Unlike some large famous libraries which have become landmarks in their own country, the National Central Library of Taiwan (NCL) will not appeal to visitors with sublime architectural style on first sight. However, one will start to appreciate the beauty of the Library when he/she gets to know more about the efforts it spent on transforming Taiwan into a learning society.
Located in the central part of Taipei and opposite the famous tourist spot C. K. S. Memorial Hall, NCL serves as a focal point for both domestic users and visitors from other parts of the world. The existing library premises came into service in 1986 and were characterized by an abundance of wooden furniture and decoration. Together with a warm colour scheme and soft lighting, users can carry out their study and research in a cosy and spacious environment.
Owing to the fragile nature of most of its materials, NCL's service policy restricts its readership to researchers, college students and any person aged 19 or above. Most of its collections and reading rooms are located on the 2/F and above. On the second floor, users can retrieve the latest domestic doctoral dissertations and master's theses in the Dissertation Room. They can also explore an array of reference tools in Chinese and Western languages in the reference collection, navigate on the Internet or make use of electronic resources at the Information Retrieval Area. The latest Chinese publications can be found in two large reading rooms on this floor as well.
The 3/F is devoted to current issues of the periodical collections with over 2,000 titles of Chinese and Western language periodicals and newspapers. Back issues can be claimed at the service desk on the same floor. Special items like rare books and AV materials are housed on the 4/F. We were given a tour to the Rare Book Collection where the librarian in charge, Mr LOU Tam-tong, came from Macau. He gave the group a comprehensive and informative introduction on the history, collection and facilities of his department. Many colleagues were very impressed by the meticulously controlled environment for preservation of the valuable collection. Apart from a strict control on temperature and humidity, there are some 300 mobile cabinets made of Chinese juniper from the Ali Mountains. According to Mr LOU, the wood is a superb natural repellent for bookworms. In case of severe earthquakes, these wheeled cabinets can be relocated instantly by rescuers!
The Government and Law Collection on the 5/F contains government publications of the R.O.C., U.S. and other countries, as well as publications of the United Nations and its affiliated organizations. The Law Collection holds materials in Chinese, Japanese and Western languages in addition to doctoral dissertations from all law schools in Taiwan. On the 6/F, users can find collections on Japanese and Korean, Fine Arts, Mainland China as well as the Center for Chinese Studies. The latter is a special facility contributed to publications on sinology including Ancient Chinese texts, photocopies of antique Chinese books extant abroad, scholarly works on Chinese studies and related doctoral dissertations from both local and overseas resources. The Center also has its own publications, offers grants programmes and holds international conferences.
Another thoughtful facility offered by the NCL is its study carrels. Any cardholders may apply to use a research carrel for one month at a time and not more than four months for the same research topic. It is worth mentioning that 40 cubicles are located on several floors, many of their windows facing a multi-storeyed hallway. Looking from the opposite side of the hallway, one can associate the cluster of cubicles with a beehive in which many busy researchers nestled.
Apart from its physical collections and facilities, the NCL has put
in tremendous efforts in building up its digital collections and service
network. Users ranging from juniors in local schools to overseas
researchers can easily obtain the information and services provided by
NCL via the Internet. Its Digital Collection Project (數位典藏計畫)
combines the efforts of 9 other major organizations in Taiwan. Three
committee/study groups have been set up to offer advice on areas like automation,
network, metadata and digitization standards. A publication
on the use of metadata was issued last year. It sets out a
list of standards for future reference by all participants of the project.
The standards include those on digitization procedures, workflow, principles
for data migration and protocol for searching, etc. The project has
a wide coverage ranging from historical records, monographs, serials, theses,
rare books to materials from museums. At present, 23 staff members
from NCL were involved in the creation of index while digital scanning
is outsourced. More details of the project can be obtained from the
NCL webpage at
http://datas.ncl.edu.tw/catweb/sect-2.htm.
According to the project schedule, the four sub-projects listed below
will be completed by 2004:
1) Project 1: Rare books, stone and metal rubbings and drawings appended
to ancient publications;
2) Project 2: Local publications including library collections and
government publications;
3) Project 3: Journals and newspapers of the NCL;
4) Project 4: Software and hardware for establishing the NCL's digital
collection information system.
Some existing databases on NCL's Global Information Network (http://www.ncl.edu.tw) are the ISBN Net, NBI Net on new publications (全國新書資訊網), Newspapers and Journals, Master and Doctoral theses (中華民國期刊論文索引影像系統), Rare Books, History on Contemporary Literature, Statistics and the Distant Learning Campus (國家圖書館遠距學園).
Talking about NCL's Global Information Network, the website ranked the 15th most popular Taiwan website in a recent survey. It also scored the highest usage among all academic websites in Taiwan last year. Its document delivery service to local users takes only three working days. No wonder the service recorded a total number of 522,768 users and 5,372,045 pages between May 2000 and April 2001.
Our memorable trip to the NCL was wound up with a buffet lunch with
colleagues from the Library. The only thing I can remember about
the meal is that the variety of traditional Taiwan cold dishes was just
as amazing NCL's digital developments!
Reported by Esther Woo
University of Hong Kong Libraries