CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 63, November 2008
Open seminar
The National Diet Library (NDL) held the CDNLAO Open Seminar "Asia and Oceania NOW! -Libraries in the Changing Information Environment-" on October 21, 2008. Five representatives from the CDNLAO 2008 participants (Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines and Japan) gave a report on their current situation and challenges.
Mongolia
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Presentation file (PDF 901KB) |
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Mongolia has a variety of human cultural heritages such as petroglyphs, birch bark books, silk books, books produced with precious metals and stones in addition to paper books. Digitization of books in the National Library of Mongolia has just started in 2006. It began with digitizing the Mongolian manuscript of Danjuur and Ganjuur under the Indian-Mongolian Government agreement. Now we pursue the digitization of Tibetan books and sutras in the framework of the American ACIP (Asian Classics Input Project). The construction of a new building of the National Library of Mongolia will be started with the help of Kuwait. The goal of our library is to serve our nation and reach the world level. |
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New Zealand
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Presentation file (PDF 1.9MB) |
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The New Zealand government launched New Zealand´s Digital Strategy in 2005. The components (three "C"s) of the strategy are: (1) Connection, (2) Content, and (3) Confidence. The strategy was revised this year and "Collaboration" was added as the fourth "C." Last year, New Zealand´s Digital Content Strategy (NZDCS) was launched. This strategy focuses on the "Content," the second "C" of the strategy and shows a joined-up view of the nation´s digital content. "Kete" is a Maori word for basket. We have a lot of "kete"s of knowledge content in various sectors across the country but they are not connected and are not easily accessible. Now we are trying to connect the ketes in various ways. One of these ways is "Digital New Zealand," a project to connect ketes of the formal, informal, public and private sectors. We harvest metadata and provide easy access to New Zealand content via new discovery tools. "Digital New Zealand" will be launched in December 2008 – see:www.digitalnz.org |
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Pakistan
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Presentation file (PDF 159KB) |
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National Libraries are mainly responsible for collection, preservation, dissemination and bibliographic control of published literary heritage of their respective countries. Legal instruments are also introduced to achieve these objectives. National Libraries being legal depositories are managing knowledge contents in printed as well as digital format in the present day World. Knowledge resources available in digital format have particularly offered more opportunities and challenges in respect of library services and contents management. These contents are heterogeneous in nature, more easy to destroy, transient by virtue of updating, more commercialized being controllable, open online contents being mixture of authentic & unauthentic information and not accessible in many cases due to encryption & encoding etc. National Libraries are endeavoring to harvest digital publications for long time preservation, access and to overcome the issues posed by ever changing technologies. In such an environment, regional differences, infrastructure development and wealth disparity cause information literacy divides in Pakistan. We think libraries must make efforts to bridge the divides. We also recognize that libraries are responsible not only for digitizing materials but also providing access to the digitized contents. However, due to multilingual and technological issues, we are unable to provide sufficient access to these contents for all sort of library cliental across the country. Though the National Library of Pakistan (NLP) is facing a lot of issues, it is working hard to solve them, for instance, by trying to amend depository clauses of the law, reaching out to remote users through branches of the NLP, and improving digital services. |
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Philippines
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Presentation file (PDF 179KB) |
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The National Library of the Philippines (NLP) in performing its leadership among the country's libraries has come up with projects their primary objective- to upgrade the information and communication technology of libraries in the country. Among its initial projects are the PHILIN (Philippine Library Information Network) which is an integrated library management and information system. PHILIN has two components namely the NLIN (National Library Information Network) which is the National Library of the Philippines Management System and the PUBLIN (Public Libraries Information Network) which could network and establish resource sharing of the more than one thousand public libraries located country which has more than seven thousand islands. In 2004 and with the funding from the government, the Philippine eLib(www.elib.gov.ph) which is a collaborative project of five government agencies namely, the Commission on Higher Education, Department of Agriculture, Department of Science and Technology, the National Library of the Philippines and the University of the Philippines, was established. In the Project's organizational structure, the Steering Committee is the policy making body which is composed of officials from the participating agencies. The National Library of the Philippines hosts the Management Office and the Library Director, the Project Manager. Now in full operation, the Phil eLib can claim as a person's access to the most comprehensive libraries in the Philippines and the world! Resources of the Project include the millions of bibliographic data of the collections of the participating libraries, digitized rare materials and manuscripts on or about Philippines and its people, theses and dissertations, local history materials and photographs, historical maps and many others. |
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Japan
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Presentation file (PDF 391KB) |
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Due to the rapid change of the information distribution environment, new responsibilities of the National Diet Library (NDL) have emerged. It is expected to collect, accumulate, preserve information and provide it to users rapidly regardless of types of information media. The NDL is also expected to navigate users to contents wherever they are stored. To meet these expectations, we have been accumulating digital information based on the National Diet Library Electronic Library Concept (1998). Thirty kinds of online services which cover both primary and secondary information are now available. Besides a portal service to digital collections (PORTA) has started and the digital archive system is under development. International collaboration is necessary to carry out digital library projects efficiently. Aiming for trilateral cooperation on this matter, the National Library of China, the National Library of Korea and the NDL will hold the first discussion session after the CDNLAO 2008. |
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