Category: Summer Institute for Chinese Studies Librariship

Zhou noticed the change on the other side of the Pacific. Great financial and technical improvement occurred in Chinese libraries, and they have made commitment to cooperate with us. Besides keeping up with the commercial e-resources, working with our counterparts in China will bring us more opportunities and make us stronger. He encouraged us to meet the demands from the emerging users, instead of holding onto the traditional collection development policy.

Jim’ session had a very fast pace and covered a lot of aspects around Google Books. Microsoft and OCA don’t have CJK books yet? OCA just started actually. Harvard has done their books (pre-1909) with Google, what about classics or rare? guess not. UCSD fed Google with their contemporary collection. This should be taken into account for our acquisition. It’s fascinating to see the MPI in their OPAC. ArtStore seems more useful than Prof. Chen’s Global Memeory to us. Browsed Jim’s film bibliography book within Google Book, too bad, not really full-text.

The weekend symposium ended with a cruise on Lake Washington, through the Lock and to the Pudget Sound. It’s a good bounding time, even with CNKI and Eastview folks. I like them personally, especially the two ladies. They couldn’t believe my translation when we past Bill and Melinda’s house, which used most of the recycled local woods, and the low-profile look (46,000 square feet though). I also enjoyed the conversation with Phil, Dr. Lee and the baby librarian, Chen Xi.

The official opening started at 8 am Monday morning. Betsy was right, there’s no better place than UW for this Institute. Look at the 5 speakers, elegant, warm, charming and cheerful, they left me life-long impression. Just a few quick notes below:Harry Bruce, the most handsome iSchool dean, gave us a warm welcome speech, which focused on his own connection with the international colleagues, and how lucky we all are to spend this July in Seattle.

Dean Yang told us about the interesting figure, Gowen, who started Chinese studies at UW, and called himself “the teacher of Sun Yet-Sam. He quoted our Canadian author, Spider Robinson “Librarians are the secret masters of the universe. They control information. Never piss one off.”

Peg Walther, the Information Resources Officer at the Beijing Embassy, graduated from both Jackson and the Ischool gave a nice speech, encouraging us to work librarians in China.

Phil reminded us the institute 20 years ago. Bless his heart, he went back to his notes that well connected that institute with the current one. He emphasized the organizational structure change brought by the e-resources, which is the case at UBC, but may not be that obvious at UW East Asian Library. Most of us have some growing pain.

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.

Woke up at 6 am and jogged around the campus. Zhijia and Michael started working already at OUGL. Dressed up and walked into the library, Chen Chuanfu greeted me right away and called me “Xiao You” from WHU and UW. Got to treat him for dinner just for that.

Betsy still looks pretty and elegant. Her welcome speech warmed me up. See, you can be kind, friendly and a big boss the same time. She and Chen are good role models.

President Rong, from the Rong family gave a nice and brief speech, which could not get rid of my doubt on how useful this session is going to be, for we had submit all our questions and demands to them in the past years. Hope by the end of the day, I will feel it worth my time.

Driving with Bie-Hwa down to Seattle took no time. We had so much to talk about, no stop! parents, kids, cultural difference, career paths…After we grabbed free coffee in Skagit Valley, and had a quick chat with the coffee ladies on Mariners’ game, we were back into the heavy traffic and got excited talking about our projects and vendor records.

The 3-hour trip seems so short! We were impressed by the huge trees at the main gate. UW, I am back!