press at the Association for Asian Studies 2017 Annual Conference

The annual conference for Association for Asian Studies (AAS), which is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, took place on March 16-19, 2017 at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. For the fifth consecutive year, a Social Sciences Academic Press delegation, headed again by president Mr. Shouguang Xie, attended this annual gathering of the best and brightest from around the world in Asian studies. In addition to participating in various conference activities and exhibiting SSAP publications, both Chinese and in other languages, at the company’s exhibit booth, the SSAP delegation also held a product introduction seminar on March 16^th that focused on the company’s database offerings and digital transformation more broadly. On March 17^th, president Xie and his SSAP colleagues attended the Fourth Sino-American Academic Library Forum for Collaboration and Development, for which SSAP was one of the sponsors. At the forum, Navigating the Sea of Books: Selected Articles from the 1^st, 2^nd and 3rd Sino-American Academic Library Forums on Cooperation and Development, a freshly-out-of-the-oven new book published by SSAP, was launched.

Following their Toronto trip, two members of the SSAP delegation, Mr. Genxing Tong, Director of the Sociology Division, and Mr. Ning Chai, Deputy Director of the Scholarly Serials Division, visited Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, USA. There they met on March 20 with Dr. Oya Y. Rieger, Associate University Librarian of the Olin Library, who also serves as Program Director for ArXiv, the premier organization in the US in pre-prints (or “e-prints), a harbinger of what is now widely known as “Open Access”, to discuss future collaborations between the two organizations in this field.

The Association for Asian Studies is one of the world’s largest and most influential professional organizations devoted to Asian studies. Over the years, its annual conference has been attracting an increasing number of attendees from a growing number of countries and regions around the world. There were over 360 panels during the 2017 annual conference, covering a broad range of topics in politics, economics, history, archeology, sociology and others. More than three thousand people, including academics, independent scholars and graduate students, attended this year’s conference. In addition, nearly one hundred publishers from many countries and regions participated in the book exhibit, including SSAP and many of its overseas partners.

At the product introduction seminar, SSAP representatives gave an overview of the company’s database product lines to the audience, which consisted of representatives of current and prospective institutional clients, and of sales agencies representing SSAP in North America, or media organizations and interested academics and scholars. Two premium databases were given special attention: Mainland Chinese Expatriates in Taiwan Historical Documents Database and Scholarly Serials Database. A lively Q & A followed prepared presentations.

Social Sciences Academic Press has so far created four digital product lines covering development in contemporary China, countries in the world and international relations, rural studies, and antique or vintage books, primary sources and archival materials. As of spring 2017, eight databases have been completed and are available on the market. They are the Yearbooks Database, Guide to the World Nations Database, Zhang Letian Rural Fieldwork Database, “One Belt, One Road” Database, Scholarly Serials Database, Poverty Alleviation in China Database,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Development Database, and Mainland Chinese Expatriates in Taiwan Historical Documents Database. The three currently under construction are Ancient Chinese Legal Documents Database, War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and Sino-Japan Relations Historical Documents Database, and Chinese Rural Studies Database.

The Yearbooks Database is SSAP’s longest running, most highly-acclaimed and best-known (increasingly internationally) database product and has achieved significant gains in the overseas market in recent years.

The Mainland Chinese Expatriates in Taiwan Historical Documents Database, in whose construction the company invested especially heavily, became available in the second half of 2016. It makes digitally available well over six hundred million-character worth of primary source materials pertaining to the life experiences of Mainland Chinese expatriates in Taiwan.

The Scholarly Serials Database is another one of recently-launched SSAP database products that have garnered wide attention in the industry. SSAP publishes more academic and scholarly serials indexed by Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI), an important metric of merit and success, than any other publisher in China. This database, both a derivative and a supplementary product, has been designed to augment the value of the print edition to the maximum. Currently, the database encompasses 210 titles of scholarly serials, or which over 40 have their editorial office in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. A total of 24 titles are now included among those indexed by CSSCI.