A Transition to Hybrid Library: Practice in Shanghai Library
- Wu Jianzhong
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,
I am honored be invited to speak here. Thank you for giving me such a good opportunity. On the one hand I can gain from this seminar a new inspiration, and on the other hand, take this opportunity to sort out ideas. The title of my report is: A Transition to Hybrid Library: Practice in Shanghai Library.
The Shanghai Library and Institute of Science and Technology Information of Shanghai (ISTIS) were merged in 1995. Since then, the Shanghai Library has been exploring new development models. The new organization has presented a new public image with new technology and open services. In 1996 we began to use a windows-based automatic library management system, which was the first in the library community in China, and among the first in the world. The automatically operated CD-ROM tower was the hot spot for visitors to the new library building then. Another example is the open service. In the Shanghai Library, there were 1 million books on the open-shelf, which at the time was considered a very bold move, when the popular model was semi-open-shelf or open-shelf for a small amount of the collection. Since then, the Shanghai Library has not closed its door for a single day. Even during the SARS epidemical period, we still made sure that the library was open everyday. As one of the 10 new cultural facilities in Shanghai at that time, the new library building demonstrated a good image for the city.
Entering the new century, the Shanghai Library is committed to intensive development, focusing on enhancing the quality of services from the aspects of depth and breadth.
Today, the library is in the transitional period from print materials as the center of development to the digital materials as the center of development. In the period of print materials as the main body, we carried out open and innovative services to the maximum. We have not only ensured opening 84 hours a week, but also conducted maximum open services. We have promised and fulfilled our promise that readers can acquire materials from any stack in the library building within 20 minutes through the automatic delivery system. We have expanded reference services. In addition to answering 250,000 on-site questions every year, we have established an online reference service. Through the collaboration with other libraries inside and outside the country, over 100 librarians of the VRD answer over 8,000 online questions every year. We have also set up a document supply service, delivering more than 20,000 documents and over 4,500 books every year.
The Shanghai Library launched its lectures service in 1978, and is now giving a public lecture every two days and an exhibition every five days, covering such fields as economy, society, culture, life and library use. Many lectures are broadcasted on the Shanghai TV network, and readers can access the Internet video on demand on the Shanghai Library Lecture website. At the same time, there are as many as 20 digital exhibitions accessible online.
The Shanghai Library also offers information consultation services to government agencies and private companies. We provide about 950 advisory reports each year and publish about 1,000 original review papers on the Shanghai Industries Intelligence Services.
The Shanghai World Expo has given the Shanghai Library an opportunity to expand its services. We can say that the Shanghai Library’s participation in the Shanghai World Expo is comprehensive. On January 2003, that is, one month after the successful bid for the World Expo, we set up the World Expo Information Center and collected in a short period of time materials covering each world expo since 1851. We have set up a World Expo Reading Room; established a World Expo Information Web Site; issued 350 newspaper clippings; provided government decision-making departments with 100 World Expo bulletins; held 100 World Expo lectures and 38 exhibitions; published the World Expo series of 8 books and many other books on the World Expo. Almost all library departments, including the departments of cataloging and acquisitions, public services, document supply, information consultation and research, conferences and exhibitions, as well as book publishing have participated in the World Expo services.
Meanwhile, in providing services for the World Expo, the Shanghai Library has actively made innovations in service models, disseminating the World Expo knowledge and information through such services as mobile phone bibliographic search and browsing, SMS and e-books. We enter the World Expo Park to provide journalists with information support service, participate in EXPO research and offer reference services. Librarians are not only involved in the World Expo theme development, but also the World Expo Forum and the opening and closing ceremonies and other activities. Therefore we can say that the Shanghai Library’s participation in the World Expo ranks among the first in all public sectors of the city.
The library has also extended its services, of which the most remarkable is the establishment of the central library system and the knowledge-based information platform.
In 2000, the Shanghai Library began the construction of a central library system. In Shanghai, There are two municipal libraries, which are the Shanghai Library and Shanghai Children's Library, as well as 28 district and county libraries, and 207 town libraries. The 237 Libraries in Shanghai are operated independently, and there is no administrative affiliation between each other. By using the one-card-through system, we have gradually linked the public libraries together. In 2005, all the district and county libraries joined the one-card-through system, which then extended to the town libraries. Currently we have altogether 168 libraries in the system, but by next year, a complete coverage of public libraries will be achieved. We have also conducted cooperation with more than 30 research libraries in Shanghai. We have cooperated with the Fudan University, Jiaotong University and other research libraries for the joint procurement of high-price books and periodicals, and at the same time, we have issued general library passes, so that the research libraries can be accessible to the general public. In addition, the Shanghai Library and other libraries have jointly established nearly 10 theme libraries, such as the Life Sciences Library jointly set up by the Shanghai Library and the Shanghai Life Science Institute, with the director appointed by the Shanghai Library. Each year, the Shanghai Library provides a certain number of resources, in order to build together with the Shanghai Life Science Institute a first class life science library in Asia.
After merging with the ISTIS, the Shanghai Library has paid great attention to knowledge service. In the new century, we have gradually expanded the science and technology information service to integrated information services based on technology information, and extended the consulting service to the fields of economy, culture and others. In addition to the sustainable development of our original science and technology information services such as new product identification and patent research, in 2005, we launched an information service platform. By the use of information science methodology, we have actively provided various information services according to Shanghai's economic and social development needs. In September 2010, an information consortium was established, consisting of 10 libraries, universities, research institutes and corporations, with the major function for sharing industrial information resources, and it will expand to be a larger network.
As a result, the Shanghai Library has officially developed two strategies: a library collaboration network based on the central library system and an information cooperative system based on the information consortium.
The Shanghai Library has also set up a network of the Window of Shanghai opening to the global libraries. Since 2003, we have gradually established the Window of Shanghai in the libraries of cities with friendship relation with Shanghai. We send these libraries books in both Chinese and foreign languages published in China, as gifts or as exchange items. Currently, there is the Window of Shanghai in altogether 53 libraries, and we plan to open the Window of Shanghai in 100 libraries by the end of the next decade, so that the Window of Shanghai will cover the whole world. The Window of Shanghai not only provides books published in China, but as an extension of the Shanghai Library services, has also started to provide such professional services as exhibition, document supply and interlibrary loan. At the Shanghai International Library Forum held in August 2010, we launched the international document supply and interlibrary loan system. The system is now accessible through the web site of the Windows of Shanghai. We welcome libraries outside the Window of Shanghai system to access and use the system as well.
Just now, I gave an introduction to the Shanghai Library services from the development aspects of both depth and breadth. However, how to promote the library services in the transitional period is still a major challenge to us.
First, the top priority of a library is to meet the users’ information needs.
The library is a growing organism, with each cell forming an organic part of the library. When the library conducts a work flow of cataloging and acquisitions, circulation and collection development, it also conducts a knowledge flow of various activities with different subjects. Each point and each project is interrelated and interdependent. This people-centered dynamic mechanism for the purpose of meeting the information needs of the society and the general public drives the library continuously to move forward.
The modern Library is a socially oriented and demand-driven organization, and therefore, the library should regard the information needs of the society as its own responsibility. We should not only actively participate in the knowledge dissemination and innovation for the general public, but also actively participate in the government decision making and policy consultation, the research and innovation of research groups, as well as the industrial development and product value growth of corporations and freelancers. As a comprehensive information institute, the Shanghai Library is committed to achieving these tasks and objectives.
Second, the library should make full use of modern technology to enhance its service capabilities.
The Shanghai Library has proposed to raise the budget for digital resources to 30% of its acquisitions fund, but this goal has not been reached yet. The current budget is still about 10 percent. In recent years we have developed the E-card service to solve the problem of remote access, and the digital resources has increased greatly. But due to the fact that the library’s existing management is not adequate for the application of digital resources, we are not going too fast. As the digital publishing business model is not really formed and digital publishing has a long way to go before it becomes a mature industry independent of advertising or other commercial supporting factors. Two formats will certainly coexist for some time. But we must recognize the fact that the mankind is entering a digital era, and the impact of digital information on the human life has exceeded or is exceeding the traditional media. Therefore, our services must undertake the transition to the digital. We have not only updated the traditional services to the digital platforms, such as expanding the interlibrary loan and document supply services online and connecting with more domestic and foreign libraries, but also developed new services, such as launching the E-book reader lending service and establishing a new technology demo center, where all kinds of E-book readers are on display. On the one hand, users can experience new technologies, and on the other hand, publishers can have a platform to exchange information. We have also launched a mobile phone library service, so that users can access the Shanghai Library's various resources through the mobile phone. In addition, we have refurnished the reading rooms into a complex variety, such as the Newspaper Reading Room is now a place where readers can browse print and digital newspapers, as well as watching news on TV.
Third, the library should strengthen cooperation with other stakeholders, and to play a leading role in information provision.
The Shanghai Library has not only carried out cooperation with libraries and information institutes for resource sharing activities, but also undertaken cooperation with government and commercial consultation organizations to develop consulting and research services, forming a professional team to meet the needs of the society. The characteristics of the Shanghai Library research team are to adapt to needs of the social development and provide information consultation and reference resources. For example, when Shanghai was conducting the "12th 5-year Plan" research, we carried out cooperation with the government and relevant departments to do a research on the long-term strategic planning, and provided domestic and international methods and case studies of the long-term development strategy. As Shanghai is building an economic, financial, shipping and trade center, we realize that there is a lack of shipping resources, so we have taken the initiative to cooperate with the Shanghai Maritime University and establish the Shanghai Shipping Information Center to make up for the insufficient resources.
Fourth, the library should actively reserve resources for the future use.
The Shanghai Library not only serves the current needs of the society, but also provides fundamental resources for the future development. According to the traditional work division of the national library resource construction, the Shanghai Library has undertaken the task of the National Serial Center. We publish a monthly Index to the National Newspapers and Periodicals in the fields of social sciences and science and technology, and have established a web site to provide digital resources of the journals. The editorial department of the Index to the National Newspapers and Periodicals has made innovations to integrate the document supply service into database services, based on the traditional indexing service, providing users with the one-stop service from index or abstract retrieving to full text supply. At the same time, the retrospective indexing has already dated back to 100 years ago. At present, 27,619 titles of periodicals are available, including 7, 659 titles of historical periodicals.