Chinese Canadian Library Weblog

We met Dir. Zhan Furui at the National Library of China on October 21 in its new building, followed by a series of PPT presentations on digital libraries and overseas Chinese study projects. I am glad to learn that Mr. Zhan just signed the World Digital Library agreement at LC.

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.

Our delegation boarded the bus on time for October 17th visits. The Film Archive has just started various projects as the world has growing interest in Chinese films. The National Film Archive Database is one of them. I enjoyed the tour of the compact stack and the digital processing lab. I asked for a list of the reference books published by the library, that I hope to buy in the near future. Mr. Zhao, the head of the library said that we could order movie posters as well.Apabi’s content has been shown in Seattle the Summer Institute, and its price model has been changed and sounded like more flexible. I would like to use recent reference requests to test out the databases. Several of us had headache; the conference room was too hot and dry. Starbucks coffee helped us to survive the day, but Stephen was obviously quiet and sick.

The most exciting visit of the day was to see how the books were sorted and processed in the suburban clearing house. CIBTC provides shelf-ready books to many libraries in the world. The scale and the speed shocked us. Wang Tong introduced the head, who looked like in early 20’s, and her staff looks even younger. They work like crazy and completely ignored us as visitors. No wonder China is growing so fast. Wang Tong brought a projector to the resturant to show us her new online order system, which had been improved according to our comments in July.

Prof. Michael E. Everson from U. of Iowa talked on issues in Chinese literacy learning. As Prof. Duff introduced, we don’t have any scholars in Canada like him, who has studied that deep on the issues. Besides the K-16 Chinese language teaching in the US, teaching and research programs in American universities are way ahead of ours. One thing came out of his talk to me is that the library should start to change our collection development policy to meet the needs from our students.Rushed back from the CRCLLE, I was happy to see the display thanks to Phoebe and our vendor for express delivery. I met Alison who brought the four gentlemen in the lobby. They were suprised to see their works re-designed to a variety of new products. 格非 said that he’d rather spend a year to go through our collection. 两位其他本家，刘震云和庆邦也感叹修身养性的好环境。 除了在书库里流连忘返也赞美四周高耸入云的水杉和鲜艳的枫叶。

下午的讨论会上，白烨先介绍国内的文坛现状和三位作家。庆邦强调劳动和诚实在他写作过程中的重要性。格非则讲，在生活中左右都逢源的人往往想不到写作，而失败者用写作与人交流。 震云将小说比喻成两个朋友灯下谈心，谈得投机分手时能达到心智的替换。想起我六年前产假后的一段写作经历，觉得三位的讲法都很实在。他们也分别提到自己独特的经历和感受，如震云的外婆，庆邦的母亲，以及格非生活中的低潮。

I like them all. Besides theｉｒ strong interest in the library and books, they are sensitive and curious, amazed by all witches and wigs in the library. Above all, they are experiencing the world with their mind. Have to skip theｉｒ dinner, for I have promised Qi and the kids to see the fireworks in South Arm.

Ponderasa F is warm and crowded this rainy Thursday night. Although I received the invitation many times for the opening, I didn’t know much about the Centre. Hanban made a commitment of half million?! Sister Xu, way to go!Chinese Consul General, Shugen Liang, commented on the lovely rain in Vancouver, and it would be appreicated if spreaded to China. Dr. Farrar, UBC Provost, and Dr. Tierney, Dean, Faculty of Education joked about the big movement from Australia to BC, for Mr. Liang just arrived from Melbourne. Madame Xu Lin’s name was mentioned many times. Dr. Tierney told the large audience that China related programs have grown from a few to almost 30 in Education, covering all provinces in China. Dr. Patricia Duff also mentioned a few programs in details.

Some people from Asian Studies and Libraries were there. Prof. Swatek got excited when she heard about my recent adventure in Beida. The Peking Opera personal notes and manuscripts of the major actors I have seen in the rare collection made her jealous. “I really need to read them before I die!”, she said. Hope I can find time to write down my experience in China soon.

Wake-up call worked loudly at 6 am on October 16th. It’s a bright and warm day. Our visit started in the new building of Peking U Library. 肖珑老师的笑腼仿佛窗外的徐徐微风。她提纲挈领地介绍了全馆的发展历程，并带领我们来到古籍阅览室。乃文先生的京腔和对古籍善本的激情感染了我们。伴随着他的介绍是一阵阵的惊叹！程家的戏谱又为北大增添一宝，但愿我们的教授也能受益。 I am suprised that they have the money to continue to purchase rare materials and they have the space to keep all the card catalogues. What I really like is that they are investing more on document delivery and ILL, the service fee sounds reasonable.在超星，大家齐赞读秀，并像实现商量好了似的起劲bargain，as a team first and then in smaller groups。史超和朱平摆出海外的市场实在微不足道的架势，告诉大家“好商量”。

I didn’t have enough time to ask whether we could buy direct from the bookstore in Vancouver owned by CNPITC. The company has made transition online. Hope we can place orders online soon.

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…