ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 44 | April 2000
Visitor from Myanmar
Khin Lay Soe, Assistant Librarian at the Universities Historical Research Centre
Mrs Khin Lay Soe, Assistant Librarian at the Universities Historical Research Centre, Yangon University, Myanmar, visited the National Library for three weeks from 21 February to 10 March. The study visit was funded by the National Library under the Regional Cooperation Program, and followed Khins attendance at a six-week BISA training course in computer-based cataloguing for stand-alone and networked systems at the University of New South Wales.
As part of her visit Khin worked on the conversion of the National Librarys Books in Process (BIP) file. The BIP file project aims to convert the files 250 000 order slips and cards for microfilm series into records on Kinetica. This work should be good preparation for the daunting task that faces Khin now that she has returned to Myanmar. There, her first assignment is to automate the library of the Universities Historical Research Centre, which is the national centre for research on the history of Myanmar.
As well as gaining practical experience with Kinetica, the Librarys Integrated Library Management System and the Internet, Khin was interested to speak with a variety of National Library specialists. Khin visited areas as diverse as Information Services, where she learnt about the Integrated Research Information Service (IRIS), and Digital and Audio Preservation Resources, where she sought hints on preserving the oral history recordings of the Universities Historical Research Centre.
For our part, the National Library welcomed this opportunity to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with a major Asian library.
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: tford@nla.gov.au