Information literacy and academic libraries in china: report of a recent visit

Citation

Rader, H.B. (2002), "Information literacy and academic libraries in china: report of a recent visit", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 19 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2002.23919dac.001

Information literacy and academic libraries in china: report of a recent visit

Hannelore B. Rader

The following report summarizes my January 2002 visit to Chinese academic libraries, including a report on the first National Conference on Information Literacy held in Harbin City, China, from January 6-8, 2002. At the invitation of Dr Liu Gui-Lin, Physicist, and Library Director at Tshinghua University in Beijing, the number one university in China, I consulted with librarians at Tshinghua University on information literacy and research libraries. I also gave the keynote address at China's first National Conference on Information Literacy, January 6-8, 2002, held at Heilongjiang University in Harbin City.

Harbin City is located in Northern China, with an average temperature of –20F. The city is famous for the ice sculpture festival, which lasts four to five months. A replica of a city is built out of ice, a beautiful sight, and every night entertainment and tourist events are featured. This area in Northern China used to be under Russian governance until the 1940s, and the previous Russian culture is still visible in the form of a Russian section in the city including restaurants, shops etc. In fact, during the ice festival Russian entertainers perform regularly in the area.

Following the mandate of the Chinese Education Department "to deepen the reform of education and to promote information literacy", educators and librarians in China held an international conference on "Teaching and Learning in the Networked Area: Practice, Challenge and Prospect in China", in January 2001.

The first "National Workshop for Information Literacy in Higher Education" was held at Heilongjiang University, attended by approximately 170 librarians from China. It was conducted in Chinese except for my keynote address, "Librarians Prepare for their Global Information Role in the 21st Century", which was translated simultaneously. I did share the ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) Information Literacy Competency Standards with the conference attendees. Fortunately, librarians from Tshinghua University had translated these standards into Chinese. Proceedings of this conference will be published later.

My keynote address provided the Chinese librarians with a summary of the current educational environment in the USA, including changes in university education, issues with life-long learning, virtual universities and virtual libraries and various collaborations. I discussed new challenges in academic environments and libraries, and building partnerships with faculty for various endeavors.

I provided definitions of information literacy and applications of the ACRL Standards in a variety of settings, and showed numerous Web sites to demonstrate the state of the art regarding information literacy instruction in US academic institutions. Briefly, I summarized the current assessment initiatives related to information skills instruction in academia.

Chinese librarians presented six papers related to the current status of user instruction at various universities and participated in several discussion groups related to:

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  definitions of information literacy in relationship to user education;

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  how to work with university departments to integrate information literacy;

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  how to obtain administrative support for models at different universities based on levels of teaching and availability of electronic information;

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  how to build faculty cooperation.

The workshop participants agreed that information retrieval education has to be changed from how it has been done in the past. It must become more comprehensive in terms of electronic databases and distance education. Government policies are needed to help with these endeavors, information research courses are needed, team teaching should be developed, and librarians need more preparation for teaching.

It was very educational to find out the current state of the art regarding information skills instruction in the Chinese academic community and to realize that many of concerns and issues are very similar to issues faced by academic librarians in the USA. At the summary session of the conference the three organizers stated that the conference helped bring about a common understanding of information literacy, provided new ideas and hopefully will assist librarians in various universities to develop their instructional programs so students will learn information skills. More discussions will be needed nationally and regionally on how to move forward with information skills teaching, how to get more government support and how to build international cooperation in a new higher education environment.

Several entertaining social events enriched the workshop and helped me understand Chinese current culture and social life better.

Heilongjhang University has a fairly new library facility, which features many new and excellent services for users, much technology and a café on the bottom floor of the building. In this café one can even obtain food and drink, including such interesting drinks as Kahlua and Irish coffee.

I spent several days in Beijing becoming acquainted with Tshinghua University and its library. The university celebrated its ninetieth anniversary in 1999 and is best known for its science and technology programs. However, the university is starting a medical school and has initiated a variety of humanities programs. They have approximately 20,000 students, the top academic performers in the country as well as many of the top scientific and technology experts and researchers on the faculty. All students, staff and faculty live on the campus. In fact, university campuses in China are like separate cities. They are enclosed, and have their own security, hospitals, shops, restaurants, transportation and living quarters for students, staff and faculty.

Tshinghua University's library features a new addition and holds two million items. In China libraries count items not volumes. The library offers more than 300 computer workstations for students and the library is always filled to capacity with students. Library users have access to most international electronic databases and regularly use the Internet.

For more than 20 years Thsinghua University Library has offered a very intensive program of library instruction, including seven required credit courses, reaching more than 2,000 students a year. Library instruction needs are also addressed individually and through distance education. I worked with the librarians to begin using the ACRL information literacy competency standards, which they translated into Chinese, and to broaden their teaching of information skills. One of my guides, Sun Ping, a librarian and physicist, in charge of the instruction program, is updating their information skills teaching so they can better address the needs related to the information and technology environment. Librarians offer very good library and information support and services to their campus population.

In addition to my work on information literacy, Tsinghua librarians also asked me to update about future functions of an academic research library in the current information environment and we discussed such matters as print and electronic information collections, appropriate services, and changing roles for information professionals.

This was my third visit to China in ten years and whenever I return I am amazed at the tremendous progress both economically and socially that is made in that country. Beijing now features very modern shopping areas, fancy hotels and restaurants, and many new buildings, and everyone is working hard to prepare for the 2008 Olympics. Thousands of people ride bicycles among five to six lanes of fast automobile traffic. Even some donkeys and mule carts are still part of the traffic flow. Whenever one ventures into the countryside there are tremendous treasures to visit such as tombs, temples and the Great Wall, and everything indicates the amazing history of this nation. In the country one can also observe the big differences between cities and farm life. Everyone seems very industrious and helpful, which makes a visit to China very enjoyable.

In summary, this was a very educational experience and provided an opportunity to share US librarians' work with information literacy with our Chinese colleagues in the academic environment. It was also an initiation of future cooperative efforts between the USA and China in terms of educating students for productive work in the electronic information environment.

Hannelore Rader(h.rader@louisville.edu) is the University Librarian at the University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky, USA.