Tuesday, July 19, 2022
3:30-4:30pm Eastern Time

Session 3 in the Summer 2022 “Meet the Editor” Series

This AAS Digital Dialogue session will be an opportunity to meet with David Magier, the interim editor of the Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) so you can get more familiar with the single most indispensable multidisciplinary resource for studying, teaching and learning about Asia at all levels. Dr. Magier will begin the session with a brief overview of the 65-year history of the BAS and how it has evolved into its current form as vast online database. He will talk about the scope and coverage of the BAS and show what makes it unique among research resources for scholarship on Asia, and how it provides access to essential content that would otherwise remain unknown or inaccessible. Dr. Magier will also give a glimpse into how the BAS is compiled, the roles of the Editor, the staff of Asia regional Associate Editors, and the BAS Advisory Board, the engagement with the international Asian Studies community of librarians and scholars, and how prioritization and strategic direction for the BAS are formulated. Finally, he  will outline new developments to expand the BAS and improve the functionality and efficiency of its operations and value to the field of Asian Studies. Some time will also be set aside to address questions you are invited to submit in advance (you may submit questions when registering for the session, or through the button below).

David Magier

David Magier is Interim Editor of the Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS) and Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Collections and Research Services at Princeton University Library. He completed his B.A. in Linguistics and South Asian Languages at Cornell University, and went on to earn his PhD in Linguistics (focus on South Asian Languages) at UC Berkeley. After a teaching career in linguistics at Berkeley and Michigan State University, Magier made a career shift to librarianship when accepted an appointment as South Asian Studies Librarian and then Director of Area Studies at Columbia University Libraries back in 1987. Since 2008 he has been in a senior leadership role at Princeton University Library. His connection to Asian Studies has remained a central component of his career, where he brings his expertise and experience to bear in initiating and promoting collaborative projects among research libraries for the coordinated collection, preservation, cataloging, and open access digitization of uniquely important materials for the study of Asia. For example, he was a co-founder of the Digital South Asia Library (DSAL) and the South Asia Open Archives (SAOA), and has served in the AAS as a member of the South Asia Council and of the AAS Publications Committee. A firm believer in the value of bibliographic discovery to enable effective research, teaching and learning, Magier has been a member, and then Chair of the BAS Advisory Board for more than 30 years, and is now in his second year as Interim Editor of the BAS itself — a role he took on after the retirement of the long-serving previous Editor and Associate Editor, Anna and Frank Shulman.