The New Platform
by Jing Liu ~ July 21st, 2008. Filed under: Summer Institute for Chinese Studies Librariship.Both Saturday and Sunday sessions are sponsored by TTOD, so have to be on their new product. The ambitious strategy of mounting all e-resources on their platform shocked me, and I think it’s desgined to target the Chinese market. Our users may not want to depend on it for their individual digital libraries, no need to mention our libraries or institutes. I was interested in its e-ref works and dissertations, but was disappointed to learn that they are not authority controlled or value-added services, and have no plan for pay-perview. Good thing is we can pick title by title, but what difference this will make between CNKI and other vendors if we buy individual e-ref titles?The big picture and the goal sound great, for the vendor and their Chinese customers that is. After these many years, the cultural gap is still there. It’s hard to make them understand what we really need. Have Google Scholar index CAJ articles is one suggestion I made. If it’s open URL and DC based metadata, it seems to be up to CNKI whether or not they are willing to work with Google. CNKI is lack of open design strategy, its CAJ viewer, packaging product promotion and not willing to provide metadata to others are the signs. What worries me more is East Asian Libraries depend on their help for digitization the special collections and providing services. I think that it’s more important to have Chinese e-resources integrated into the whole university’s resources, purchased or created at UBC.
