National Day Celebrations

Today is the first day of the long holiday (October 1-8) for the 60th National Day (October 1) of the People's Republic of China. We all stay at home and watch the military review and the parade. The little girl is especially excited to see the "rainbow planes", which are the fighters ejecting colorful smoke. Looking through the windows of my home, we can see these "rainbow planes" flying from Tian'anmen Square.

Please see photos about it at:

http://www.chinaview.cn/60thprc/

Beijing Subway Line 4 opened yesterday

Beijing Subway Line 4 opened yesterday in the afternoon. It is important to the users and staff of the National Library of China, because there is a National Library station of the line just in front of the main entrance of the old library building beside the Zizhuyuan (Black Bamboo Park). With the National Library Station is in the middle, the Line 4 has stations at some important locations, such as South Railway Station, Beijing Zoo, Peking University and the Summer Palace.

The opening of the Subway Line 4 will change the life of the staff of the library, and facilitate their transportation everyday to the library.

New Academic Research Committee of the Library Society of China established today

The conference for the establishment of the New Academic Research Committee (2009-2014) of the Library Society of China is held in Putuo District Library during September 23-24, 2009.

To be opened in December of this year, the newly building Putuo District Library has a floor space of about 30,000 square meters, costing about 200 million RMB yuan.

The 2009 National Library (Suzhou River) Forum: a Workshop on Library Service Case Analysis was held in the morning immediately after the opening of the conference. The Putuo District Library demonstrated its new services, such as Information Supermarket and Self-Service Book Floating.

The 34th Meeting of Directors of ISSN National Centers Held in National Library of China

Report (with photos) of the ISSN Directors' meeting in Beijing at the NLC site:

The 34th Meeting of Directors of ISSN National Centers was held in National Library of China during September 14th to September 18th of 2009 shortly after the library celebrated its centennial birthday on September 9th. Over 30 delegates from 25 countries attended this meeting, during which directors of ISSN national centers and library professionals around the world had many in-depth discussions, view exchanges and experience sharing. Among issues on the agenda, the implementation of ISSN-L and ISSN assignment policy such as Criteria for the Selection of ISSNable Integrating e-resources and ISSN projects PEPRS received the highest concern.

ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) is an eight-digit number which identifies periodical publications, including electronic serials. The ISSN database, ISSN Registry, is the most comprehensive and authoritative source for the identification of serial publications world-wide. The number of records in the ISSN Register totaled 1,450,268 (including current and dead) by August, 2009.

ISSN China Centre was established in National Library of China in the year 1985. Through years of efforts, the number of serial records in CNMARC format in the ISSN China Centre database totaled 13,100 by June, 2009, which covered almost all records for periodicals officially published in mainland China and some bibliographic records for almanacs.

ISSN China Centre has signed agreement concerning access to ISSN China Centre records with the world-renowned information service provider ProQuest, which further promoted the application of bibliographic records of Chinese serials to an international level.

ISSN has been applied to many fields. ISSN is used in libraries for identifying titles, ordering and checking in serials, and claiming missing issues. ISSN simplifies interlibrary loan and cooperative cataloging workflows. Employed as a standard numeric identification code, ISSN can be used in computers for updating and linking files, for retrieving and transmitting data. ISSN also provides a useful and economical method of communication between publishers and suppliers, making trade distribution systems faster and more efficient. ISSN results in accurate citing of serials by scholars, researchers, abstracters, and librarians.

The ISSN Directors' Meetings are technical meetings, held on annual basis, which provide an opportunity for members of each ISSN national centers and the International Center to discuss issues related to the assignment and management of ISSNs, learn of new developments and harmonize the practices of the various ISSN national centers. The meetings are held in a different country each year since 1974, hosted by one of the ISSN national centers. It is the first time for ISSN China Centre to host the meeting after the ISSN national centers of the U.S., France and Switzerland, etc. as hosting organizations.

Recently, new types of resources such as continuing electronic resources are constantly emerging as the rapid development of digital technologies, which poses new challenges to ISSN assignment and management in many countries. This meeting will facilitate exchange and cooperation between ISSN China Centre and other ISSN centers, keep ISSN China Centre informed of the latest development of ISSN, which in return, will promote the ISSN assignment and management in China.

Original URLs:

English version: http://www.nlc.gov.cn/en/news/nlcnews_2009092101.htm

Chinese version: http://www.nlc.gov.cn/syzt/2009/0921/article_374.htm

Discussion of Cataloging Rules in Forbidden City

Yesterday, during the second day of the agenda of the Meeting of Directors of ISSN National Centres in Beijing, I gave a presentation about the special characteristics of major changes of titles for CJK serials. I summarized proposals from Chinese colleagues, ISBD Review Group, and CJK colleagues in ISBD RG. It seems that all participants understand the proposals very well. We will have to do further work in the next couple of months to consult all members of the ISSN Network.

In the afternoon, we visited the Forbidden City. Standing before the Hall of Preserving Harmony, Françoise Pellé, Director of the ISSN International Centre, said that it is the best place for us to discuss the harmonization of different cataloging rules, because we have so many harmonies here - the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony. It is an interesting idea indeed!

Meeting of Directors of ISSN National Centres begins in Beijing

34th Meeting of Directors of ISSN National Centres begins in Beijing today. ISSN China Centre, which is located in National Library of China, hosts this meeting. During the first two days (September 14-15), there is a ISSN/Virtua training session.

NLC Staff got IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship

OCLC names six librarians to participate in 2010 Jay Jordan IFLA/OCLC Early Career Development Fellowship Program.

Jay Jordan spoke at NLC

Today in the morning, Jay Jordan, CEO of OCLC, spoke at National Library of China about information strategies of OCLC and libraries in the age of WWW. This is almost the last event in the series of activities for the centennial celebration of NLC.

NLC centennial celebration held yeserday

The Centennial Celebration of the National Library China was held yesterday at the Concert Hall of the library. About 1000, including 300 guests, attended the ceremony, and some central government leaders gave speeches at the ceremony.

In the morning of the day, a workshop on the internationalization of librarianship was held in the new building of the library, with guest speakers from around the world.

NLC hosts welcoming dinner for guests

Today, National Library of China hosted a welcoming dinner for 200 domestic and international guests for the centenary celebration to be held tomorrow. Ellen Tise, IFLA President, and some CEOs of national libraries attend the dinner.

English "Annual Review of Library Science in China" published

Annual Review of Journal Library Science in China is just published this month by National Library of China Publishing House. It is edited by the Editorial Office of the bimonthly Journal of Library Science in China of the Library Society of China, and published annually in English. It is the first time for the Library Society of China to publish an English journal. It is hoped that it will published more frequently, bimonthly or quarterly, in the future.

8th NLC Art Festival held today

The 8th Art Festival of the National Library of China was held today. With 20 titles in the program, all performances were presented by staff of the library. Among them, there were a chorus and a musical by the Chinese Acquisitions & Cataloging Department.