Category: Experience

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Experience Libraries in China National Library of China Tech Trends What others are saying

The Bar and the Hall

I couldn’t participate in the TS workshop on the 31st due to this China-North America Library Conference new project meeting. We met at the Tropics Bar in the Ali’i Tower at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The dicussion was focused on the East Asian or Chinese rare books. It’s interesting to learn the uncertainty of LC and all sorts of digitizations going on at each library. Anchi is not only pretty, confident but also bright and flexible, who brought everyone of us into the discussion. What’s the relationship between the two national libraries? Almost all the large East Asian libraries are digitizing the rarebooks, will there be a platform or one-stop searching for our users?

Anchi wrapped up the meeting on time. Michael and I rushed to the exhibition hall at the Convention Centre, where I saw lots of UBC profs. I caught Xu Shu from Shanghai Library and we quickly exchanged our ideas where we had to keep others waiting. This year’s exhibit had a reduced scale, but still nice to see the demos, new publications and databases. Above all, I saw Michael’s digitization project result, some sample images and rare titles were quite eye-catching. It’s very nice of him sharing his latest experience digitizing the rare collection at UW with support form the NCL.

East View’s evening program was fun, and hard to believe I won the prize for guessing IPO as the top search word in CNKI. We had to skip the party time because we had more evening meetings scheduled.

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Events Experience Libraries in China National Library of China Professional Development Tech Trends Uncategorized What others are saying

CJK Joint Session

Walking along the beach then into the Hilton Village and Ballroom, I saw a whole lot more attendees on March 30th. This is the first time when Chinese, Japanese and Korean librarians meet for common interest instead of having separate committee meetings. The new format worked out nicely, but we could still cut some speakers out due to their emptiness.

The SCSL dinner and the Second General Meeting, also called 神仙会。The meeting lasted too long, so I brievely talked about our rare collections, my experience of studying Pang Collection and the challenges we are facing in terms of preservation and digitization. I enjoyed the afternoon and evening meetings because I spent some quality time with my mentors, Haihui, Wu Ge, Xu Hong, etc. and I met with new friends–Wang Jun, Li Yan and his funny assistant.

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Events Experience Professional Development

Plenary and Public Services Meetings

We were lucky having Dr. Evelyn Rowsky again this year telling us her own experience of the enormous improvement of electronic data transmission. As the Qing history scholar, Evelyn confirmed the impact of the e-resources on the climate of East Asian studies. She suggested some areas that need further attention in the near future.

Paula Mochida, Interim University Librarian, University of Hawaii at Manoa, convinced us the pressure of reducing duplicates and print collection at academic libraries in North America. Sharon mentioned about nCiku, which has been linked to my subject guides, but hasn’t been really recommended to our students yet. Hope some folks have already picked it up. After a whole day program, I enjoyed the sunset on Waikiki.

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Events Experience Professional Development

University of Hawaii

Started greeting my CEAL fellows at Hilton’s Lagoon. We were all very happy for this annual reunion. The OCLC CJK User Group discussion on the 29th of March was open and forward looking, which made me admire Sharon more. I learned a great deal from this open discussion. Sharon wrapped up the session as scheduled. We quickly gathered around Ye Ding, and he led us to the exhibit at University of Hawaii–Reformer’s Brush: Modernity and traditional media in China. Works include paintings and calligraphy from late 19th- and early 20th-century China on loan from the collections of Ernest and Letah Lee and Chin-tang Lo. The Reformer’s Brush showcases the artworks, lives and ambitions of leaders Chiang Kai-shek, Mei Lanfang, Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei, Guo Moruo and others. Every display item has bilingual intro and portrait of Minguo figures. I especially like the painting and Lychi and Green Peppers by Qibaishi and Zhang Zhidong’s calligraphic work 读书行路觉悟，知足惜福感恩. We enjoyed the special guided tour and wanted to learn more from the exhibit catalogue.

Ye Ding took us to the well-known East-West Center on U. of Hawaii Campus. Despite the funding shortage, we saw many people gathered. The Japanese tea house and the pond in the garden reminded me our Nitobe.

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Events Experience Life Recent Career Postings What others are saying

Launch a Career, where?

Last night’s event lasted much longer than it was scheduled. I was impressed by our international students who all spoke fluent English, experienced the globalization and about to launch their career world-wide. The French guy raised the good question on how to make his experience in Canada transferable. Chatted with a few students from Ukriane, who told me the common value of Ukrianian and Chinese culture. The hard-working girls from India and Japan in Forestry wonder about SLAIS program, and the sweet young guy from Thailand told me how much his sister enjoys working for the Indian software industry…

The Chinese students reminded me my own humble start. As of advice, I told them we all need to learn about ourselves first, and know what we really want to do, so we can land a career that will make us shine and enjoy working. While we try to cope with the study and learn the local culture and game rules, we should never lose our connections with our home town, where our strength came from the first place. I wasn’t surprised to hear their parents’ influence in their career choice. They already took their first step and came this far. I am really glad to see they have the help and support at the early stage at UBC.

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Experience

Happy New Term!

I had a very busy summer, and wasn’t able to dedicate any time here. During these two busy shopping weeks, I feel so happy to help some clueless new comers and see the friends back on campus. Just bummed into HsingYuan, who reminded meGu Xiong’s event this evening; Met with Prof. Jing, Swatek, Brooke and Chen Jinhua last Friday and the Peking U profs. The new smiling faces make me cheerful and talkative. 20 new MAPPS grad students all came to my orientation and have met a few Asian Studies very polite students. Will give them orientation soon.

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Experience Life Professional Development

Best Chinese New Year Gift!

While I try hard to recover from the nasty flu, I had a terrible car accident over the weekend. My new SUV is not drivable! The old gentleman who hits my car seems to be ok, and lucky enough I am OK.

I felt sorry and guilty for not getting together with the local librarian friends this year. 8 American friends are coming this week for the Olympics and stay in our house. When I feel a bit under depression and stress, Mindy’s greeting popped in and brighten up my weekend, so pasting here as a new year greeting to all of us. Way to go, Mindy!

Here is an early Happy Chinese New Year greeting to you! Ever since my LIS study years, I’ve always looked upon you as my mentor for librarianship, so I’d like to send you some updates about my work here at UCF. 2009 was quite a blessed year for me. I was nominated for the Excellence Librarianship award in my university and was selected after winning the most votes among the library faculty. It’s quite an honor and encouragement for a junior level librarian like me, since the awardees (one for each year since 1984) in other years are all veteran librarians with at least more than 10-15 years’ professional experience. Plus, the monetary side is also pretty attractive :>. The award will be presented in this April. As to services, I’m honored to be appointed to the upcoming chair for the FLA Continuing Committee and the Vice President/President-elect for the CALA SE Chapter.

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Experience

Non-Heritage Chinese Students

吴老师带来了她CHIN403的学生，像个小型的联合国，把Asian-616挤满了。我让出了自己的座位，站着讲完。老外同学能这样认真地听我神侃，真的很感动，不如全职教书算了。坐在我旁边的哥们儿最可爱，不仅提出了很好的问题，居然还用中文跟“刘老师”开玩笑！我提到了即将开展的问卷调查和今年的工作重点。Better make a note here. Their responses include: terrible lighting, study carrel computers don’t have the instant online translation software. They wish Asian Library projects can give them hiring priority as student assistants, so they can practice their Chinese at work.

他们中的一些是瞄准了亚洲或中国研究的。其浓厚兴趣让我想起了老何，金发碧眼、大块头，做的是急救工作，同时又是中国通。老何的中文比我们外交部的中国通们都不弱。他不以中文功底为谋生的手段，完全是兴趣、自得其乐。圣诞party上把酒听老何侃金庸、梁羽生和倪匡、、、似乎是很久以前的事了。星源的中国艺术史的学生来了三批，正赶上CHIN403的学生往外走，还不忘说， “谢谢刘老师，老师再见！”好可爱！

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Experience Life

Big Sisters

IMG_8747[1] ASIST年会把武汉大学的学姐们带来了温哥华。机场迎接了徐鸿和胡承仁大姐，到家她俩惊喜地发现校友先生。我们四个晚餐吃得很忙，聊的都是珞珈山下的故事，以及遍布全球的校友们。忙碌的工作和家务曾经有割裂过去的感觉，相聚唤醒了那段铭刻心底的青春岁月。
当年，黄宗中老师到北京招生，看到我第二志愿是图书馆系，就大笔一挥改变了我的一生。当他在迎新大会上告诉我实情的时候，他注意到了我的眼泪吗？现在回想起他的湖南普通话很亲切。如果不是他，我会有华大的奖学金吗？会享受参考咨询的辉煌年代吗？我现在会…?

周末载徐鸿周游大温，虽然不免会谈到工作，但更多的是人生。人到中年，走南闯北，人生历练足够写出长篇，不变的是在武大校园里就已造就的价值观。没有必要反问自己，“假如重新来过”云云。

Hong‘s still in town, Jane came from Texas, asking me to meet in Hyatt, ASIST’s conference site. Heather is coming this weekend from Montreal. Maybe, Danny the next. Good to know so many good friends. Lingbo just sent me something sweet, as if she knew what I’ve been up to:

GOOD FRIENDS ARE LIKE STARS.

YOU DON’T ALWAYS SEE THEM,

BUT YOU ALWAYS KNOW THEY ARE THERE!

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Events Experience Uncategorized

宴会上

Picture 020

9月8日的晚宴， 见到了很多老朋友：李馆开心大叫一声，让我感觉很亲切。纽约的老同事张鸿运先生加入CALA团队，即将赴西北培训中国馆员。在北京重逢真是意外。 当年瘦小的Jimmy已经是MIT的学生啦。前辈和大哥们引见一些国图的同行们，但是茅台和家常让我不便提起工作的事情。

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