Report on CALA Delegation to the 2007 LSC Conference
Guoqing Li
International Committee, co-chair
August 29, 2007

I lead a nine members CALA Delegation attended the 2007 Library Society of China Annul Conference held from August 5 to 7 at Lanzhou, China.

The preparation began earlier this year. 8 papers were submitted. 5 of them later received first award as well as been included in the proceedings (Chengzhi Wang/Su Chen, Lisa Zhao, Shuyong Jiang, Charlene Chou and Songqian Lu), 2 received second award (Hong Miao and Jing Xu), and 1 third award (Hua Yi). 9 members registered to attend but only 6 of them finally made it. They are Hong Miao, Hua Yi, Shuyong Jiang, Songqian Lu, Dora He and me. (Hua Yi is missing in the picture)

As the leader of CALA Delegation, I delivered a five minutes speech at the Opening Session, representing CALA to congratulate LSC and to promote CALA's exchange and collaboration activities with Chinese libraries. I also read a congratulatory letter from ALA President Loriene Roy, which was obtained by Shali Zhang, (Thanks again, Shali.) Both my speech and the ALA letter are on LSC webpage now. (http://www.lsc.org.cn)

Shuyong later that day represented CALA members to receive award certificates. Three of our members (Hong Miao, Hua Yi and Shuyong) made presentations at different sessions on August 5 and 6. (Xu Jing was scheduled to do a presentation but did not make it.)

Before going to Lanzhou, I have had a chance to meet LSC General Secretary, Ms. Tang Gengshen, LSC vice Executive Director and Deputy Directory of National Library of China, Dr. Chen Li, and NLC's International Affairs Office Director, Mr. Yan Yangdong in Beijing on July 25, and had lunch together. I introduced to them our 21st Century Librarians Seminar Series, especially the four ones we just finished earlier this summer, and presented to them our newly published book, Academic Libraries in the United States for the 21st Centuries: Theories and Practices (by the way, Beijing Library Press promoted our book at LSC conference and sold out all the copies brought with them).

http://www.nlcpress.com/cn/BookDB/BookDetail.asp?BookID=3173

They expressed LSC's appreciation on our effort to train librarians in China. Chen Li mentioned that LSC is doing similar thing, organizing volunteers to help libraries in remote and backward areas, saying that it seems we are "bu mo er he, 不谋而合". We also talked about future cooperation and collaborations between CALA and LSC. Things like providing volunteer/interpreter at next year's IFLA (Toronto), translating IFLA document and library science books (Chinese to English and vise versa) are possible projects. One thing we could do right way is to help on the Forth China-US Library Conference to be held at OCLC in October. One of the conference attendees, Ms. Songqian Lu of CALA NE Chapter, is coordinating with Ms. Wu Yue of LSC on hosting a Program for LSC delegation on Monday, October 29, 2007 at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York.

So, on August 5, the Executive Director of LSC and Director of NLC, Dr. Zhang Furui invited all of CALA delegates for a banquet along with all the Chinese volunteers.

LSC 理事長詹福瑞	文化部社图司副司长刘小琴

Also CALA delegation was noticed by both Dr. Zhan and Ms. Liu Xiaoqin, an Officer of Cultural Ministry, in their speeches at the Opening Ceremony.

Our members made lot of friends at the conference. Many Chinese colleague expressed interests to our seminar and other programs. I feel that we have made CALA and its programs well known to the Chinese librarians and that we should start to find enough talented members who have time and funding to take part in our seminar and other programs.

Finally, I would like to take this chance to thank all of you who have helped organizing this delegation and all who submitted paper and/or participated in this conference. Team work made this event a great success!