• 2016-04-07

The NCL has four projects selected to participate in the 2016 Annual Poster Exhibition of the American Library Association (ALA) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).

Application of three items to the American Library Association received full admission. They are: "A Feast for the Young: NCL Promoting NDLTD in Taiwan at University," "Reading Interest Permeates the Community" and "Green Ideas in National Central Library, Taiwan". These are NCL's successful promotion in recent years of the National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertation (NDLTD) in Taiwan for academic research and "Reading Community Certification" to encourage reading and promote the importance of and green environment.

Moreover, NCL's poster: "Sailing on the Path of Knowledge: Young Scholar Cultivation Workshop" has been selected to participate in the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA) Annual Meeting poster exhibition. The ALA and IFLA annual meeting will be held in Orlando and Columbus respectively. Thousands of participants will be able to view it showing the image of Taiwan's progress.

These two international organizations regularly organize annual poster exhibition. Through posters, national libraries exhibit their respective creativity, introducing their creative plans and achievements facilitating exchanges between libraries worldwide. These three years, NCL has had posters being selected. This not only gives the opportunity to share experiences and promotes exchanges with other countries, it moreover is a successful platform to make Taiwan known, a good marketing strategy!

This year the ALA Poster Exhibition received 365 proposals and only 150 of them were selected. Selection probability is 41%. Among them, the 3 entries of NCL were all selected. These will be displayed at the annual meeting in Orlando from June 23 to 28 this year. The NCL plans to send a representative to the United States to explain the content of the poster to better take part in the selection of the best poster of the year.

The three posters of NCL that were selected by the ALA poster contest are entitled "A Feast for the Young: NCL Promoting NDLTD in Taiwan at University Expo". This poster shows the achievement of NCL in promoting the National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertation in Taiwan (NDLTD) database in recent years.  According to the Library Law of Taiwan, all domestic publications should be given to the National Central Library (NCL) for legal deposit, including theses and dissertations. Based on these resources, NCL has built NDLTD in Taiwan, which contains more than 930,000 abstracts and over 340,000 fulltexts of theses and dissertation. Users can enjoy free access to the authorized fulltext via the internet. Currently, 100,000 users on average access the system each day, making it the most used academic research database in Taiwan. In addition to academic research support, the database also helps students to analyze research interests of each school. To encourage students to use the database, NCL participated in the 2015 University Expo. We invited universities to give orientations based on their data in NDLTD in Taiwan, introducing their own strengths on academic research and overall school features to the potential students. During the two-day Expo, there were 16 orientations given by different universities. At the same time, NCL had prepared instructional sessions to the participants on how to use NDLTD in Taiwan. As the result, over 800 students had joined the orientations and instructional sessions. The universities gave positive feedback to NCL because the orientations have good effects on admission. As for NCL, it was a successful promotion for NDLTD in Taiwan.

The second poster is "Reading Interest Permeates the Community" showing how the NCL promotes "Reading Community Certification". In an effort to encourage the public to examine and improve their reading habits, National Central Library created the site Reading Community Certification (http://scc.ncl.edu.tw/book/). Two certification plans are available, "Personal Reading Certification" and "Family Reading Certification," both of which contain 43 assessments. The public is encouraged to access the website to begin the certification process and better understand personal reading habits. The statistics generated by this system can also be used to inform related government policies. In 2015, a total of 2,513 people obtained certification, with those obtaining higher than 3 stars was 1,256. This indicates that over 50% of those certified had good reading habits. National Central Library also issued awards to 12 outstanding reading communities, an act that was meant to praise and encourage the achievements of communities that promote reading.

The third poster has for its title: "Green Ideas in National Central Library, Taiwan." It shows the achievement of how the NCL promoted the recycling of rainwater creating a green environment. In 2015, Taiwan encountered drought problem that was most serious since 1940s. The staff in NCL tried to install water-saving faucet aerators. However, we came up with a new idea to re-use the original facilities. That is to make use of the rainwater drainage and switched it into the irrigation system for the outdoor garden. The amount of water-saving is 180 metric tons in 2015, equal to 90,000 2-liter water bottles. In addition , NCL built vegetable gardens in its backyard in the end of 2015. The staff also came up with an idea to turn the discarded periodical shelves into wood planters. The discarded library furniture is like a rising phoenix out of the ashes. To sum up, these green ideas are the efforts that NCL made for sustainable earth.

Selected to participate in the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) project is the "Young Scholar Cultivation Workshop." This is NCL's initiative to awaken and intensify high school students' interest in research by organizing summer camp activities specially tailored for them. To inspire young people's interests in academic research, National Central Library (NCL) Taiwan, ROC has held the "Young Scholar Cultivation Workshop" for high school students nationwide. In 2015, from July 13th to August 13th, 94 students in 3 batches had participated in thfe workshop. During the 4-day workshop, professionals were invited to give lectures on different topics, such as data collection, research design, and academic writing skills. The students were divided into groups, and were required to go through a complete process of doing academic research. By group discussion as an ice-breaker, the students brainstormed together on literature review, questionnaire design, and data analysis. Finally, each group presented their research findings as the result of team work. The students had experienced a wonderful journey on academic research.