Chinese Librarian and Students Meeting

by Jing Liu ~ March 10th, 2008. Filed under: Professional Development.

Mr. Zhu Lei has done a great job writing the minutes. Please read and comment here.

Time: March 8, 2008, 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Location: Asian Library
Present: Jing, Xuemei, Qi, Ian, Lingbo, Jane, Wei, Lei, Qiong, Lili, Min (remotely via Skype) and Heather (remotely via Skype). Two guests – Jessica and Wendy.
Topics:
1.Toastmasters – Practice Makes Perfect!
2.UBC Institutional Repository Project–cIRcle
3. Multicultural Canada Project

Topics:

1.Toastmasters – Practice Makes Perfect!
A 7-minute speech by Linbo, fully in English with impressive poise and confidence, introducing the concept of Toastmasters, the importance of strengthening your communication skills, and the great value of joining a Toastmasters club.
2.UBC Institutional Repository Project
A presentation by Lili based on her professional experience at University Archives, explaining the purpose of UBC’s cIRcle project, various policies and procedures to follow, and the challenges they are currently faced with, followed by a demo of uploading a sample record to the system.
3.Multicultural Canada Project
A presentation by Ian on this national-wide digitization project lead by SFU, including a brief history of the project, a quick glance of the multicultural collections (e.g. historical newspapers in different languages), an overview of the whole system architecture as well as some details at technical element level, concluded with a warm and informative session of Q&A and discussion.

In addition,
·We were happy to see some new Chinese SLAISers with strong computer background, and two guests who showed great interest in the career path as a librarian;
·Heather and Min shared with us their current roles and responsibilities at work, as well as some great thoughts and suggestions on career goal setting, relocation after graduation, etc., which are particularly valuable to those soon-to-graduate MLIS candidates;
·For the first time and with great success, Skype was used in our meeting to reach out to our friends located in Quebec and Florida;
·Everybody in the meeting was happy with this informative, straight 4 hour professional meeting and, of course, a full table of tasty snack food;
·Schedule for the next meeting was not discussed during the meeting, but according to the reflection of most attendees, a “hot and practical” topic should be able to attract more friends to show up in our next gathering; and
·Special thanks to Jing, Ian, Linbo, Qi and Lili for their organization of and presentations in this successful meeting.

3 Responses to Chinese Librarian and Students Meeting

  1.   Lingbo

    A heart-felt thank-you to our power couple for setting up the conference call and for the minutes.

    Thank you, Jing, for organizing another successful meeting. There is so much talent among this group. I feel very fortunate to be part of this community.

    I look forward to the next meeting. I hope that I will be able to conduct a Table Topics session next time. Please visit a Toastmasters club to learn about the details. Toastmasters works! I has worked for about 80 years for so many people from all parts of the world, and it will work for you!

    Heather and Mindy, thank you for joining us and sharing your experience and valuable thoughts. “See” you next time.

  2.   Heather

    Thanks to all who contributed to the successful gathering!

    Glad to “see” my old and new friends – I feel I have never left. I believe the common faith for our profession and the diverse interests in our fields will lead to a sharing and learning community. We can benefit from the community even more by helping each other with career development, or working together on a research project/journal article, …(more ideas?)

    Keep me posted for the next meeting.

  3.   Mindy

    It was such an enjoyable experience to be back to OUR community. I’ll definitely look forward to the next meeting. I’ve recently sit in a search committee for an entry-level reference/instruction librarian position for our partner library(a community college library)and would like to share my first time experience on the ‘other side of the table’. Hope it will be of some help for folks who are interested in academic librarianship. I’m sure Jing will be able to add more valuable insights to the topic based on her years’ experience.

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