We hope you have enjoyed the series of six blog posts we wrote on behalf of De Gruyter, which gave the blog a great start to 2024. We should like to follow up with occasional interviews with more librarians from around the world. In this first piece Mr Henian E, a distinguished Chinese librarian who has founded the libraries at several new universities in China, tells his fascinating story.
Q: You have founded one university library from scratch and are about to take up a post setting up the library in another new university. Do you get an especial sense of satisfaction from doing this? How do you set about it? What are the main challenges? What are the rewards?
A: “I returned to China in October 2006, having lived and worked in Canada for some time. I took the post of College Librarian at the United International College (UIC) in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, which had only a very rudimentary library service, housed in two classrooms. Later we moved to a two-storey building of 1,200 square metres and eventually a three-storey building of over 6,000 square meters. Prof. Ching-Fai Ng, the President of UIC, was very impressed with what I had achieved. When I resigned after 7 years he asked if I would grant the university a last favour by helping to design the library for the new UIC campus. Of course I was delighted to help. In the two years that followed I worked at two other new universities, setting up their libraries in a similar way.
“I was appointed University Librarian at SUSTech in August 2016, It already had a library and team of 28 staff. I examined it through the lens of the four frames on which a library should be built – space, collections, services and applied technologies – and realized there were big challenges ahead. Under the leadership of its ambitious President, Prof. Shiyi Chen, SUSTech was already set on the path to becoming a world class research university. From Day One it was my aim to mobilize the staff and other resources to provide the university with the library it needed. At the end of 2019, the Library became a member of the Pacific Rim Research Library Alliance. When SUSTech celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2020, two more libraries were built on the campus. For two consecutive years (2022 and 2023), the Library at SUSTech was ranked first of more than 2,500 libraries at universities and colleges in China[1].
“Building a library from scratch or raising one to a higher standard is both challenging and rewarding. I was lucky to have Prof. Ng and then Prof. Chen as my bosses. In China, academic librarians often say the library is marginalized on campus because the leadership doesn’t rate it highly enough. To me, this is only partially true. The President of a university is primarily an educator. If the President doesn’t think highly of the Library, he or she is not a good educator, thus not a creditable president. Conversely, librarians must understand their place in university dynamics. My job is to serve the students and academics, not the President. If what we have done makes the Library an indispensable part of campus life, we won’t then be marginalized.”
Q: Tell us a little bit about your career – why did you choose librarianship? Where have you studied? You have already achieved considerable distinction – do you have any ambitions left that you would like to fulfil?
“I came to librarianship as my second career. When I moved to Canada with my family in early 2000, I wanted a new career and decided to enrol in the MLIS program at UBC. Upon completing the program, I found a full-time job at a public library and immediately knew I had made the right choice. Out of the blue one day a friend from China called me and asked, “Are you willing to come back to China to take up the post of head librarian for a new college?” After two weeks of thinking hard, I told my friend I would give it a try.
“I am proud of what I have achieved since then. I have also learned a great deal. Do I have further ambitions? Yes, I have now been appointed as Library Director at the emerging Eastern University of Science and Technology (EUST) in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Prof. Shiyi Chen, the President of the University, invited me to lunch in November 2022 and asked me to build the library for his new university. It was impossible to refuse him after the support he gave me at SUSTech. The new library is now under construction. I am confident it will be regarded as one of the best university libraries built in the past 40 years anywhere in the world. I am keenly aware that an excellent professional team is key to an outstanding academic library and am once again setting out to build one. At the farewell party organized by my library colleagues at SUSTech, the tears were running down my cheeks when I spoke of how proud I was to have worked with them to achieve our goals. This is what I cherish most of all about my job!”
Q: I know you were one of the very first librarians to recognize the advantages and possible threats associated with Artificial Intelligence. Can you tell us what your opinion is of AI at the moment? Do you think it can be a force for good at universities – and for librarians?
A: “Technology has always been the driving force in library transformation. That’s why I say it is one of the four frameworks within which distinguished libraries are shaped. I am willing to embrace any technology that helps improve the quality and efficiency of library services; at the same time, I always remind myself that only mature technologies can be used in the library. I don’t want my library to be a testing ground for new but immature technologies.
“AI works well when given specific tasks – e.g., AlphaGo can beat the best Go player in the world. It can easily beat me at Go, but not at Chinese chess, because chess needs human interaction. This demonstrates the difference between the intelligence of a machine and the intelligence of a human. It is said that AI is approaching human intelligence (general intelligence) faster and faster, and that pivotal day will soon arrive. For me, this is typical of the way emerging technologies are over-hyped. In the course of history, many technologies have been hyped as world-changing or even world defining and proved of brief duration; at the same time, we should take seriously the idea that AI might one day come to harm instead of benefit the human race.
“AI is at its best in the field of engineering, when it can extrapolate up-to-date results based on proven scientific discoveries. If there should in future be another major discovery which lays the foundation for engineering achievements far beyond what the basic scientific theory of AI is able to produce, AI will lose some of its glamour. It is a tool.
“However, I do believe it has potential in the library setting, though individual libraries don’t have the expertise and financial power to develop an AI-based tool or platform. The best we can do is wait for a mature commercial (or non-commercial) AI-based app to be developed. I believe Ex Libris is currently working on such an app, called Conversational Discovery. I just can’t wait to try it out.”
Q: If you could predict how universities and university libraries in China, how would you say things will change over the next 5 – 10 years? What are likely to be the drivers of such change?
A: “In the past 5-10 years, a group of universities has emerged in China which the Chinese education authorities officially call the “New Model of Research Universities”. Representatives are SUSTech in Shenzhen and the West Lake University in Hangzhou. The EUST will most likely join them. These universities are tasked to explore the path for development of a true world class research university that has roots in China. What is the underlying purpose of such a mission? The fact is that millions of Chinese students have for at least the past decade travelled abroad to pursued tertiary education. It is 40 years since China opened up to the outside world and in that time the country has undergone fundamental changes in almost every area except higher education. Also, China wants to be less dependent on other countries for the education of its future citizens. And regardless of geopolitics, the Chinese nation deserves world class universities.
“University libraries in China have embarked on a similar mission. One of the questions most put to me to me when working on these new libraries is, “How can you have achieved so much in so short a time?” I could spend a whole day talking about what we have done; but the most important thing is that we know who we are as librarians, what is expected of us at an ambitious university, and what we can deliver by making the best use of the resources given us by the university and by our own endeavours.
“China holds an annual gala for all libraries and library lovers entitled “A Magic Night with the Library”. This year it took place on January 19th. I was asked two questions:
- Should we open the university library to the general public? If we should, how can we prevent students and teachers from being disturbed when using the library services?
- As head librarian, what do you usually do to keep your staff continually busy and happy with their work?
“My answers, based on our work in the SUSTech Library, were well-received and attracted many comments and reflections – a telling indication that librarians love their job and continue to seek new ways of serving their communities. By participating in the event, I became even more certain that we librarians are torch-bearers. The light we provide is not for ourselves, but for our patrons, as they pursue knowledge, personal fulfilment and happiness. To me, this is the true driver for change and for developing our profession: the eternal force for the power of the library since antiquity.”
[The interview was conducted by Linda Bennett]
[1] On the College Student Satisfaction Survey conducted by Shanghai Rankings.
Gold Leaf 