回来UBC已经是开学后的第三周了，忙得一塌糊涂，没有时间整理和报告我的北京之行。今天又有同事怪罪，甚至要求我的博克应该适当加上中文。
这次是应国图之邀，参加其海外中国学文献研究中心的挂牌仪式，百年庆典和研讨会，首次由国图安排北京的一切，包括友谊宾馆的住宿。国图让我有焕然一新的感觉，上上下下都精明强干，既有条理又有效率。
还是从我落地入关说起吧。由于晚点，我们入关时，整个机场略显空当，执勤人员也面带疲惫。检查我入关手续的年轻人非常英俊和礼貌，“晚点这莫久，辛苦啦”审视完护照和密密麻麻的签证戳，他又问：“经常回来吗？”“一年至少一次”“欢迎你更经常回来！”
I registered for the Symposium first thing on Sept 8th, picked up the package and boarded the shuttle to the new building of NLC, where I learned a great deal from the presenters.
Just thanked my friends for the ride to YVR and then saw the notice about my flight’s delay. Seven hours! Kids were happy seeing me back home so soon. Had to email Beijing right away.
When I received the reply from the National Library of China (NLC), I was so moved and relieved. I was picked up from the Beijing airport by NLC staff around mid-night Beijing time. Mr. Yin even helped me with my luggage and hotel check-in. He had to start working at 6:30 am.
A few hours later, I dressed up and started meeting with all the overseas attendees of the NLC cenntenial celebration.
Monday morning, we were greeted by Mr. Ke and Mr. An at the main entrance of Tsing Hua U. Ms. Zhou Mengzhi, who is in charge of the legal department, presented the organizational chart of TTOD, the digital publishing platform of CNKI and its overseas market share. Among all types of institutional users, over 2,000 hospital libraries made up the largest group. CAJ and CJP are TTOD’s major products so far followed by e-yearbooks. CNKI is one of the branches of American Tongfang with staff of 1,600. Mr. Ke reported that they have been working on the following areas after we met in July at the Summer Institute: Born digital resources, such as dissertations and conference proceedings; Integration of different formats; Value added services, such as authority control and tracking title changes, etc.Then Mr. Dong Fei presented the Yearbook Database followed by the reference book database demo by Ms. Li Xiaohong. All presenters emphasized on the cross-database searching, but our group members worried how much we could afford, when such an integrated and large-scaled digital product is presented to our users who may request for the full-text that our library is not capable to subscribe to. I also worry the overlap among different e-content providers.
We started the afternoon meeting with Dr. Zhang Xiaolin at 2pm in the National Library of Science, which serves the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). CAS has 103 research institutes in 28 cities with 25,000 staff and 3,5000 graduate students. Dr. Zhang asked us to promote the plan of hiring 100 librarians worldwide and sending his staff to work at North American academic libraries. Their services impressed the group especially the cross-domain search system, real-time virtual reference and desktop infor-tools （e划通）, which is a desktop retrieval tool that allows to search the third party’s or commercial databases from personal documents, such as pdf or ppt files. Since the average distance between the central library and users is 1,000 km, easy access and document delivery are emphasized. Dr. Zhang emphasized the interactive information services and looking for what the users don’t know what exactly they need. 他强调“去馆舍化，去层级化，提供研究人员还不知道的信息源。” Library’s metadata has been provided to Google Scholar. The Chinese Science Citation Database has been integrated into the ISI Web of Knowledge, which will help to promote the Chinese scientific research worldwide.
The library tour after the meeting reminded us what Dr. Zhang said. The building is quiete and empty except for the first floor. We rushed to one of TTOD’s processing centre where many young people work day and night to scan and process newspapers, journals and disserations, etc. They work in different shifts to keep the scanners and computers running all the time. The group was impressed by their efficiency.
星期六晚上与杨爱东久别重逢，她一定让我见识一下当今北京人的周末晚宴，害得我翘了人大的宴请，打车奔往东城大董烤鸭。果然名不虚传，前厅里到处都是等位子的老外，人手一杯鸡尾酒。每一道菜都像一幅画，但我们有太多的话题，好像美食对我没有太多的魅力。几位老同学都不见老，话语幽默，情绪饱满。半夜爱东开车送我回家，这是回国后第一次回家，放下行李，赶紧打车回海淀，因为第二天又是行程满满。
October 19th, Sunday, CIBTC arranged the visit of the Bird Nest, the only sightseeing during the two weeks. An elementary school was having its sport festival. While we were walking inside of the Nest, I’ve got a phone call from 张超，她正在鸟巢开运动会，多巧呀，还那末牛！在她的带领下我们去小崔俯瞰鸟巢的新家指手画脚一番，午饭又吃得简单而精彩。姐妹4个得意忘形把个小餐馆感染得只听得到我们的声音。打工的小妹小弟们都上来问我们为何这末高兴。 珍本的老板刘军一席讲演，让我中午的激情继续燃烧，也让我从中了解到中国书商的运作规则和困难。这家民营企业与大三家有着太多的不同。 光天把珍本安排进来大家都无怨言反倒受益匪浅。
晚饭后临时上门的中央文献研究室的领导面对的已经是精疲力竭的我们。他们勇于面对国外学者主动寻求合作的态度让我感动。与人大图书馆形成鲜明的对照。 The unscheduled meeting with Ms. Zhang Peng and Zheng Zhaohong from the Party Literature Research Center were important. I need to make the note here and inform Prof. Cheek, Nick and Yoel about my findings and encourage them to benefit from the Center.
Saturday, October 18th. We walked through campus in the morning breeze to visit the library and the Information Centre for Social Sciences. We have been subscribing to its series that offer value added resources and waiting for its online version. But comparing with other digital content providers, the Centre came to the late start, faces challenge of opening the oversea’s market. The library is in traditional setting, and pretty empty that Saturday morning. I was quite disappointed at the meeting. The leaders, Ms. Liu and Song, didn’t sound that welcoming for use of their special collections from Yan’an.
The afternoon forum was too long, and the copyright officials’ presence made me wonder if they were the reason that the Centre could not digitize their products sooner. The head of the China Archives of Publications provided an interesting presentation focusing on AV materials. It sounded like that users can benefit from its collections on the web. But we were not given time to ask questions.
I enjoyed talking to the non-heritage class right before I took this trip. Their eyes in blue, green and brown colors all showed sympathy when I told them that I would take the trip on Thanksgiving to Beijing. “I could use Peking duck to replace turkey” I joked with the class, and that started a bit debate about whether the Peking duck in Vancouver is real.When I saw the real Peking duck in Beijing, I was thinking about the lovely class, and told my peers how popular Chinese classes are at UBC. What a surprise! A thank-you card is sitting in my mailbox first day when I returned to work, from CHIN 105! The students wrote in Chinese: “意思极了！”“你是个好老师！”“你很漂亮！” Feel like still flying in the clouds…
I am jetlaged and feel like in a dream. Time to make the note of my trip. Arrived in Beijing on the 13th, on Thanksgiving back in Canada. I had to rush here for the International Conference on the Development of Subject Librarianship.
When I went to the registration desk from the airport directly, I didn’t even know how to answer their questions and I didn’t have enough RMB to pay for the conference. A beautiful young lady walked by and recognized me, “Jing Liu, from UBC?!”I knew I met her before but her name didn’t come back to me fast enough. Gayle from HKU, we met in Shanghai years ago. Then Deng Shi came to the registration and gave me a bear hug. Good to be back, where people know your name!
My presentation went smoothly, although I spent some extra time, which I don’t usually do, but I do like to be fare to all audience, so I spoke in both languages. No time for Q and A. As soon as I stepped out, a few people followed and called me “Teacher Liu”. We were connected by the Sino-American Librarians Training Program in Wuhan. I felt flattered being remembered by these Chinese librarians. I didn’t expect any classmates, so I was really shocked and happy to see Jianyuan, who became an AUL at the Union U. in Beijing. See how happy I was reunited with my school friend!
Our delegation started to work this evening at Da Zhai Men. Presentations on new e-resources were provided at dinner time: Dragoninfo 龙语瀚堂，中文在线, 国学宝典， 周文业老师的古典小说据说也很好。
Dr. Shao Dongfang brought some scholars from CASS for a conference at the IAR on the Project. I walked into the room with the interpretor, Mr. Kwan, who looked exhausted. There’s a debate about Kogoryu history between Chinese and Korean speakers. I stayed for Mark Byington’s (Harvard) presentation although I was reminded about “closed conference”. There’re lots of interesting issues around China’s border regions and neighbors. Related books should be added to our collection.
On September 30th, 2007, Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure raised $26.5 million. This year’s Run attracted more than 170,000 Canadians in 53 communities across the country. In Vancouver, more than 12,000 people braved the unrelenting rain for the worthy cause.
Do you know that 215 Librarians Run for the Cure team members participated in the event from 19 different Run Sites across Canada? They also raised a total of $38,750. The Toronto Run Site had the most team members with 32 participants in total. The Edmonton Run Site raised the most money with a $9705 total.
In Vancouver, Mr. Todd Mundle (Associate Librarian – SFU) raised $1272.34 and made it to the Top Five Individual Fundraisers among all the Librarians Run for the Cure national team members. Todd also ran a very impressive 20:30 time for the 5 km course. Ms. Frances Main (Research Specialist – Canada Revenue Agency) and her husband completed the course in less than 30 minutes. Well done, Todd, Frances and Ian!
September 30th was a beautiful, sunny day in the rest of the country, but it rained heavily in Vancouver. According to the event MC, this was the first year that it rained in Vancouver’s 16-year Run for the Cure history. The grim weather might have slowed down some people, but it did not deter any of the determined crowd from completing the 5 km route.
This was my fourth year participating in this event, but my first year as a walker. Due to the heavy rain, the race looked like a race of colorful umbrellas and ponchos, to borrow the MC’s phrase. It was very heart-warming and inspirational to walk among men and women of all ages – from high school students to seniors. Walking in the rain, I saw families from different ethnic/cultural backgrounds, friends from different neighbourhoods or schools, colleagues from various organizations, and kids with their parents and grandparents. Many people dedicated their Run to a close family member, a teacher, a colleague, or to a toddler daughter -to eradicate breast cancer from her future vocabulary. At the end of the day, the soaked t-shirts, pants and shoes felt like a badge of honour for many people. I felt motivated to participate again in future years regardless of the weather!
Mark October 5th, 2008 on your calendar for next year’s Run. I hope to see many of you on the Librarians Run for the Cure – Vancouver team. For more information, please contact:
Linda Yan
Team Captain for Vancouver
Research Specialist at the Canada Revenue Agency
Email: yanlb@yahoo.com
http://units.sla.org/chapter/cwcn/wwest/v11n1/article_yan.shtml
Finish reading several Chinese books this rainy weekend, including two on health and parenting borrowed from friends. They made me feel relaxed and inspired. Megan just came over and told me how beautiful Mandarin is. That’s quite unusual! and I have to make a note here.
We are lucky living in Vancouver with best Chinese collections at UBC, public libraries and bookstores, plus many friends who love to read. When I am tired of reading in English, Chinese books bring me joy and a different way of thinking.
