Good to be home! and great to be back in sunny Richmond BC! The Institute has been wrapped up on August 2nd with many songs and hugs, although related phone and email messages are following me home.
Tim Jewel used the two words describing the UW library leader, Betsy Wilson. Back to his session on licensing, Tim encouraged us to form e-resource consortia. When Jennifer popped up the similar question, the class was silent. I wonder if we are known as a group of special libraries that are lack of collaboration. Optimism and collaboration set the right tone wrapping up the Summer Institute 2008. We lined up to accept the diploma from Betsy on the stage. It felt just like the UBC official congregation last may, only in small scale. The VIPs’ talk re-examined our profession and looked into the future. Ye Ding’ speech almost brought me to tears.I was thrilled to see Bill and Yen-mei who retired young from UW. I thanked Yen-mei for her Chinese Studies Librarian Lesson 101 before I had the interview for my current job. I thanked Betsy for giving me opportunity talking in front of hundreds of international students about UW libraries in 1992 when I was a newbie myself, which made my very first speech in English in the US. She still remembers for it was the first library orientation for international students at UW. Cathy asked for all of us on how to get support from ULs, Betsy said, “Never complain, just do what you can.”
Besides its purple and yellow color, UW is also red, Red Square, red Gothic buildings. In the past two weeks, paper cutting exhibition in Suzzallo 102, Prof. Gu Xiong’s exhibition in Kane Hall, Ms. Yu Dan’s full-house event, and our Institute, all China related activities added more Chinese color. Betsy was right, “There’s no better place for this institute“.