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圖書館七樓中文館藏重整之二 : 新增研習空間

by Wing Woo on February 27th, 2019 | 0 Comments

為期超過兩年的中文館藏重整工程已經結束。繼搬移大套叢書和已有電子版之中文書籍,我們又進行了不少工作,包括複本剔除及拆卸書架。是次重整工作主要是為了挪出地方,改造為研習空間供讀者使用。就在上月,新的閱讀桌已經組裝完成。

首先來回顧一下重整工作的過程︰

前文提到,我們在2016年底時把中文大套叢書遷到同層的密集書庫;進入第二階段,於2017年頭再將約43,000已有電子版本的實體書收納在一樓閉架書庫。這部份的工作至5月份完結。其後同年8月起,我們又檢閱了中文複本書情況,決定將5,400冊書籍下架。

由於被搬移及下架的書籍分佈在不同區域,館藏排列上出現了不同長短的空置書架,因此另一場重頭戲於2018年起開展,將七樓層館藏全部重新排序。整個重整工程之所以如斯漫長,皆因以不騷擾讀者為前題,有如「螞蟻搬家」地進行,當中涉及到287,000冊中文書,在12位工作人員共同努力下,共拆卸了32列書架,合共870塊長達810米的層板,耗時7個月。為免產生過量噪音,考試期間更一度停頓工作,待2018年暑期方全部完成。

 

拆卸了多列書架後,騰出七樓東翼約125平方米的空間。接著下來,圖書館再與大學其他部門合作加強東翼電源及網絡配備及訂購傢俱,最後安裝了70多組全新閱讀桌椅供讀者使用。該批閱讀桌椅和圖書館五樓的空間設置相同,備有電挈、USB插頭及獨立閱讀燈。希望最新的圖書館設施能為讀者提供更好及寧靜的研習空間。

 

文: 胡詠欣,許嘉燕合撰

圖: 王錦慧


Fall Symposium on Digital Scholarship 2018

by Pauline Lam on November 5th, 2018 | 0 Comments

With the summer heat dissipating and autumn approaching, the annual HKBU Fall Symposium on Digital Scholarship was held Thursday 25 October. Well into its fifth year, the Symposium continued to highlight international development in the field of Digital Humanities (DH)/Digital Scholarship (DS) and showcased some of the recent HKBU Digital Scholarship Grant (DSG) projects. This year's event has been made extra special with the support and sponsorship of our Graduate School. Almost 200 participants attended from across Hong Kong’s tertiary institutions, nearly double the attendance from last year. With growing global interest in digital scholarship and the emphasis placed on data analytics in the HKBU 10-year Strategic Plan, it is not surprising that interest in DH and DS is on the rise.

The event started off with an opening address by HKBU University Librarian Kendall Crilly and a presentation on “Digital Scholarship at HKBU” by Ms. Rebekah Wong, Senior Assistant Librarian of the Digital and Multimedia Services Section. This was followed by the first of two keynote speeches: Dr. Donald Waters from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation presented his view on the “Urgent Issues in Scholarly Communications in the Humanities: A view from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation”. Dr. Waters took the audience through the short but “intrusive” evolution of humanities research workflow and urged us to rethink and address the need for a digital publishing infrastructure that can support the healthy development of a community of humanities authors, as well as readers. In the second keynote entitled “The Dreams and Realities of Digital Humanities: A Perspective from Singapore”, Dr. Miguel Escobar Varela from the National University of Singapore explained some of the initiatives and challenges he faced in supporting DH projects in Singapore. In his conclusion, Dr. Varela shared his vision of librarians and researchers working collaboratively to establish a much-needed infrastructure to build a DH community for long term sustainability. Interestingly and coincidentally, both speakers placed emphasis on the need to build infrastructure to support humanities scholarship – food for thought for us all.

Three HKBU faculty members also shared details of the DSG projects that came to fruition in collaboration with the Library: Professor Clara Ho, Head of History Department, talked about her joys and challenges while working on the Sun Yat-sen Parks Database, a database that has already attracted over 334,000 views in just two years – an indication of its success. Dr. Angel Lai, Research Assistant Professor of the Department of Social Work, spoke of her sense of social responsibility and aspirations to support the poor, minorities, and the less fortunate. Yinheritance? Cultural Celebrations for Ethnic Minority Children’s Well-being was a project designed to empower the Yi ethnic minority children to increase their chance of success in life. The last project sharing had a “lighter” touch – Professor David Chung from the Department of Music shared his vision behind the Online Thematic Catalogue of Lully Keyboard Arrangements database, the first of its kind that aims to facilitate research into French composer Jean Baptist Lully’s repertory. 

As the HKBU 10-year Strategic Plan states, “unprecedented devleopments” in big data are the driving force behind initiatives such as data analytics, data journalism and digital humanities. The event ended with two insightful talks about big data, something that affects us all in our daily lives whether we know it or not. HKBU Data Journalism Lecturer Mr. Pili Hu’s “Data Literacy and Civic Engagement” cautioned us of the ethical issues and potential dangers when interpreting data-driven news. His thought-provoking session pressed us to rethink the way we read charts and graphs in news. Founder of the Initium Lab whose data-driven news on Hong Kong’s Legislative Council voting pattern | 20萬條投票紀錄帶你解碼香港立法會 won the 2016 SOPA Excellence in Information Graphics Award, Pili maintains a discussion group on Slack for those who are interested in media and data visualization. Students and colleagues are welcome to sign up and join in the discussions. Last but not least, Consultant Mr. Andy Cho from Radica wowed the audience with their innovative use of open data and AI projects, including their latest Popsquare stores. Andy’s “From Collection to Action: Using Open Data and AI for Business” presentation showcased some of Radica’s recent data analytics projects and initiatives such as the Data Studio collaboration with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park, and the Data Valley educational online community platform.

While the speakers highlighted various DH/DS themes and past and ongoing projects, the event also generated a lot of curiosity about how things will develop in the future. In closing, we would like to thank everyone for their continued support and we look forward to the coming year as we continue to monitor how digital technologies like AI and data analytics will shape the DH and DS landscape. 


If you missed the Symposium, or wish to delve deeper into the talks, all presentation slides and video recordings from this and past Digital Scholarship events can be found here.

You can also visit the HKBU Library Flickr Album to see snapshots of this event.

HKBU faculty members interested in applying for the annual Digital Scholarship Grant please contact Ms. Rebekah Wong, Senior Assistant Librarian/Head of Digital Scholarship Services at 3411-5239 or email libms@hkbu.edu.hk

 

Lights in Time: Lighthouses of Malacca, Matsu and Penghu – Digital Humanities at CityU Library

by Pauline Lam on June 1st, 2018 | 0 Comments

Many HKBU staff will remember the 2017 Fall Symposium on Digital Humanities on campus event that attracted a full house of participants from across Hong Kong’s tertiary institutions; Digital Humanities (DH) has now firmly established itself as a dynamic and exciting field of research and teaching that explores the more and more multi-disciplinary landscape of academia. 

Three HKBU librarians, including University Librarian Kendall Crilly, Digital Multimedia Services Section Head Rebekah Wong and Scholarly Communications Librarian Pauline Lam, recently had the pleasure to attend City University of Hong Kong Library’s “Light in Time” Digital Humanities event. The exhibition focused on different lighthouses in Malacca, Matsu and Penghu with a mixture of themes brought together after numerous field-studies by CityU's teachers and students.

The exhibition showcased the result of CityU’s PATCH (Preserving and Appraising Traditional Cultural Heritage) project, a multi-disciplinary presentation spanning from language to economics, and history to architecture. On display were artifacts, maps, images, documentary videos as well as architectural drawings that gathered together insights into the significance of maritime history. Of particular interest were the Virtual Reality experience at CityU’s CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) that took us “inside” three different lighthouses; and the opportunity to peek into different times of maritime history via the TimelineJS software.

The PATCH Project Team’s creative and collaborative approach to a traditional theme, that of a lighthouse located at Taiwan’s Penghu Island, was fascinating. The work on display, including the resulting videos, were woven together by teachers and students from CityU’s Department of Media and Communication, assisted by the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering with their cultural heritage preservation research projects, along with the participation of the Department of Linguistics and Translation - a truly multi-disciplinary integration of works.

At HKBU Library, we share this strong dedication in supporting the rapidly growing DH movement. Over the past few years, we have completed over ten exciting projects working alongside many faculty members, including the sharing of research data, scholarly resources, and cultural information to help facilitate public access. See here for a portfolio of these fascinating projects: digital.lib.hkbu.edu.hk/digital/project.php


The “Lights in Time” Exhibition is currently on until July 31, 2018 at City University of Hong Kong Library at Kowloon Tong. For more information, visit the following websites:

Event website: museu.ms/exhibition/details/7254/lights-in-time-lighthouses-of-malacca-matsu-and-penghu
Documentary videos: www6.cityu.edu.hk/cityvod/video/play/LIB/lighthouse-Malacca-en.aspx
Lighthouse timeline: cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=1nWxq2PpaxnU8AwFT2CNhgIoVPXclDg5rWmxU6UhlBb0&font=Default&lang=en&initial_zoom=2&height=650


Librarian Highlight: Pauline Lam - New, but not so new

by Pauline Lam on March 22nd, 2018 | 0 Comments

I’m not really a new staff anymore as I’ve been here for about six months now, how time flies! I replaced Brian Minihan as the new Scholarly Communications Librarian in mid-September last year and am enjoying the various challenges in this new role. Some people may call me a hybrid librarian as my original background is in the commercial sector in design management and marketing/communication - not typical in the library world at all!

My library degree was acquired in New Zealand after my family immigrated there in 2004. Like many others, I started as a Library Assistant. My first job was at the Auckland Council Libraries as a casual staff. New Zealand is one of the most literate countries in the world and their public libraries are way ahead compared to Hong Kong’s equivalent. As a casual staff, I floated around many branch libraries doing shelving and answering simple enquiries. While there, I was offered a one-year contract to index some Chinese heritage journals spanning fifty years. One was published by Kuomintang in the 1930s and was quite political, all hand-written! I learned a lot about the early lives of Chinese New Zealanders - gold miners and market gardeners with really hard lives. That year for me was full of sad but interesting discoveries about the New Zealand Chinese diaspora community. It was overall quite an amazing experience!

After the public library, I went on to work for two academic university libraries in Auckland. I became a cataloguer at the University of Auckland Library and was there for about four years. Some people may not see it but I think the nature of cataloguing requires quite a bit of creativity, a lot of in-depth understanding of user information-seeking behaviours, and heaps of common sense logics. After all, it’s about grouping and organising information for retrieval to suit human needs. As much as I love organising information, I really wasn’t that good at following rules on a daily basis as I wanted to break them!

Because of my design and marketing background, for my next job, I ended up at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) Library and was their Communications and Business Information Coordinator for three and a half years. AUT has New Zealand’s top design school and my daughter is actually studying there now. In that role, I job-shared a lot with the Staff Planning and Development Coordinator Annie McKillop and together we organised many events and professional development activities. Members of the Staff Development Task Force at HKBU Library will recall Annie’s sharing last year when she was passing by Hong Kong to see me.

In late 2015, I wanted to come back to spend some time with my elderly mother and my husband said he would give me a one-year “annual leave”. I never thought I would be working in Hong Kong and this is my second job after coming back. I was at CityU Library first in their Research Support team when they were implementing Pure, a CRIS system that has been adopted by a few other JULAC libraries. That was my first time in research support and scholarly communications which basically led me to this job here at HKBU.

Scholarly communication is a relatively new area in the academic world– open access, copyright, institutional repository, research data management, all fast-developing and exciting areas. I’m in the middle of working with the Knowledge Transfer Office on campus to organise an intellectual property day event and we’re finalizing promotional details. I never thought I would get involved in copyright as I always thought of it as dry, confusing, and complicated. Although there are still so many things I don’t know, I’ve found that copyright is actually not as intimidating as most people think. It just takes a lot of patience to wade through those lengthy details to understand what they are trying to say. Anyway, watch out for this event and come join us on 24 April.

That’s it for now. I’m based in the Multimedia Learning Centre within the Digital and Multimedia Services team. Do feel free to drop by and say hello!


書本也要看醫生︰簡介書本修復的工作

by Wing Woo on March 5th, 2018 | 1 Comment

書本和人一樣,年紀大會機器壞,就算年輕也會生病。有的可能是因紙張老化變得脆弱,有的可能是經頻繁使用而變得殘破——在翻閱書本時,你有沒有留意過這些痕跡呢?圖書館裡就有不少破損的書籍,部份會被送去修復。不要以為修復書籍只是黏黏貼貼的活兒,實則大有學問。

首先,線裝書和洋裝書的修補工具就不盡相同。先看看修線裝書的工具︰

膠板 切割用的墊板,用來保護桌面
針線 為書脊重新縫線的工具
槌子

捶書用;經修補過的書會比原先厚,把書本捶平能讓紙張薄一些

針錐 既是裝訂工具,也可以用來打孔定位、劃印、刮去污垢
小剪刀 裁剪線頭
毛筆

修補書頁洞口時,配合漿糊使用

起子

本來是裝裱用具,用來起畫芯而不傷害畫作;也可以用來裁紙,削開的宣紙會有毛邊效果

攪拌棒

製作漿糊時用來攪拌的工具,可用筷子代替

排筆、棕刷

排筆由多管羊毫組成,較為吸水。兩者都是裝裱工具,用來托畫芯,也就是將畫芯和托紙黏合

 

現今出版的中文書籍已經很少會訂製成線裝書,事實上,現時絕大部份的中文書都是洋裝書。再看看洋裝書的修補工具又有什麼不同︰

各式紙鎮(book weight) 防止修補工作進行時書本移位
間尺(ruler) 精準量度尺寸
剪刀(scissors) 一般裁剪用途
鎅刀(cutter) 一般削紙用途
修書刷(book repair brush) 上漿糊,數支不同大小的修書刷可以方便進行不同範圍的修補
橡皮刷掃(plastic squeegee) 清除氣泡
骨刀(bone folder) 劃紙、折疊、拋光的工具
雙頭針珠筆(double-side embossing tool) 畫線用,能做出平滑的折口
小抹刀(microspatula) 分割紙張、清除標貼等修復用途
鑷子(tweezer) 主要用於清除多餘的紙碎,令修復更精細
針錐(awl) 見上

 

接下來,我們看看日常修復的精華部份︰

線裝書補洞

有了以上的工具,我們還需要一些修補材料。以線裝書補洞為例,漿糊和纖維紙都是不可或缺的材料。

由上至下為以小麥澄粉(wheat starch)為材料的手工製漿糊、工具及各款纖維紙​

  

破了洞的頁面,須以輕薄的纖維紙,配合手工漿糊填補缺損

多出來的部份應以鑷子夾去。接著以吸水紙吸去多餘的水分,待乾

 
洋裝書修補

書脊與書芯分離頗為常見,圖中的做法是先為書脊造托紙,再塗上漿糊,把兩者黏合。

  

這台書壓(book press)能把洋裝書固定和壓平,最少也得花上數個小時才有效果。

 

然而,這些繁複的工序真是必要嗎?有些人或會選擇用透明膠紙把撕破了的紙張重新接合,但是,一般市面上售賣的透明膠紙和膠水多是酸性,當你把紙張放上一段長時間,便能發現貼了膠紙的地方染上黃色的污漬,紙張已因酸化而變得脆弱。要完全洗去這些污漬十分困難,長遠來看,貼膠紙反而是對書籍進一步的傷害。

看完以上的介紹,有沒有改變你對修復書籍的印象呢? 

 

圖文: 許嘉燕(Ka Yin Hui)

修復示範: 何麗珠(Tammy Ho)


Chinese Wartime Science through the Lens of Joseph Needham

by Rebecca Chan on January 24th, 2018 | 0 Comments

Hong Kong Baptist University Library, in collaboration with the Joseph Needham Foundation for Science & Civilisation and the HKBU Department of History presents the exhibition “Chinese Wartime Science through the Lens of Joseph Needham”, which will run from 22 January – 23 February, 2018.  

The exhibition features 11 boards and a short video for viewers to gain an understanding of the life of Dr. Joseph Needham (1900-1995) and his contribution to the history of science and technology in China. Dr. Joseph Needham was a British scientist, historian, and sinologist known for both his own scientific research and for his writings on the history of Chinese science and technology. In 1954, Dr. Needham along with an international team of collaborators initiated a project to study the science, technology, and civilisation of ancient China. This project produced a series of volumes “Science and Civilisation in China”, published by Cambridge University Press, which still continues under the guidance of the Publications Board of the Needham Research Institute (NRI), chaired by Christopher Cullen.

Mr. Kendall Crilly (HKBU Librarian) giving welcoming remarks

Dr. Peter Lee (Chairman of Joseph Needham Foundation for Science & Civilisation) introducing the exhibition and Dr. Joseph Needham

Prof. Roland Chin (HKBU President) presenting souvenir to Prof. Angela Leung (HKBU)

(From left)Mrs. Lily Chan, Prof. Clara Ho, Prof. Adrian J. Bailey, Prof. Angela Leung, Dr. Peter Lee, Prof. Roland Chin, Mr. Kendall Crilly, Prof. K. W. Fung, Dr. Melanie Lee & Prof. Ricky Wong

 

An opening ceremony for the exhibition was held on 22 January, followed by a public lecture by Prof. Angela K.C Leung (HKU) titled “Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilization in China and Its Impact on Today’s Study of the Chinese History of Science and Technology”.

Prof. Angela Leung (Director and Chair Professor of History Joseph Needham – Philip Mao Professor, HKU)

 

The exhibition runs until 23 February, 2018.

 

You can find more information about the exhibition here.


Library-Faculty Connect Day 2017

by Chris Chan on December 13th, 2017 | 0 Comments


Kendall Crilly speaks to faculty at Library-Faculty Connect Day 2017

Each year the Library will invite colleagues to Library-Faculty Connect Day. This is an opportunity for faculty to stay up to date with the latest developments at the Library, and more importantly it is a chance for them to provide feedback, ask questions, and meet with their librarians face-to-face.

This year's event was held on Thursday 7 December, and the big news was of course the new Library system. This has not always been a smooth journey, and many faculty have encountered difficulties using the new platform. Bugs, glitches, and other problems unfortunately caused inconvenience. Nevertheless, as reported during the Q&A session, faculty have noticed improvement since the system launched in July 2017 and voiced appreciation for the Library's efforts in this area.

Other items reported on this year included:

  • Liaison Program updates
  • Collection management activities (off-site storage / book shifting)
  • Newly-acquired e-resources
  • Teaching, learning, and research support
  • Digital scholarship and scholarly communication services

As usual though, the highlight of the event was the lunch!

LFCD attendees eating lunch

 

This year's event was also special from a social media perspective, as for the first time some of the attendees tweeted from the audience! It was good to see that faculty found it useful, and the Library is looking forward to next year!

 

 


HKBU Open Access Policy - One year on

by Chris Chan on December 5th, 2017 | 0 Comments

Today (5 December 2017) marks one year since the University Senate approved an Open Access Policy for the University. Under this policy, HKBU faculty need to provide the Library with a digital copy of their accepted peer-reviewed journal articles. Wherever possible, the Library will make these openly accessible to the public on the HKBU Institutional Repository (IR).

You might be wondering - why go to all this trouble if the articles have already been published in online journals? The short answer is that many journal articles sit behind paywalls. If you don't have access to a subscription, you can't read them. By providing an open access version, everyone can benefit from the fruits of research at HKBU.

The infographic below showcases the impact that the Open Access Policy has had since it came into effect. Downloads have come in from virtually every country in the world, and the total is well over 50,000. This is good not just for the scholars and researchers that download content from the IR, but also for our researchers that benefit from wider exposure of their work.

Your next question might be - why do publishers allow us to do this? Again, the answer is complex and multi-faceted, but essentially publishers (under pressure from governments and other research funders) recognise that it is important for research findings to be made as widely available as possible. They may impose some restrictions (e.g. embargoes), but library staff work to make sure that content released via the IR complies with the publisher policies.

Check out the infographic below for more figures on the impact of the Open Access Policy:


“Doctor Pet” will make you smile – Therapy animals at HKBU Library

by Angela Wong on December 1st, 2017 | 0 Comments

Wednesday 29 November was an unusual afternoon at the Library. We had 25 dogs, one cat and a huge crowd of students with us on Level 3 of the Main Library.  The professional team of therapy pets from “Doctor Pet” paid a visit to us for a special session to help alleviate the stress of the busiest period of the semester when everyone is working hard on assignments and preparing for examinations.

     
     

We hope that this was a great way to put a different face on the Library:  to show students we care about their mental well-being. We hope that they were able to relax,  and relieve their assignment and examination jitters for a little while. The visit from Doctor Pet was an opportunity to take a quick break from studying.

Do you want the Library to re-run this event? Tweet at us (@hkbulibrary), check our Instagram (@hkbulibrary), or contact us on Facebook (@hkbu.lib) and don’t forget to check out the event pictures on Flickr!

Text: Angela Wong @ HKBU Library
Photos: Gordon Cheung @ HKBU Library


圖書館之館藏章略說

by Wing Woo on November 23rd, 2017 | 0 Comments

浸大圖書館及視覺藝術院曾於今年4月聯合主辦了國際藏書票特展, 所展出的藏書票設計精美, 風格獨特, 令人讚嘆不已。藏書票是用來識別書籍的擁有者, 除了藏書票外, 還有其他方法可以作為藏書標誌嗎? 對於圖書館來說, 最顯而易見的便是蓋於藏書之書頂、書底、書口或內頁的館藏章了。隨著歷史變遷和政策調整, 浸大圖書館採用的館藏章也經歷了不少變化, 讓我們來回顧一下吧!

Hong Kong Baptist College Library Stamp

香港浸會學院於1956年創辦, 圖書館早期所用的館藏章分為長方形印章、圓形印章及橢圓形印章。長方形印章刻有中文「香港浸會學院圖書舘藏書」和英文「HONG KONG BAPTIST COLLEGE LIBRARY」字樣, 多用來蓋於書頂、書底和書口處。

圓形印章及橢圓形印章則去掉「藏書」二字, 只顯示「香港浸會學院圖書舘」及「HONG KONG BAPTIST COLLEGE LIBRARY」字樣, 多蓋於書名頁及書末頁上。

這些印章一直沿用至1994年。 同年11月, 香港浸會學院獲正名為香港浸會大學, 圖書館的館藏章也隨之改變。長方形印章中文刻字改為「香港浸會大學圖書館」, 而英文刻字則改為「H.K. BAPTIST UNIVERSITY LIBRARY」。圓形及橢圓形印章也將「學院」二字更改為「大學」, 「COLLEGE」改為「UNIVERSITY」。

HKBU Library Stamp

除了館藏章外, 部份館藏還會蓋上特定的印章以茲識別及達到提醒讀者之作用。其中最具代表性的是參考書藉和期刊合訂本, 在書首頁及書末頁皆蓋上長方形印章, 刻字中英文對照, 提醒讀者其為參考書或雜誌, 不要將其携出館外。

HKBU Library Reference and Periodical Stamp

歷年來, 圖書館所用之館藏印章, 或因時移勢易而功成身退, 或因使用過多而磨蝕停用. 然而它們在圖書館藏書中蓋下的痕跡, 卻是對歷史和歲月的最佳見證.

HKBU Library stamps collection

圖文: 王錦慧 (Rita Wong) 撰


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