CDNLAO Newsletter
No. 75, November 2012
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Education and training for the library users
- 2.1 Lectures
- 2.2 Exhibitions
- 2.3 Other Education Activities
- 3. Education and training for the librarians
- 4. Conclusions
1. Introduction:
A library is a school for social education and a space for lifelong learning. The National Library of China (the NLC) actively extended the function of social services, and with the use of the library's physical space, Internet and mobile terminal, the NLC organized various exhibitions, lectures and trainings, which played an important role in enriching the people's life and promote the people's capacity of learning and innovation. In 2011, the NLC strengthened the culture education and training for the public and held a series of exhibitions, lectures and training activities. The statistics of these activities is shown in this table:
| Activities | Times | Participants |
|---|---|---|
| Lectures | 158 | 40800 |
| Librarianship trainings | 37 | 2900 |
| Library Tours | 456 | 9700 |
| Exhibitions | 60 | 411800 |
| Other activities | 210 | 142000 |
| In total | 921 | 607200 |
With the development of the society and technology, the libraries face more and more challenges. New environment and new user commands will bring up psychological pressure for the librarians. Facing the dramatic changes of information environment, the librarians in China realize an inevitable trend that they should be professional, qualified and high-level talents so as to better achieve the goals of the libraries. It means that, more and more training programs should be made and provided for the librarians themselves.
2. Education and training for the library users
The Library is a social space but not only a stack house. The NLC provides reading services, online services, and digital services, just as the other libraries do. Besides, the NLC also organized many education and training activities for the library users, such as lectures, exhibitions, library tours, etc. Thus, the library users can not only enjoy the reading in the library, but also can participate in the activities the library organized.
2.1 Lectures
The Social Education Department of the NLC organizes many lectures and forums throughout the year. According to the subjects, these can be classified into the following categories:
| Category of the lecture | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Artist Forum |
| 2 | Educator Forum |
| 3 | Wenjin Reading Salon |
| 4 | Scientist Forum |
| 5 | Entrepreneur Forum |
| 6 | Wenjin Forum |
| 7 | International Knowledge and Chinese Foreign Relations |
| 8 | Chinese Literature and Culture |
| 9 | UN and China Forum |
| 10 | ZGC Business Forum |
| 11 | China Study |
| 12 | Local Chronicles and Local Culture |
| 13 | NLC Forum |
| 14 | Revolution 1911 Study |
| 15 | Classic Novels |
| 16 | Poetry of Tang and Song Dynasty |
The NLC will invite the scholars, celebrities of the relevant field to be the lecturer of these lectures. These lectures and forums are held at the different sites of the NLC which are open to the public free of charge. Some of them will be recorded and put online at http://vod.nlc.gov.cn/ for the Internet users to access.
a top page of introducing lectures and forums held by the NLC
The NLC also paid much attention to the education to the children. In May 31, 2010, the Children's Library opens to the public. As a part of the services of the Children's Library, Wenjin Children Forum was organized. The NLC invited famous educators in China to give lectures to the children and their parents, with the aim to help arouse their learning interest and make them to be a good learner. On December 22, 2011, Ms. Lu Qin, a famous children educator was invited to give a lecture featured on the grownup and its regulation. And by the end of September, 2012, 28 lectures of the series have been organized.
2.2 Exhibitions
The NLC held 60 exhibitions throughout the year of 2011, which attracted about 420,000 library users. Most of them are based on the collections of the NLC. The NLC also sought the opportunities to cooperate with other libraries and other institutions.
On June 8, 2011, the Exhibition on Chinese Literature and Intangible Heritage was held in the Ancient Books Library of the NLC. On September 15, 2011, the Exhibition to celebrate the 100 Anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution 1911 was held in the NLC and in 45 days, more than 180,000 library users attracted.
In order to make full use of these exhibition resources, the NLC took two solutions: one is itinerant exhibition, which means after an exhibition is finished in the NLC, the NLC will contact with other libraries in other provinces to continue exhibit which will benefit the library users of other provinces. The NLC cooperated with Shanxi Library, Wenzhou Library, Wuhan Library, Fushan Library, Zhuhai Library, etc to held 8 itinerant exhibitions in 2011. The other one is to digitize and put online at http://www.nlc.gov.cn/dsb_zyyfw/5dzxzl/. More than 80 online exhibitions can be accessed on this website.
a top page of the exhibition of the NLC
2.3 Other Education Activities
The NLC emphasizes the Reading Campaign. The NLC also held a lot of reading promotion project. In 2011, the NLC brought out the Reading Journey activities. April 23 is the World Book and Copyright Day and World Reading Day, the NLC had a series of activities to celebrate this day on order to arouse the public's interest of reading. December is also the reading month of the NLC. In December 2011, the NLC organizes many activities.
The NLC also provides Library Tours for the public. The librarians will give professional introduction and guided tour for the public. The participants not only include the general public, but also the librarians of other libraries as well as those from other countries. This is also a good measure to attract the library users and potential users to get closer to libraries, know more about libraries and get near to reading.
3. Education and training for the librarians
Librarian is a bridge between the users and the library's resources. With the development of the service model, service content and the media of the resources, we need to train the librarians in order to get used to the new changes. The education and trainings for the librarians in the NLC include the trainings for the new librarians, the Continued Professional Development (CPD) and Diploma qualified education.
3.1 The trainings for the new librarians
In 2011, the NLC recruited 67 new librarians, most of them are university graduates and post graduates. Only a small part of them majored in library science. In order to help them command the library work, the NLC organized many training sessions for them. The training topics and content include:
| Training topics | Training Contents |
|---|---|
| Outward Bound | Outward Bound |
| Library History and Brief introduction | To have a knowledge of the library's history, collections and operation. |
| Library Tours | To visit the different sites of the library |
| Regulations and Policy | To have a knowledge of the regulation and policy of library (such as Human Resource Management Regulations) |
| Profession Experience Exchanges | To exchange ideas with the professional librarians |
3.2 Continued Professional Development (CPD)
Continued Professional Development (CPD) refers to the trainings for the librarians during their work. According to the rules of the NLC, each librarian must attend such trainings for at least 40 hours throughout the year. These trainings not only focused on the library theories but also the library practices and implementation. The following listed are the part of the training programs the NLC organized in 2011. It should be noted that these program are also open to the librarians of other libraries.
| Numbers | Programs |
|---|---|
| 1 | Chinese Library Classification (5th Edition) |
| 2 | The implementation of the Chinese Cataloguing Rules in the MARC format |
| 3 | Literature Classification and Subject Indexing |
| 4 | CNMARC Manual |
| 5 | Acquisition, Cataloguing and Access to Local Chronicles |
| 6 | Cataloguing and Management of Western Language Literature |
| 7 | Cataloguing and Management of Serial Publications in Western Languages |
| 8 | Capacity Training for Reference Librarians |
| 9 | Reading Services in the Information Era |
| 10 | Cataloguing and Management of Serial Publications in Chinese |
| 11 | Cataloguing of the Chinese Books |
| 12 | Acquisition, Integration and Services of Digital Resources |
| 13 | Cataloguing and Management of Multi-media Resources |
| 14 | Cataloguing Rules and MARC of the Electronic Resources |
| 15 | Technology and Services of Mobile Digital Library |
| 16 | Construction and Digital Services of the Digital Library |
3.3 Diploma qualified education
Diploma qualified education means that the librarians attend the formal education in the college or universities to focus on one major, and after the graduation, he or she will get relevant diploma. The NLC cooperated with the Peking University, Wuhan University and the Capital Union University for Further Study to provide professional courses for the librarians. Take the courses of Peking University as an example, the courses named Librarianship, aim to help the librarians to improve their profession and master more professional knowledge so as to get used to the library work. This course opens to not only the librarians, but also those who hope to know more about librarianship. The courses will take two years, and after the applicants finished all the courses, he or she can apply master degrees. The courses includ Library Theory, Information Resources Management, Information Resources Organization, Access to Information Resources, Publications and Intelligence Research, Information Resources Construction, Digital Library, Legislation and Management of Library, Assessment and Statistics of Library, Library and Social Reading.
The LIS courses of Wuhan University are more or less same with that of Peking University. However, in Capital Union University for Further Study, it provides courses named "Cultural Identification and Conservation". The content of the courses includes Ancient Chinese, Ancient Books Identification, Ancient Books Preservation, Ancient Books Digitization, Calligraphy and Seal Cutting, Chinese Culture History, etc. http://www.nlc.gov.cn/newgtpx/201011/t20101126_13562.htm
Introduction of the "Cultural Identification and Conservation" course
3.4 Other trainings
The NLC made full use of any opportunities for the librarians to exchange views and learn from the international colleagues. The NLC invited the LIS professionals from USA, UK, Singapore, Japan and Korea give lectures and organize exchange meetings every year. It would be very helpful for the librarians to know what our counterparts in other countries are doing now in their libraries.
4. Conclusions
The Education and Training is very important for the NLC. As the society and technology is changing, the content of the education and training should also change in order to meet the changing demands of the public. This is the way to better connect the library users to the library collections, and to make the library an attractive public space.
Copyright (C) 2012 National Library of China
