ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 71 | October 2004
Secondment to the
National Library of
From late March to the end of May, I was fortunate enough to spend 10 weeks
in
NLC is a huge organisation with over 1,300 staff. Apart from its library operations, it also has a librarian training centre, several companies—the China Digital Library Co. Ltd. and a publishing company—plus the China Library Association under its wings. NLC plays the role of a national, public and parliamentary library all at the same time, which has a strong impact on its operations. For instance, its Chinese acquisitions and cataloguing departments not only need to deal with the three legal deposit copies of over 100 000 new monographs published every year, but also with the three additional purchased copies for most of the titles so as to satisfy users who borrow from the library.
Public libraries in the community are not as well developed as in
CNMARC format, based on UNIMARC, is used in Chinese catalogue records, as well
as Chinese Subject Headings and the Chinese Library Classification System. Both
Chinese Subject Headings and the Chinese Library Classification System are maintained
by NLC. Western language materials, on the other hand, are catalogued using
MARC21, LCSH and the Chinese Library Classification System. As for resource
sharing of cataloguing data, NLC is host to the
The second phase of NLC is under construction at this very moment and is due to open in October 2007. This includes a new library building with improved space for both library users and materials, as well as an opportunity to introduce new services such as virtual reference, web archiving and improved access to digital collections.
Major reforms of the publishing industry were also announced by the government
during my visit. It is really a privilege to see these changes first hand. My
heartfelt thanks to NLC for letting me spend a most memorable 10 weeks there.
Wan Wong, Asian Collections
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