Chinese Canadian Library Weblog

陈昭珍教授准时开启了研习班的第二周。人在西雅图还关注台湾业界并投稿中时让我钦佩。她就圖書館館長向郭台銘要錢被拒一事发表己见，将上周课堂上的收获运用到台湾的现实。

Like in Mainland, academic libraries in Taiwan purchase e-resources collaboratively. National Library and Taichung Library look after public libraries’ digital materials. ConCERT is responsible for networked acquistion and make sure that digital resources cover the entire island. Prof. Chen used Qing contracts and Canadian TumbleBooks as samples.

Union Catalogs for different formats of materials are pretty impressive. Users don’t have to search individual libraries. Students are required to submit their dissertaion citations, TOCs and abstracts, half of the students submit their full-text dissertations as well. National Library’s document delivery is rather reliable and can be requested online. National New Books Network can serve us for selection and ordering, even marc records.

The first week of the Summer Institute ended with a tour of the libraries where we came for classes everyday. I didn’t really like this building when I was a library school student. Whenever I walked in, I felt like going into a cathedral where I was supposed to pray not study. Whenever I walked into the reading room, I’d stare up the huge tiffiny windows and the ceiling, felt like to fly into the heaven. Dawn’s Blog just posted a nice picture of the library. Chen Xi emailed me on her online photo album. Her pictures are gorgeous!

I could never imagine any political rivals within its Tudor Collegiate Gothic structure. Henry Suzzallo, then UW President, built this famous and stylish library in 1925 for his vision of the library as “soul of the university”, but he was fired because of it and the battle with Governor Hartley. The library was only named after his death in 1933 (58 years old).

All monument buildings are controversial, including UBC Barber Learning Centre. I admire Suzzallo who setup a library so high with a style. So was Paul’s father, Kenneth S. Allen, who happened to be an associate director of this library and raised a son as one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Ms. Xiao showed us the user survey, 3,000 responses, about 10% of Peking U. The libraries’ circulation is over 1 million per year, and doubled online downloads. ILL has 7 FTEs and 40,000 items. Chinese students ARE reading books! CALIS, CASHL, NSTL and NLC are the 4 large document delivery networks. Chengzhi’s question on large libraries’ suprise about how much materials they are getting from others is interesting and deserves a research project. Mr. Ma mentioned Harvard Yenching’s increasing demands and revennue brought to the library. My question is whether or not those money can be added to the collection budget. Xiao Long sounds like the flexible one-on-one ILL better than large systems.

Users training or instruction have expanded into departments and schools. Profs don’t want to accommodate library’s schedule and facilities. They also invite vendors for demos and user instruction, and put all the courseware online, which are including AV. Librarians are involved in multimedia courseware design. The Chinese citation management software NoteExpress is much cheaper than RefWorks and can handle all languages.

Peking U developed quite alot databases such as 学苑汲古 and 北京历史地理数据库. They gave their metadata to Baidu, not Google, due to nationalism. Wonder if China has a national policy for its information resource sharing and access and national protection.

Digital library portals are growing fast, general ones by each academic libraries, or specialized such as classical Chinese, etc. OAI allows 资源调度, with its behind the scene system. Diana reported first about U Wisconsin’s China Initiative. The president visited China many times a year? Great! How to make other branches buy China related e-resources? The demands from Science and Law faculty are tricky and need collaborative effort, the UL has to arbitrate among branches. Extensive research and attention are on Tibet, Shan, Gan, Ning. Xiao encourages us to use OA resources from China and work with Chinese librarians.

Shuwen talks about the Chinese Rarebook Project, which is not covered by Google Books. I don’t think it’s zero cost, for we need to scan and link the 856 field. Feel guilty to Soren, for I haven’t found time to do it yet. Wondering if Shuwen means that the Project can have our records done. But how useful it is jus to add the title page of rarebooks while most of libraries are about to digitize the entire books.

Mr. Ye Ding has very clear mind and only talked about 2 aspects, one on resources that we have learnt from the previous sessions and CALIS; another one is cooperation, such as virtual reference.

Ms. Xiao expressed her opinion towards us cheefully and thinks we are a bunch of real professionals! She encourages us to spend time in her libraries and work more closely. I would like to setup an exchange program with her, so I can go to Beida, and her staff can spend a few months work in my position for UBC.

Allyson said LCSH might be the reason of auto-classification’s delay. LC Working Group recommends to increase the efficiency of bib. production for all libraries; incorporation of non-library data into cataloguing data; development of internationally shared authority files; and suspend work on RDA!

Can Worldcat Local (WLC) include circulation data? then is it going to replace local ILS? Why do we need WLC? if we can open each others’ ILS?

Ann Lally thinks collaboration is the key for UW digital projects. They not only have centralized projects, but also branch ones and even external ones. Then Mr. Theo Gerontakos told us about his group’s work to identify metadata and coordinate consistent application, which led to a Data Dictionary.

Ms. Xiao Long is talking about integration of Chinese digital resources, 中文电子资源整合。She showed us Peking U library’s Subject Gateway which leads to different databases according to a rough Chinese classification, and can be searched by names as well. E-books and dissertations have both marc and metadata, they are converted and linked.

The 2002 national standard (规范）has important components on Chinese classics, which were digitized first, ahead of the new publications and archives. Copy or item based metadata saved some trouble from different editions or annotations. Collecting history is an important field. 秘籍琳琅opens its metadata and allows federated search with other formats of materials, such as rubbings.

Xiao Long thinks that libraries should make all the resources as open as possible, not just integrated within our own libraries, but also with Google and Baidu, so users can easily find what they need.Allyson Carlyle started the talk on organizing digital materials from the controversial RDA. We need to bring data in and push data out from the local system, and therefore need interoperatibility, what we’ve run into in the past days. Marc is not machine friendly.OCLC has been promoting FRBR. Music materials may benefit from FRBRization, Amy Tan’s works may too. Whole and part relationship is one of the weaknesses of FRBR. We should push vendors for everything. Fiction Finderis working on FRBRization here making a shorter and intelligent display. RDA is intended to be …of the Web, …for the WEb and …on the Web. Allyson thinks that marc will go away. RDA draft is targeting this October. Incorporation of FRBR entities work and expression should mean increase in number of access points, increased use of uniform title, necessary to identify works; make RDA more friendly to other metadata communities; make library cataloging data more widely available by others.

After the Thai Resturant gathering, we are back to the lab and question Prof. Chen Chuanfu on:
Translating the subtitle of the movies and sharing the translation with other libraries sound OK from Chen. But digitizing Linglong and providing free access on the Web is dangerous.

肖珑接着讲评估。 Xiao continued her talk on assessment. She mentioned CNKI’s embargo issue, which cleared my mind about Dushu, whose 2008 issues are already in, but not the late 2007 ones. She used 中国图书馆学报 as a sample, which has already completely stopped with CNKI?! We have no clue. It’s really annoying for CNKI’s lack of transparency! It’s good to get Xiao’s opinion on some economic e-resources, but the comprehensive assessment fits in Beida better than UBC, for we have limited resources in Chinese. I’m looking forward to her session on service with digital resources.

李华维先生鼓励我们设定更高的目标，成为各校的知识管理权威，难呀！他的全部内容都是围绕着管理。我们在各校的职位虽然不一定权威，但是在当今日趋扁平的组织结构中，我们每个人都要管理一些项目，只是涉及到的人员多少的问题。我不认为自己有能力激励他人，但是 an excellent librarian!陈兄又没能按时下课，明天晚上又加了一堂。Copyright has been a tricky and sensitive issue to us, and lots of questions that may deserve an evening session. How do we know what we buy have copyright problems? CPL has pulled out all their Chinese DVDs.

Shi Chao’s PPT and the clips were snazzy. I could tell most of people didn’t really get what Duxiu is for without the hands-on, and how powerful it is. I am thinking to get Duxiu without Chinamaxx.

Dr. Fidel was already waiting by the entrance of Suzzallo, and we were busy talking and catching up with each other on the way to the Village. She insisted to treat me for we are in her place. I had the best food since I arrived in Seattle and the best talk. I would love to become elegant and understanding as Raya when I am getting old.

Xiao Long, AUL of Peking U, gave a practical and open lecture in the morning on e-resources and their usage at academic libraries in China. I found it very useful and will go through those that we don’t have, such as 新华在线、时代圣典, etc. My group is more interested in the comparison among the same type of databases and dissertations. I found it very refreshing to see the Open Access development in China. Most of the Chinese OA journals are not part of a larger aggregation, but are published independently. Relatively more OA journals are published in the fields of health sciences.

师兄陈传夫超紧张地开始，却兴奋地刹不住车。我们的问题实在太多啦，横跨中西、来自我们的工作实际操作，把陈兄忙得不亦乐乎，时间到了也丝毫没有给小柯让位的意思。Poor Mr. Ke, from CNKI, finally grabbed the instructor’s machine, and started the demo of the new personal digital library, while most of people still in the copyright mood. The setup is a bit complicated, but Yunshan, a real scholar next to me, thinks it’s useful once we go through its endless setup steps.史超walked into the lab like a student who’s late. Will be really interesting to listen to his session, since all the previous speakers mentioned about SuperStar.

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.