NLC Records Displayed in WorldCat.org

National Library of China (NLC) submitted automatically converted MARC21 records of all its holdings of monographs to OCLC early this month. Today, I realized that some records (of the year of 2007) have been uploaded to WorldCat.org, such as:
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/288942397&tab=holdings?loc=china
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/181359658&tab=holdings?loc=china

Chinese Version of ISO 5127 Completed

The Chinese version of ISO 5127 (Information and documentation -- Vocabulary) has just been completed. It will be submitted the Standardization Administration of The People's Republic of China, and will become a national standard.
The Working Group consists of five members from National Library of China, National Science Library of Chinese Academy of Science, Tsinghua University Library and Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China.
The national standard is based on ISO 5127, and is added with some terms and explanations suitable to be used in China.

Fu Lei's Manuscripts donated to National Library of China

All the manuscripts of Fu Lei (1908-1966), one of the greatest literary translators of contemporary China, were donated to National Library of China last week by his sons Fu Cong and Fu Min.
Fu Lei was born near Shanghai, studied art and art theory in France during 1928–1932. Upon his return to China, he taught in Shanghai and worked as a journalist and art critic until he took up translating. His translations, which remain highly regarded, include Voltaire, Balzac and Romain Rolland. He developed his own style, the "Fu Lei style", and his own translation theory. His family letters to his son Fu Cong, a world-renowned pianist, were published posthumously and have become a bestseller in China to this day.
When I was an university student, I read quite a lot of books translated by Fu Lei, including Romain Rolland's Jean Christophe and Les Trois Vies (Vie de Tolstoï, Vie de Michelange and Vie de Beethoven), and was deeply impressed by them.
National Library of China has a special collection of contemporary notable authors. There was an exhibition of Fu Lei's manuscripts upon the donation ceremony.
Fu Lei dedicated himself to literary translation with a kind of religious passion, which is very rare in contemporary China. At the exhibition, I see even 3-4 versions of manuscripts for one title during his translation, and all the manuscripts were written carefully with pens or Chinese writing brushes. The manuscripts themselves are models of Chinese calligraphy.

Information Organization Standardization Seminar Held in Beijing

Today, the Seminar on Information Resource Organization and Its Standardization is held in a suburb of Beijing. With 15 speakers and 50 participants, the seminar is co-organized by Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC) and National Technical Committee for Information and Documentation Standardization (also under ISTIC). I gave a presentation about the recent developments of international library catataloging standardization and some hot issues in international library cataloging community.
The National Technical Committee for Information and Documentation Standardization is a Chinese counterpart of ISO TC46 and is responsible for the standardization of library and information community in China.

NLC MARC Records Submitted to OCLC

After 8 years of discussions and 2 years of formal contacts, we submitted all the restrspective records (about 1.5 million) of National Library of China (OCLC Symbol: N5L) to OCLC this week. Today, I received a group mail from OCLC CJK Users Group to explain the characteristics of the converted Chinese records. This is the first step for Chinese bibliographic records to enter the international library community. I hope we can further promote the internationalization of library cataloging in China.

China Association for International Visitors Host Successful Membership Conference

News form the American Embassy in Beijing:

Posted on 2008-11-19 9:22 am BEIJING, China -- On November 15, 2008, the China Association for International Visitors (CAIV)* hosted their first membership conference. The conference attracted International Visitor Leadership Program alumni from over a dozen provinces and municipalities. Alumni were enthusiastic about the conference, the opportunity to network with other alumni and the future of their forthcoming alumni association (CAIV).
The Chinese Humphrey Alumni Association (CHAA) Secretary General also attended the conference and provided useful advice for CAIV based on the experience CHAA has had in registering and carrying out alumni projects. The conference was a working meeting during which attendees elected Preparatory Committee members, discussed the organizational by-laws and determined the necessary steps for achieving formal registration and the establishment of local chapters. Hou Qie’an, Director of the Graduate Department of the Beijing Administrative College, was elected President of the Preparatory Committee.

Chinese Standard for Information Terminology about to Be Completed

The Chinese counterpart of the ISO 5127 (Information and documentation -- Vocabulary) is about to be completed this month. The Chinese national standard (GB) began in March of this year, with a working group consisting of six members from National Library of China, Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, National Science Library and Tsinghua University Library.

CBIP demonstrated today

Today, Digital Media Co., Ltd., of China Publishing Group demonstrated its pilot project "Chinese Books in Print", which is based on sample copies from publishers. DMC scans all the pages of covers, TOCs, colophons and last pages of books, and makes OCR to convert the images into characters. Catalogers can use the digital information for cataloging MARC records, which can be used by booksellers for book distribution and by libraries for enriched library cataloging. If the project is successful, the information flow of the whole book industry chain can be more efficient, and the work load of catalogers from publishers (for CIP records), booksellers (for distribution) and libraries (for enriched cataloging) can saved to a great extent.

Chinese translation of "The Arch of Knowledge" published

The Chinese translation of The Arch of Knowledge : An Introductory Study of the History of the Philosophy and Methodology of Science by David Oldroyd is published. The book was translated by three of my friends and me in 19 years ago, and is published by The Commercial Press in Beijing in November 2008. Most of the co-translators cannot be found, and I had to do all the final modification, indexing, typesetting, etc.

Association for promoting Chinese resources established in Macau

Association for Promoting Mutual Development and Use of World Resources Related to Documents in Chinese (Associação para Promover a Criação e Utilização Mútuas a Nível Mundial de Recursos Relativos a Documentos em Chinês = 全球中文文献共建共享促进会) was established in Macau, China, November 9, 2008.

ISSN Directors' Meeting to be held in Beijing

Meeting of the Directors of ISSN National Centres will be held in National Library of China, Beijing, September 14-18, 2009, immediately after the centennial celebration of NLC.

7th Conference of Chinese Resources Cooperation and Development held in Macau

The seventh Conference of Chinese Resources Cooperation and Development was held in University of Macau, November 8-9. About 100 Chinese librarians from China (including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau) and from other countries (mainly U.S.A.) attended the conference. The focus of this conference is the cooperation of the digitization of Chinese rare books and books published during the Republican Period (1911-1949). Some new projects (such as Global Chinese Family Trees) have also been proposed.
The conference is co-sponsored by National Library of China and Macao Foundation.
Cooperative Committee for Chinese Name Authority (CCCNA) is also one of the projects, but it is not reported in this conference.
Partcipants are very interested in the efforts of National Library of China and the budgets allocated by the Chinese government.

CCCNA Meeting in Hong Kong

Yesterday, I arrived in Hong Kong. It is my first time in Hong Kong. Although I have been to quite a lot of cities around the world, it is surprising to say that I had never been to Hong Kong before.
Today, we will attended the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Cooperative Committee for Chinese Name Authority, and discussed the cooperative project with colleagues from Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Meeting Goli Ameri

Today, I attended the meeting with Ms. Goli Ameri, Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs. As representatives of Fulbright, Humphrey and International Visitor Leadership Program alumni, we talked about our experiences in USA and expressed our suggestions for the establishmen of alumni associations. I am a IVLP fellow for the year 1999, and visited libraries and related organizations in six cities in USA during June-July 1999.

VR Experience in NLC Phase II

In the Phase II (new building) of National Library of China (NLC), there is a Virtual Reality Experience Area beside the OPAC area. Readers can have a VR tour and try the VR reading station. The VR systems are controlled by user's hands through video cameras.

ISSN China Centre begins to provide records to Ulrich

National Library of China (NLC) has just signed an agreement with ProQuest to provide bibliographic records of Chinese periodicals for inclusion in ProQuest's Ulrichsweb.com and in the Ulrich's Periodical Directory. The ISSN China Centre in NLC will submit about 12,000 records this year, and will submit about 1,000 new and updated records every year since 2008.

The cooperation between NLC and ProQuest will promote the internationalization of both Chinese periodicals publishing and Chinese library cataloging.

NLC new building to be opened on September 9, 2008

The new building (Phase II) of NLC (National Library of China) is ready to be opened on September 9, 2008, at 9 o'clock (090909). Administrative offices will be moved into the new building, and major reading rooms for Chinese materials will also be located in the new building. Some VIP guests will attend the opening ceremony in the morning of September 9.

September 9 of this year is the 99th anniversary of NLC, and there will be a ceremony for the Centenary on September 9 of the next year (2009).

Chief Experts's Middle-Term Reports in NLC

Today, chief experts of National Library of China reported their work and researches during January 2007-July 2008. In January 2007, National Library of China began its innovative talent project, selected five chief experts in major fields in library science, and signed contracts with them for the period of three years (January 2007-December 2009). The contracts require these experts to do work in research projects, staff training, international conferences, international and national associations, and monograph and article publcation.

As one of the experts, I reported my work in researches, IFLA activities and publications related to library cataloging and acquisitions.

NLC middle manager meeting held in Beijing

Today, the semiannual meeting of NLC middle managers is held in Beijing. This meeting focuses on the preparation work for the NLC new building (Phase II) to be opened in September 9. The first day is for discussions in four groups, and second day is for reports of 8 speakers selected from the 4 groups.

More Chinese translations of IFLA papers

With the WLIC (IFLA General Conference) approaching, the number of the Chinese translations of IFLA papers has reached 14. In addition to the 8 translations related to cataloging and done by staff of the National Library of China, there are 6 more translations of papers for other sections and done by other Chinese librarians and foreign librarians, among whom there are Ms. Zhang from the Hainan University Library and Ms. Wong from the National Library of Australia. Compared to the figures of the last two years (4 and 5), the number of Chinese translations is the highest since Chinese language became one of the working languages of IFLA in 2006.

IFLA Cataloguing Section has the good tradition of translating all the papers into all the working languages. For the 4 papers for this year, there are translations in all of the 7 languages, and there are Chinese translations for all the 4 papers.

• New directions in digital information delivery in the Web environment at the NRC Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information
  
  MICHAEL IRELAND (CISTI, Ottawa, Canada)

• Libraries without borders: document delivery, Singapore style
  
  CHAN PING WAH (Research and Innovation Services, Singapore) and NGIAN LEK CHOH (National Library, Singapore, Singapore)

• Document delivery services enhance access to information resources in remote Uganda
  
  MARIA G. N. MUSOKE (Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda)
• Legal deposit of audiovisual and multimedia materials in Scandinavia
  
  TROND VALBERG (National Library of Norway, Mo i Rana, Norway)

• The Legal Deposit Questionnaire: a step toward gathering information about the situation worldwide
  
  Questionnaire:
  
  JAMES M. TURNER [et al] (Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada)

• Cross-concordances: terminology mapping and its effectiveness for information retrieval
  
  PHILIPP MAYR and VIVIEN PETRAS (GESIS Social Science Information Centre, Bonn, Germany)

• Subject headings for the 21^st century: the lcsh-es.org bilingual database
  
  MICHAEL KREYCHE (Kent State University, Kent, USA)

• Platforms for real-time collaborative learning for practising librarians: using blogs, wikis and e-mailing
  
  WUN HAN CHOW (National Library of Singapore, Singapore)

• FRBRoo: enabling a common view of information from memory institutions
  
  PAT RIVA (Bibliothèques et Archives nationale du Québec, Montréal, Canada), MARTIN DOERR (Institute of Computer Science, Crete, Greece) and MAJA ŽUMER (University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia)

• Bibliothèques et archives: partager des normes pour faciliter l'accès au patrimoine
  
  FRANÇOISE LERESCHE (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France)

• Sharing standards and expertise in the early 21st Century: moving toward a collaborative, "cross-community" model for metadata creation
  
  MURTHA BACA (Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, USA) and ELIZABTH O’KEEFE (Morgan Library and Museum, New York, USA)

• Synergy towards shared standards for ALM: Latvian scenario
  
  ANITA GOLDBERGA (National Library of Latvia, Riga, Latvia)

• Collaboration among producers of bibliographic data. Achievements and planned initiatives at the Italian National Bibliography
  
  FEDERICA PARADISI (National Central Library of Florence, Florence, Italy)

• Canadiana, the national bibliography for Canada, in the digital age
  
  LIZ McKEEN (Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Canada)