From Accidental Technologist to Accidental Traveler, or What I Learned from a Month in Shanghai

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In May 2008 I spent a month working at the Shanghai Library as part of a work exchange. A month is a long time to be gone from work and home, but a short time to become acquainted with a library as large as the Shanghai Library In this column I will share a few of my thoughts on my experience. Some of my observations are about technology, some on other aspects of the library, and some are more cultural reflection. I hope that you will enjoy this diversion from the regular Accidental Technologist topics. OVERVIEW OF SHANGHAI ANDTHE SHANGHAI LIBRARY Shanghai is located in the center of the Pacific Chinese coast. It is a major trade and financial center with a population of more than 13 million people. Construction is rampant, with the entire area east of the Huangpu river (Pudong) new since 1993. The Shanghai Library and Institute of Scientific and Technological Information of Shanghai is one of the ten largest libraries in the world and the second largest library in China. It houses more than 50 million items and serves 9 million users a year. In likening it to a U.S. library, it seems close to the New York Public Research Libraries, except with a circulating collection. The 1996 merger with the Institute of Scientific and Technological Information of Shanghai brought scientific and industry research assistance into the purview of the Shanghai Library. Within the Shanghai Central Libraries network are fifty-four district and community public libraries. While the district and community libraries are public, they are administratively separate from the main Shanghai Library, with separate funding and governance. The network started in 2000 and aims to increase cooperation and provide a one-card-through service to library patrons that can be used at all of the Shanghai public libraries. My time at the Shanghai Library was divided between several departments. My first two weeks were primarily with the Friendship Library in the foreign documents division, where I offered English-language reference assistance and learned about the library. (I also spent some time adjusting to the time zone and figuring out living on my own in a large city where I spoke none of the language. The head librarian in that unit was very helpful.) Next I spent about a week with the interlibrary lending, document delivery, and document supply center. The last week contained some time with acquisitions and cataloging, tours of two branch libraries, and the digitization and preservation units, and presenting a lecture on my final day. Somewhere in the twenty-five days I visited Nanjing and Suzhou, spent three days buying books, learned to use the subway, and spent hours walking miles through the city. Shanghai is a very safe city. I've heard that most of China is this way, but I felt like I was in a particularly safe place. My lodging was at a hotel immediately behind the library, and there were guards by the hotel and by the library. It was also a block from the U.S. Embassy, which had Chinese Army guards stationed outside. Shanghai was also easy to navigate, since the street signs are in both Chinese characters and the Romanized Pinyin. The subway stops are labeled in Mandarin and English. The total of my knowledge of Mandarin consists of hello, thank you, and good, but people under about twenty-five years of age have been required to study a second language starting at age 10, and most choose English. BUILDING THE NEW, CELEBRATING THE OLD I traveled to three cities while in China. In all three places I saw significant new cultural institutions. Nanjing and Shanghai both have magnificent new libraries, and Suzhou has a museum designed by renowned architect I. M. Pei. There are numerous other new cultural institutions in Shanghai as well. The historical, cultural, and economical antecedents to this recent proliferation of cultural institutions are complex. As a casual traveler, however, my impression was of a city (indeed a nation) exerting its identity and pride. …