Nanjing Library s Efforts on Intellectual Freedom

Nanjing Library s Efforts on Intellectual Freedom Wang Bing Nanjing Library China bobwang8888@hotmail.com ABSTRACT: In a civilized society, free and equal access to information resources is every citizen's basic constitutional rights. Although the library is not the sole means to guarantee citizens right to freedom of knowledge, it undoubtedly plays a very important role. In recent years, provincial public libraries in China have made great efforts in guaranteeing citizens intellectual freedom. This article describes Nanjing Library s progress and achievements in improving public service, convenience, equality, and free and easy access. I. Introduction Freedom refers to the freedom of the will, existence, and development. Freedom is a beautiful dream of human society. In a civilized society, free and equal access to information resources is every citizen's basic constitutional rights. In 1948, the United Nations declared in Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers (United Nations, 1948). From 1994 to 2002, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) highlighted the intellectual freedom several times as the core of library services and placed free access to information at the center (Zhang, 2009). In general, the international community believes that the library is the best place to realize the freedom of information and the most powerful social security system. Countries around the world generally set up a library system, especially public libraries, in order to guarantee citizens' right to free knowledge, because the main purpose for citizens to use a library is to access knowledge. Although the library is not the sole means to guarantee citizens right to freedom of knowledge, it undoubtedly plays a very important role. In recent years, provincial public libraries in China have made great efforts in guaranteeing citizens intellectual freedom. This article describes Nanjing Library s progress and achievements in improving public service, convenience, equality, and free and easy access. Nanjing Library is the provincial public library of Jiangsu. Established in 1907, it is the oldest public library in China with a long history and profound culture. It served as the national central library during the Republic of China period. In 1954, it was officially named 7

as Nanjing Library. Nanjing Library is an IFLA institution member and an OCLC member. By the end of 2013, the total volumes of the collected books in Nanjing Library had reached more than 11 million, ranking the third in the whole country. The Library is famous for the historical documents collection with a holding of 1.6 million volumes of ancient books, including 140,000 rare books and 700,000 volumes of Republic of China s documents. Among the collection of the ancient books, there are originally written books of the Tang and the Liao dynasties, precious block-printed editions, manuscripts, copies, and books originally criticized and supplied with the preface and postscript by celebrity in the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, 454 of which have been added to China s National Precious Ancient Book Register. The overall collection has formed a resource system, covering various fields in social sciences and natural sciences. Nanjing Library is located at Daxinggong in the center of Nanjing, occupying an area of 25,200 square meters and having a total floor space of 78,700 square meters. Construction investment is more than 400 million yuan. It provides 3,000 seats and more than 4,000 information points for users in the Library (Nanjing Library, 2012). As the information resources guarantee and service center in Jiangsu Province, Nanjing Library takes positive and effective measures in the protection of the citizens intellectual freedom. II. Strengthening the Public Service Figure 1. Nanjing Library Nanjing Library opens to the public 365 days a year and provides a comprehensive suite of free public services, including reading, lending, reference service, database searching, literature transmitting, inter-library loan, mobile service, lecture, exhibition, training and all kinds of reader activities (Nanjing Library, 2012). 8

1. Free library cards In 2013, Nanjing Library issued a total of 638,797 free library cards, including 28,997 Chinese and foreign library cards, 348,447 Chinese library cards, 202,516 reader cards, 52,187 children s library cards, and 6,066 collective library cards. All the reader cards are waived for fees, except for library cards that charge a small amount for the deposit. The Library has also implemented the self-service registration. 2. Library lectures Figure 2. Self-service registration machines In July 2005, Nanjing library started offering "The Nanjing Library Lecture", a public welfare and universal knowledge lecture series geared to the needs of the public. Going to Nanjing Library for the free lecture has become many citizens indispensable routine in their cultural and daily life. Taking the Lecture Series of Chinese Classical Literary Works" for example, it has not only an Introduction to the Poetry of the Tang Dynasty lecture for the beginners and the Nanjing in Chinese Tang-Song Poetics lecture but also a theme lecture Du Fu s Poems in the History of East Asian Literary History, which reflects the influence of the Chinese classical literature overseas. 9

Figure 3. Lecture on the enlightenment of literature Since 2012, The Nanjing Library Lecture series has been offered at the grass-roots level. By October 2014, 100 public lectures were held with a total audience of 42,209. Those who have conducted the lectures are experts and scholars with associate professorship or equivalent titles. Most of them are from Nanjing and a few from Beijing and Shanghai. Lecture topics include politics, economy, culture, education, science and technology, military, history, life, and eight other areas in humanities. In these lectures, the research findings of many experts and scholars were shared and demonstrated in nearly two hours in length to spread knowledge, cultivate civilization, inherit culture, and inspire wisdom for the public. 3. Public exhibitions Since 2007, Nanjing Library has hosted more than 50 series of exhibitions based on the rich collections it has on ancient and modern literature in both Chinese and foreign languages. More than 500,000 people have visited these exhibitions. To attract visitors, the Library has utilized the illustrations in classic literature in the exhibitions, for example, exhibitions of the illustrations from China's four great classics, exhibitions of the illustrations from Chinese and foreign literary classics, and exhibitions of the illustrations from Chinese and foreign children's classic literature, offering the visual feasts to meet the visitors desire to seek knowledge by reading pictures. At present, contents of most of these exhibitions have been edited to upload to Nanjing Library s website so people can watch online. 10

III. Enhancing the Convenience of Services 1. Digital services Figure 4. Public exhibition In recent years, Nanjing Library has made great efforts to inventory and preserve its print resources. At the same time, it has increased its effort to procure digital resources, including Chinese and foreign databases. In order to initiate the digital library services and provide its users with the database access services, the Library launched a mobile library service and RFID library self-service system. Ten electronic touch screen devices for newspaper reading were introduced. They are very popular with users. Figure 5. Electronic touch screen machine for newspapers reading. 11

Nanjing Library has been integrating its digital resources. It has optimized the configuration of electronic reading room, supplemented with multimedia resources, making it a real public network information service center with free Internet access. It is actively testing the feasibility to introduce OCLC WorldCat, a knowledge discovery platform, in order to better help users with one-stop retrieval of information resources. 2. Function layout Figure 6. OCLC WorldCat search interface Nanjing Library gives priority to usage and regards users as the center of library services. It has opened the collections to the public and integrated its collecting, borrowing, reading, reference, and management services. The underground floor is a space for conventions and exhibitions. It has exhibition halls, multi-functional rooms, lecture halls as well as an exhibit area for relics from six dynasties. On the first floor, there are a comprehensive service area, a general reading room, a lending and reading room for juvenile, a lending and reading room for the visually impaired (with Braille books and periodicals, audio-visual materials, and devices for blind people), and a collection of publications by Jiangsu authors. The second floor is the library circulation area. The third floor is the main reading area. The fourth floor is the reading area of documents on special topics. The fifth floor has electronic reading rooms, multimedia viewing rooms, and a reading room for classics or ancient books. The sixth and seventh floors hold the library collections. The eighth floor is the library administrative area. The Library has set up a green channel for the disabled. (Nanjing Library, 2012) 12

3. New services Figure 7. Lending and reading room for the visually impaired Partnered with Shanghai Library and Zhejiang Library, Nanjing Library has launched an online knowledge navigation station to provide high quality professional reference and knowledge navigation to the technology and research professionals, thereby enhancing Nanjing Library s network service and knowledge navigation ability. Nanjing Library also participated in the public service platform of science and technology of Jiangsu Province to provide information resources on engineering and technology. In August 2008, after buying a digital resources and reference platform, Nanjing Library led 13 city libraries to form the Joint Reference Network of Public libraries in Jiangsu Province. So far, among the 106 county (district) public libraries, 75 libraries have become member of the platform. These libraries jointly offer free online reference consultation and online delivery service to all residents of the Province. On the basis of its rich collection resources, Nanjing Library conducts the online reference service and plays the knowledge navigation function in the service for every profession and 13

trade in society, eliminating the physical barriers and technical barriers of users. In 2014, the Library opened its official MicroBlog and WeChat, using the new platforms to release information, provide reference consultation, and interacts with Internet users. IV. Serving the Disadvantaged Groups Figure 8. The official MicroBlog of Nanjing Library Public libraries are a system in democratic society to provide citizens with free access to information. As Jiangsu provincial public library, Nanjing Library is extremely important in the public information infrastructure in Jiangsu Province. Its key functions include collecting, organizing, preserving, and utilizing information resources to support its mission of providing information services to all citizens, including disadvantaged groups. In the early 90s, the Library established the first The Blind Audio Library in Jiangsu Province. It is also the earliest library service for the visually impaired users among all provincial public libraries in China. In 2007, when the new building of the Library was open, 420 square meters of a space has been available for the visually impaired users, which has 5 functional areas for (1) web surfing, (2) amblyopia, (3) audiobooks, (4) Braille books, and (5) exchange room. It holds 3,000 volumes of Braille books and 33,000 audiobooks. It is equipped with Braille printers, tape recorders, video viewing devices, computers for the visually impaired users to get to the Internet, and some special display apparatus and other advanced equipment. The Library has made all kinds of efforts to promote activities for the visually impaired users to achieve social justice. Since 2012, Nanjing Library has been organizing public training for rural migrant workers, the elderly, children, laid-off workers, and other vulnerable groups. It has set up 48 14

computers in the electronic reading room dedicated to training the public how to perform basic computer operation, how to surf the Internet, what multimedia digital resources recommended for children, and how to use library digital resources. So far, the Library has been holding the public training continuously for three years, totaling 350 hours and with 12,000 people attended. It has satisfied the public demand for public services, played the role of libraries in cultural projects for the benefit of people. The widening gap of information access by the disadvantaged people is partly because of their lack of the ability to learn. Therefore, public libraries should put more emphasis than ever on continuing education and lifelong learning for such users. V. Strengthening Free and Easy Access In recent years, by taking part in national digital culture series project led by China s Ministry of Culture, Nanjing Library has actively developed its digital resources, used the network extension of the reader service, and constantly improved its technical support capability and user support capability to improve the free access to information resources. 1. Digital library promotion project In 2011, China s Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Finance jointly launched the Digital Library Promotion Project ( 数字图书馆推广工程 ). The daily management of the project is the responsibility of the National Library of China. Nanjing Library and other provincial public libraries are active in the distributed long-term construction of public cultural resources for the project. With all levels of the digital libraries as nodes of the digital library network, excellent Chinese culture will be showcased, open access will be provided, and international culture exchange will be enabled. The ultimate goal is to serve all people, guarantee social justice as reflected in the equality of and convenience for the public to access information resources. In addition, Nanjing Library as well as other public libraries at all levels have participated in the project, sponsored jointly by China s Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Finance, to set up public electronic reading rooms around the country. Significant progress has been made in promoting library reading rooms for free access to rich content of digital resources to meet the needs of the public. 2. Library digital resources As an institution that safeguards citizens right for free access to information, the library must keep in mind when collecting and selecting information resources. With the rapid development of network information technology and the changing needs of the public, Nanjing Library has recently purchased 54 Chinese or foreign databases, including Apabi ebooks, CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), CSTJ (China 15

Science and Technology Journal Database), Wanfang Data ( 万方数据 ), OCLC WorldCat, CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service), ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database, elibrary, Emerald Backfiles, EBSCO full text databases, World Patent, Patent of Europe, the United States Patent, and so on. The library also uses its rich collection resources to create 24 databases in house, including Youth Olympic Database, Jiangsu Culture Database, Chinese and Foreign Literary Classics Illustrated Database, the Anti-Japanese War History Gallery, Periodicals of the Republic of China, the Republic of China Trademark, etc. The bibliography and full text of relevant ancient rare books database is also planned to create. 3. Services on the web Figure 9. Youth Olympic Games Database Nanjing Library has launched a mobile library. Users can scan the QR code offered by the Library on their mobile devices to get to the front page of the mobile library and then login with their library card number and password. The mobile library services include: (1) announcements from Nanjing Library on library information, registration information, and guided reading; (2) bibliographic retrieval of physical resources in the Library; (3) book renewal; (4) video on demand; and (5) direct access to electronic journals with mobile devices. Nanjing Library has also launched a website in English (http://www.jslib.org.cn/pub/njlib/jslib_englishversion2012/). Nanjing Library s new website and the website in English have a mutual link. It serves as a window of the Library to the outside world, showing all aspects of its business, including its long history, strategic 16

planning, collection resources, user services, and cultural exchanges. Meanwhile, it is a service platform for user registration, bibliographic retrieval, book request or renewal, online reference service, etc. Its homepage has tabs for About Us, Resources, Services, and Publications. The Highlights section showcases Nanjing Library Reading Festival, Lectures, Exhibitions, Featured Services, Ancient Chinese Books, Literature of Republic of China, and Self-constructed Resources. Figure 10. Nanjing Library website in English 17

References Li, Guoxin. Japanese Library Legal System Research. Beijing: Beijing Library Press, 2000. Nanjing Library. (2012). Modern library. URL: http://www.jslib.org.cn/pub/njlib/jslib_englishversion2012/jslib_about2012/201206/t201206 18_112617.html United Nations. (1948). The universal declaration of human rights. URL: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ Zhang, Jin. (2009). IFLA, ALA and intellectual freedom. Library Science Research, 12, 84-88. Author: Wang Bing, Assistant to Chief Librarian and Research Librarian in Nanjing Library, China. Email: bobwang8888@hotmail.com Submitted to CLIEJ on 16 January 2015. Copyright 2015 Wang Bing Wang, Bing. (2015). Nanjing Library s efforts on intellectual freedom. Chinese Librarianship: an International Electronic Journal, 39. URL: http://www.iclc.us/cliej/cl38wang.pdf 18