Six from GSLIS lead Chinese American Librarians Association in a global virtual conference

Kate Williams
Kate Williams, Associate Professor Emerita

Six members of the GSLIS community and of the Midwest chapter of the Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA) participated in a global exchange via CALA Midwest’s first virtual annual conference this past May. Chapter chair Sharon Hu (PhD ’87) made the decision to go virtual in order to attract more people—and attendance doubled. Hu, Mingyan Li  (MS ’04), Vincci Kwong (MS ’05), Lian Ruan (MS ’90, PhD ’11), and Assistant Professor Kate Williams each presented. Former GSLIS visiting scholar and current community informatics research affiliate Yan Hui also presented from Beijing.

The conference used AnyMeeting as a platform, which worked well overall. However, while Yan could see and hear well and his audience could see him, his voice was not transmitted from China. As a result, Missouri-based CALA member and librarian Fu Zhou, who chaired the meeting, read his remarks, and Yan texted responses for the question-and-answer session. The event marked the first time someone in China was able to present in a CALA meeting—and it will influence how the organization grows and how it reaches back to China, the country of origin of most CALA members.

Hu and Li copresented a report on the CALA Institutional Repository System (CALSYS) pilot project. The goal of CALSYS is to provide a central repository for resources created by Chinese-American librarians with the goal of enhancing information exchange and LIS knowledge among these librarians. Hu is president of the Midwest Chapter and the first person from the People’s Republic of China to earn a PhD from GSLIS. Currently, she is an assistant professor and senior librarian at Chicago State University. Li is a cataloging/metadata librarian at Harper College.

Kwong, coordinator of web services and associate librarian at Indiana University South Bend, gave a presentation entitled, “Don’t take grants for granted!” She discussed grant writing, the application process, and tips for successful project implementation.

Ruan, head librarian and director of international programs at the Illinois Fire Service Institute Library, presented a paper titled, “Marketing Library and Information Services to Illinois Firefighters,” in which she discussed the library’s marketing efforts and lessons learned. Ruan also served on the conference program committee.

Yan discussed China’s broadband strategy and the possible role of librarians. During his presentation, he shared insights gathered from his experiences in community meetings regarding Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband (UC2B), organized by newly retired GSLIS professor and then-UC2B board member Abdul Alkalimat. The gathering also celebrated Yan’s promotion to associate professor in the Information Management Department at Nankai University, which is ranked number three in the field in China.

Williams presented a paper titled, “Educating Library Students on Wikipedia and LocalWiki: Why and How?” in which she discussed reliance on crowdsourced information in the provision of reference services and the experiential use and understanding of wikis.

Williams has been an assistant professor at GSLIS since 2007, where her research focuses on whether and how local community is possible in the digital age. One of her and Yan’s studies involved a Skype session between seniors in Beijing and at Urbana’s Clark Lindsey Village. Williams said, “There is no question that local community is changing as it incorporates far-off friends and colleagues. We want to understand what it means for [Champaign-Urbana] to become an information city for everyone, with no digital divides. With CALA, we are learning that researchers and librarians in China and the U.S. can talk about each other’s work in such an easy way, which can help CALA do more.” Williams recently edited a special issue of the journal Library Trends titled, “Community Informatics in China,” which focuses on challenges facing local communities in China as they make use of information technology while coping with wrenching social and economic change.

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