The PNC was established in 1993, comprising the University of California,
Berkeley and a number of academic institutions in the Pacific Rim, with an aim
to foster information and technology exchanges among its member institutions.
I attended its annual conference, held last January from 15th to 20th at the City University of Hong Kong. It was a collaborative event, jointly hosted by the City University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, California Digital Library and the Academia Sinica of Taiwan. 300 delegates from all over the world, some as far as Russia and the Republic of Georgia, participated in over 60 sessions on diverse topics: historical maps and manuscripts, geographic information systems, scholarly communications, digital libraries and archives, linguistics and language, amongst others.
Various sessions were of particular interest to librarians or information professionals: the keynote speech "Emerging Internet Trends" by James Simon (Sun Microsystems Global Education & Research), David Jordan's (University of California, San Diego) inspiring talk on "The Scholar in the Forest: Scholarly Communications in the Internet Age" and Assunta Pisani's (Stanford University) discussions on "Knowledge Management: New Roles for Libraries in the Digital Age", just to name a few.
To make the most out of this conference, I also attended two more seminars with a defined local interest. One was titled "Language, Education, and Politics in Hong Kong" in which William Littlewood (Hong Kong Baptist University) and several other speakers outlined issues on English language learning/mother tongue education in local primary and secondary schools. The group also exchanged views with the audience on the recent education reforms. Another intriguing session concerned heritage architecture in Hong Kong. David Lung (University of Hong Kong) gave a lively talk on the conservation (or the destruction!) of historic buildings in Hong Kong, supplemented by pictures of surviving and bygone monuments. As chairman of the Antiquities Advisory Board, Professor Lung explained what had been done or could be done to speed up the conservation process.
The rich and diversified pre-conference programme was also worth mentioning. HKUST Library held a workshop on "Designing Online Tutorials with WebCT" on January 16. WebCT is a popular courseware which allows instructors to develop a virtual interactive course for their students. It facilitates self-paced learning and complements face-to-face classes. Workshop participants were guided through a series of hands-on exercises from home page design to content and quiz buildings. By the end of the one-day workshop, participants had gained a good foundation on this courseware.
On the light side, the Zhejiang Art Theatre for Beijing and Kun Operas
performed excerpts from the "The Peony Pavilion." It was a cultural
highlight of the conference, successfully attracting a huge appreciative
audience.