With the advent of the computer era, the study of the written heritage of Eastern countries received a new impetus for development. The appearance of modern means of storing and cataloging monuments, the publication of new texts and artifacts on the Internet has shown that the resources of their study are far from exhausted. The reduction in the number of specialists (philologists, historians, and source scientists), which is observed almost everywhere, is compensated by greater availability of information and more intensive contacts between colleagues (albeit a few) from different parts of the world. Along with the publication of original texts, it is equally important to systematize a wide range of research related to Southeast Asia and published by publishers in many countries.

The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London was one of the first to undertake efforts in this direction, and in 1967 organized a conference to discuss the purchase of books from Asia for British library collections. The result of this initiative was the emergence of a number of professional communities of Orientalists - "scribes".

In 1968, the Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG) was established at the initiative of the Brynmore Jones Center for Southeast Asian Studies (Hull University, UK). Initially, it included four British institutions: the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the British Museum, the National Library of Science and Technology, and the University of Hull (some of their holdings later passed to the British Library). Later, the Royal Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden became a member of the group.

In the first issue of the Group's Newsletter on its objectives, it was stated, inter alia: "The Southeast Asia Library Group (SEALG) is a group of scholars and librarians involved in the replenishment of Southeast Asian book collections. Given the complexity of collecting such material, SEALG expresses its willingness to cooperate with other organizations in financing travel for book purchases, sharing information and copying sources, and is considering creating a consolidated catalog of dissertations and periodicals, as well as other methods of coordinating its resources."

The Group's work resulted in a number of reference publications: reviews of books and special periodicals, consolidated catalogs of British and some European libraries on topics related to South-East Asia. In 1968-1994, SEALG published a newsletter, but later, due to material difficulties, it was decided to publish it on the website of the Leiden International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). Since 2008, the Group's newsletter has been published on the website (www.sealg.org).

On June 27-28, 2014, the regular annual session of SEALG was held in Frankfurt under the auspices of the Goethe University, which kindly provided its library facilities for meetings. Eleven speakers from seven European and Asian countries presented research on written culture, music, and visual arts in Southeast Asian countries. At the opening of the session, X made presentations. Schnelling, Director of the Frankfurt University Library, who spoke about its work, and Vice-Chairman of SEALG X. Warnc.

Report " Thai cinema-archive of popular music?" It was presented by the German researcher G. Jaiser working in Vietnam. He showed the connection between these two types of creativity that has emerged since the introduction of sound cinema in Thailand (1930s). During the reign of dictator Phibun Songkhram, popular songs in the luk krung style became not only a means of musical design of films, but also a kind of instrument for asserting national identity. Introduced in the 1950s, the more provocative luk thung style was reworked in films to meet more conservative standards. The speaker considered the question: has the approach to using Thai popular music in cinema changed over the years? An example of a number of nonconformist performers in the 1980s and 1990s.,

those who later took the path of loyalty to the authorities and eventually managed to make a career (including music) in the cinema, rather indicates the opposite.

Saiful Akmal, a researcher at the Ar-Raniri State Islamic University, reviewed the situation in the region after the 2005 Helsinki Peace Accords in his report "Aceh Literature after the Conflict: With Hope for the Future". He stressed that small publishing houses are now experiencing a rebirth in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The scale of the book trade is growing and, most importantly, there are works created by local authors. The speaker listed publishing houses that aim to preserve the cultural heritage of the past, as well as popularize book culture among the younger generation. According to him, the solution of these tasks is hindered by a number of organizational difficulties, lack of personnel and modern technical equipment, insufficient attention of university circles. According to the researcher, in order for Aceh culture and literature to find a new life, joint efforts of writers, publishers and researchers are needed.

S. Tübovil (Frobenius Institute, Frankfurt), in the report "Library of the Frobenius Institute", said that the basis of the library on ethnography of this institute, as well as the Institute for Social Anthropology of the University of Frankfurt, was the personal book collections of the famous Africanist and ethnologist Leo Frobenius (1873-1938). He collected a rich collection known as the African Archive, which formed the basis of the institute, established in 1898 and now bears his name. The Ethnography Library is considered the largest social anthropology library in German-speaking countries. Thematically, the collection is based on materials on Africa, but it includes collections from Asia, America and Oceania. The researcher paid special attention to the book collections, as well as other materials on the ethnography of Asia of the Frobenius Institute.

X. Bergentum, an employee of the Goethe University Library (Frankfurt), in the message "Collection of the German Colonial Society (Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft)" presented to his colleagues a collection that occupies a special place in the country's colonial history. One of the activities of the Society was the collection of photographs - most often slides on glass plates. With their help, speakers who gave lectures in all parts of Germany illustrated their messages, making them more visual. The Frankfurt University Library carried out a complete digitization of the photo archive, which included about 790 images dedicated to "German New Guinea" and documented the customs of the region, the appearance of local residents, mission members, etc. According to the speaker, the German Colonial Society library was a source of many new and sometimes unexpected materials concerning Southeast Asia.

Vinoy Kumar Rao (Assam University, India) spoke about the significant influence of Hinduism on the religion and culture of this predominantly Buddhist country in his report "A New Look at stone statues of Hindu gods in Myanmar Museums". Since the western region of Myanmar was influenced by Mahayana Buddhism, which dominated in northeastern India, and experienced a significant Hindu influence, statues of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and shrines dedicated to them were preserved in different parts of the country-most often in Arakan, where coins were minted with symbolic images associated with Hindu gods. This was partly due to the political and cultural isolation of Myanmar, which was located on the periphery of the Buddhist world. After studying the monuments and museum collections of Myanmar, Eastern India and Bangladesh, the researcher was able to trace how the Hindu iconography of the country developed and evolved over the centuries.

An unexpected look at the art of Vietnam from the 1960s to the 1970s was offered by the British Library's Sung Chong Sirdsin in his report "The Art of the Vietnam War". Noting that this war was a huge shock for both sides-Vietnam and the United States-the speaker focused on the theme of "man at war" and how it was embodied by Vietnamese artists. The author illustrated the report with reproductions of newspaper drawings, posters, and cartoons that appeared at that time in official publications of North Vietnam and are now part of the Vietnam collection of the British Library.

In the report of L. V. Goryaeva (Russia, Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "Publishing Malay manuscripts: diplomatic or critical?" The existing approaches to the scientific publication of texts of monuments of the Malay written tradition were analyzed. The researcher shared her personal experience of preparing for the publication of such works as "The Tale of Maharaja Marakarma", "The Tale of the Victorious Pandavas" and "The Crown of Kings", the transliterated texts of which were

They were published on the Malay Concordance Project website of the Australian National University, and their Russian translations were published in the Moscow publishing house" Vostochnaya Literatura " in 2008 and 2011. According to the author of the report, the preferred form of publication of such sources is the diplomatic edition of the manuscript, which contains transliteration of the text into Latin with textual comments and facsimile reproduction of the manuscript itself (in printed form or on disk).

X continued the theme of Malay bookishness. Warnk (Goethe University, Frankfurt), who made a presentation on "Malay printed publications of the 19th century from the collection of Methodist missionary Emil Luring". During his years of service with the Methodist Episcopal Church mission in Singapore, Ipoh and Penang (1889-1909) Luring collected a collection of books, which after his death (1937) was transferred to the Frankfurt Society for Oriental Languages, and later became part of the funds of the Goethe University. According to the researcher, during his stay in British Malaya, Emil Luring maintained close contact with leading European experts on the Malay language and literature - R. Wilkinson, W. Schellaber, C. Blagden and W. Schellaber. Skit. According to the speaker, the main sources of forming the collection of his Malay printed books of the XIX century were the Singapore Methodist Publishing House, as well as Muslim publishing houses and bookstores in Singapore and Riau.

Jotika Khur-Yarn, Curator of the Southeast Asian Book Fund at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library, in her report "Cataloging Shan Manuscripts: experience and problems" presented a field study conducted in January 2014 in Mahong Son (Northern Thailand), aimed at cataloging Shan manuscripts stored there (the author of the report was assisted in this work by two local experts in the Shan tradition). The researcher collected detailed data concerning the surviving manuscripts, as well as historical sources where there was information about the carriers and continuers of this tradition. The main goal of the work was to complete the Oxford Catalog of Shan manuscripts available online, which in turn was a key part of the project to identify previously unknown manuscript collections (Revealing Hidden Collections), carried out under the auspices of the Thai Dhammakavya Foundation.

Report of Irish scientists by J. R. R. Tolkien Poirier and Sh. Ward (Chester Beatty Library, Dublin) "Burmese Manuscripts in the Chester Beatty Library" was the result of a recent survey of the library's Burmese manuscripts and focused on their preservation issues. The report provided a brief description of this collection, which consists of about a hundred manuscripts of various formats and ways of storing them. It described one of the ivory manuscripts containing one of the most important texts of the Pali canon - Kammavacha, and the need to create special storage conditions for it.

The topic of Burma's written heritage was continued in the report of A. Kirichenko (Russia, MSU ISAA) " Collections of manuscripts of the XVIII-early XX centuries . from the monasteries of Burma." The researcher reviewed a number of available lists of manuscripts that had previously belonged to monasteries or monks personally, as well as a number of collections from rural monasteries in Upper Burma described by the author himself. The report emphasized the difference between collections created to preserve the body of Buddhist texts considered authoritative in Burma (canonical texts, commentaries and reference sources, Pali grammar, etc.) and collections related to the practical tasks and interests of individual monks (teaching, preaching, writing texts, etc.). collections of the first type are more often found in monasteries and libraries that existed at the expense of the royal family or court elites, while collections of the second type are widespread in various regions of the country. The author has shown that Burmese elites sought to preserve the texts of the Pali canon (Tipitaka) and at the same time texts that reveal the dynamics of the history of Burmese monasticism, monastic education and book culture, which formed such a diverse picture of Burmese manuscript collections.

During the breaks between presentations, the participants of the session could get acquainted with the book collections of the university library on Southeast Asia. At the end of the session, SEALG members met to accept the invitation of the British Library's South Asia Archive and Library Group (SAALG) and jointly organize the 2015 annual session in Paris.

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