The most basic of reader cards is free and allows access to reading materials within most of the reading rooms in the Shanghai Library. The next level of card requires a refundable deposit and allows patrons to borrow materials from most of the circulating collections at the Shanghai Library and from the other public and community libraries in the city. The deposit cost of 100 RMB (15 USD) seems low, but is about the same as an average day’s pay.1 A more extended reading-only card has no deposit—and no circulation privileges—but offers access to all of the reading rooms in the Shanghai Library for a yearly fee of 25 RMB. The most expensive card has a yearly fee of 50 RMB and a deposit of 1000 RMB and allows checkout of materials from the foreign documents areas and the closed-stacks books.
This system of free-to-read but fee-for-loan is not unique to the Shanghai Library; the Nanjing Library has a similar fee structure. The deposits to obtain lending cards are obviously to cover in case materials are not returned. A higher cost for the closed stacks and foreign materials represent a higher replacement cost for books published outside of China as well as for older, possibly out-of-print books. This requirement for deposit, rather than a post-facto fee for replacement, shows a different approach to access to information. Protection of the collection is the priority. There also must be a difference in people’s willingness to pay for library services. The array of for-fee services (outside of library cards) would be unlikely to be maintained without a clientele. The 1995 merger of the Shanghai Library with the Institute of Scientific and Technological Information of Shanghai (ISTIS) supports the offering of research services for business and industry.
Information Technology in the Library
Since this is the Accidental Technologist column and not the Accidental Traveler column, you may expect some mention of the technology in use at the Shanghai Library. In many ways the technology is quite similar to that used in United States libraries and therefore not as interesting as some of the differences that I observed. The Shanghai Library has an OPAC (they call it the iPAC) and subscribes to a large number of online databases in English and in Mandarin. They do not have a link-resolver for connecting databases to e-journals, but they are considering it. I had a good conversation with the document supply center (which also does development of technology-supported services for the library) about federated searching. Here are the technology experiences that stand out the most:
Cooperative Online Reference Services (CORS)
The Shanghai Library has a well-established virtual reference service using chat and e-mail. It is staffed by more than twenty librarians in the Central Libraries network, and they have expanded to include librarians from other countries such as Singapore and the Queens Borough Public Library. My original plan had been to hold my lecture on virtual reference in U.S. libraries, but in light of the existing CORS, I changed my topic to the future of research libraries. More on that later.
Services for Cell Phones
Cell phones are big in China. The Shanghai Library has developed several services that use short message service (SMS) and micro-payments through the cell phone. The Document Supply Center developed and staffs an SMS reference service. They have also developed a way for patrons to use their cell phones to register for lectures and workshops at the library. Patrons can also use their mobile phones to pay for document delivery. Payment is arranged with China Mobile and the amount is deducted from the patron’s prepaid mobile card.
Digitization
The Shanghai Library has an active digitization program involved in scanning of ancient texts and manuscript materials. The size of the operation is impressive, but the most striking feature is that the digitized materials are viewable only from computers within the library. I discovered this on my second-to-last day and did not find an answer to why this is the case before I left. If you know the answer, let me know, otherwise I’ll figure out who I need to e-mail there to uncover the philosophy behind circumscribing access to noncopyrighted digital content.
Information Complexity
Library patrons in any country miss the information sources that they seek. Even well-educated and focused scholars fail to find resources vital to their research. It is a challenge to make library websites easy to navigate and able to reveal information relevant to a wide variety of patrons. Large libraries like the Shanghai Library and the University of Illinois have an even more difficult time revealing their treasures. I am not sure if I find this encouraging or if it causes me despair. But it is a problem of complexity and organization and not unique to the United States.
Pattern Recognition
Structured information (such as MARC) makes using a library catalog easier. Even without knowing the language or being very familiar with the Horizon system, I could search using the Chinese iPAC and recognize parts of the bibliographic record. Even with access to an English-language interface at my desk, this was useful when assisting patrons at the public terminals.
People-powered
For all of its technology and modernity, China is very much people-powered. Watching the ubiquitous construction in Shanghai, I saw lifting done with people and pulleys. Even with 13 million people in Shanghai, I never saw a line except at the train station and the airport, and these moved quite quickly. Simply put, there are a lot of people to be served and a lot of people employed to serve them.
In the Shanghai Library there was no shortage of staff. There were always security guards near the entrance. The building was spotless, and almost daily I saw the banisters being polished. In my library, as well as many other U.S. libraries, we are concerned with reduction of service points. Part of the motivation is to decrease patron confusion by reducing the myriad options, but a lot of the drive is efficient use of staff. The Shanghai Library has a new building built with many service points; no matter where you are, you are close to a service desk. One reason for the array of service points is the physical layout of the library, which is organized into about thirty reading rooms, each requiring staff to oversee the patrons and collections as well as to answer questions and facilitate access.
In the foreign documents department and Friendship Library where I spent two weeks, the librarians’ desks were out in public. All of their work was performed in front of patrons. If you needed the German-language specialist, she was always there at one end of the room except for when at lunch or at a meeting. The head of the department was also always present at the reference desk. There were not a lot of questions received at these two service points—my desk offered a third—but the librarians were not idle. The prevailing service philosophy in United States libraries is to separate time at the reference desk from as much other work as possible so that the librarians always look available. Actual practice in libraries varies. As libraries in the United States see in-person reference questions decline in numbers, some are closing reference desks. Maybe maintaining a presence but bringing “non-desk” work out to the public areas would serve the same staffing efficiency but keep librarian expertise available.
Abundance of staff was also notable in technical services as well. On a tour of the preservation and digitization areas I counted twenty-three staff actively engaged in scanning and processing to digitize library materials. An additional two staff members were making rubbing transfers of Chinese stone tablets, and another five were using traditional preservation techniques on fragile documents. I was unable to see the more high-tech preservation lab due to the chemicals in use.
Retrieval from the bookstacks of the library is quickly achieved with a mix of technology and staff. Staff on each of the nineteen stories of the closed stacks are notified electronically of materials requested by patrons. They then retrieve the items and the books are delivered to the desk via a telelift book trolley system. Books arrive within twenty minutes of being requested from a collection of over 50 million volumes. I admit being fascinated by the telelift system and standing by the circulation desk to see this in action. Certainly this automation speeds the retrieval process, but having staff in place is key to this quick turnaround.