Search

Reference services have been developed in China for nearly a century; however literature shows that very little research has been done on users' perception of reference services in Chinese academic libraries. To fill the research gap, this study aims to examine how Chinese undergraduates perceive, understand and use the reference service. A survey was employed and conducted in a comprehensive Chinese university with about 19,000 undergraduate students. 433 valid questionnaires were received. ANOVA was adopted to examine overall reference service satisfaction variation among respondents in different programs. The study reveals that library resources and reference services have been improved in China during the past twenty years, especially with the great support of Project 211 and Project 985 by the Ministry of Education of China. However, there is still more to do to change libraries from book repositories to modern user-centered information services and to improve historically underdeveloped user services in Chinese libraries. Libraries and librarians in China need to more actively embrace the philosophy that library resources are to be used and librarians are there to serve, to thoroughly promote reference services and render them more visible, and to diligently learn, adopt and apply technology to provide quality reference services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student deep participation in library work allows students to actively participate in library operation and become deeply involved in library service and program development. There are usually two levels of deep participation: level I refers to the employment of student assistants in different areas of library routine work, ranging from shelving to IT support; and level II refers to the engagement of students as library partners or collaborators, working with librarians to complete independent project. Sharing Tsinghua University Library's experiences, we provide a holistic view of how the two levels of student deep participation are implemented at an academic library, with a focus on level II. We seek to generate a thorough understanding of the practices and benefits of student deep participation, and encourage academic libraries to create more opportunities to deeply involve students in library work, and to ultimately demonstrate the value and relevance of the library to the campus community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a list of books received by the journal "Europe-Asia Studies." The books cover a range of topics related to Russia, Ukraine, and China. Some of the titles include "Bread and Autocracy: Food, Politics, and Security in Putin's Russia," "Russia's War Against Ukraine: The Whole Story," and "China's Digital Authoritarianism: A Governance Perspective." The books provide diverse perspectives on these subjects and may be of interest to library patrons conducting research on these specific topics. [Extracted from the article]

With the growth of international student enrollment in Chinese universities, user perception has become an area of developing research in academic libraries. China's policy of opening up has led to the education and economic reforms allowing major universities to enroll international students. These changes have created an increasing need for libraries to be responsive to the information needs of these students. In order to serve these students better, universities will be expected to further understand how academic library services are currently perceived by international students. This is particularly the case at Wuhan University, which has experienced significant growth in international student enrollment. This study aims to discover the met and unmet needs as well as barriers encountered in library use by international students. Based on the information gathered, recommendations and future strategies will be formulated to improve the understanding of the information needs of non-native Chinese speakers in both the provision of services and the building of collections. The findings of this study reveal that Chinese academic libraries are considerably well perceived by international students. It also indicates that they have differing purposes, and differing needs for library services and information resources. This paper acknowledges that the study is limited to Wuhan University; however, there is a need for further studies on non-Chinese speakers, particularly, international students to obtain important information on their perception of library services and information resources. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The long-term preservation and long-acting utilization of digital resources are currently a hot topic internationally. In the past several years, library market budgets showed rapid and steady growth in China. The fast growth posed a challenge to the long-term storage of digital resources. Four years ago, the China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation launched a digital resource platform 'CNPeReading' to build bridges between upstream content providers and downstream customers, in which an integrated service model including a long-term storage implementation was presented. So far, CNPeReading has made satisfactory progress in providing better user experience, lower latency and higher availability for library customers. Also, many overseas publishers have rapidly adapted to the Chinese institutional markets through the CNPeReading platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese academic libraries have been devoting great effort into introducing next-generation online public access catalogs (OPACs) in order to provide a better user experience. However, there is a lack of empirical research on their usage. In this study, a transaction log file from a typical next-generation OPAC, the Wuhan University Library OPAC, formed the basis for an investigation of users' information behavior, using a clickstream data analysis framework. The 26,732,368 clickstream records in the original log file were cleaned, parsed, coded, then analyzed at the footprint, movement, and pathway levels. The results showed that the users relied heavily on the single-box simple search interface, seldom involved themselves in an exploratory search process, and preferred page navigation over search refinement when interacting with search results. The OPAC was used as a lookup tool to locate known academic resources and as a personal information management tool to utilize basic library services, instead of as a discovery tool as intended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with head librarian Wilson Chu of the Learning Resources Center (LRC) of Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) in Hong Kong, China is presented. Topics discussed include the academic programs offered by HKDI, the attitudes of library users, and the workshops on information literacy. Also mentioned was the combination of the programs of three campuses under Hong Kong's Vocational Training Council (VTC).

The article examines that breakthroughs in news relating to dinosaurs will affect library collections much like ripples in a pond. Specifically, news releases on dinosaur discoveries in China. The news from China emphasized once more that the science of paleontology is not set in stone--it is merely written there. The first discovery, and arguably the more important of the two for librarians, is that a fossil of an early ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex shows the existence of protofeathers--precursors to the feathers on modern birds. The new species, named Dilong paradoxus, marks the first time feather-like structures have been directly observed on a tyrannosaurid, and supports earlier predictions by several paleontologists. The second discovery is that of a sleeping dinosaur. From what is described as one of the most complete skeletons discovered, this dinosaur died a peaceful death while curled up with its head tucked under the forearm, similar to how modern birds sleep. These two discoveries are important because they expand our understanding of dinosaur behavior and appearance.