NLC delegation, led by director Zhan Furui, visited Egypt and Israel from February 20th to March 3rd.

In Egypt, the delegation visited National Library & Archives of Egypt, and communicated with Dr.Laila Galal Rizk, director of National Library & Archives of Egypt, on the following topics, including experts exchange, restoration and preservation of rare books, and co-construction of digital libraries. They reached a consensus on the cooperation in the following fields, including digitalization of rare books, restoration of rare books, and personnel training. The related details of cooperation would be carried out by Culture Office of the Embassy of PRC in Egypt. The delegation visited Alexander Library and Cairo University Library later, and reached a common ground on publications exchange and resources sharing with these libraries. The delegation also attended the opening ceremony of the Sixth Alexandria International Book Fair.

On February 26th, Dr.Salah Hassab Elnaby, deputy minister of Egypt, interviewed the delegation. Both parties had a friendly talk on library cooperation, and achieved the following agreements: Chinese party will provide literature restoration training for Egyptian party; digital resources of both parties will be shared; Egyptian party will translate Chinese Handbook of Science and Technology Studies; both parties will hold exhibitions on library collections and calligraphies interchangeably.

In Israel, the delegation visited National Library of Israel and the headquarters of Ex Libris, and visited Zhang Xiao'an, political affairs counselor of the Embassy of PRC in Israel. National Library of Israel, whose predecessor was The Jewish National & University Library, with more than 130 years history, was formally founded in November, 2007, and put emphasis on collecting resources about Jewish Studies all over the world.

During the interview with the leaders of National Library of Israel, Zhan Furui, director of National Library of China, pointed out that, Jewry had a long history, and the Jewish people contributed a lot to human civilization. The Chinese people respected the contributions made by the Jewish people; National Library of China considered this visit as the beginning of exchange and cooperation between the two libraries, and hoped that the cooperation would go along smoothly. Zhan Furui suggested that both parties should cooperate with each other in the following fields, including exchange of resources on Jewish Studies and Chinese Studies, exchange of exhibitions, web information collection and preservation, long-term preservation of digital resources, and inter-visit of leaders and experts in both parties. The leaders of National Library of Israel approved the suggestion proposed by Director Zhan, and would set down detailed plans to carry out the suggestions.

On March 3rd, President of Asian-Pacific Department of Ex Libris introduced the operation systems designed for print materials, electronic resources, and digital libraries, such as Aleph, voyager, SFX, Metalib, Verde, DigiTool, Preservation and Primo, and introduced the cooperation situation of Ex Libris with National Library of Denmark, National Library of New Zealand, and National Library Board of Singapore.

Director Zhan pointed out that Ex Libris, which has definite goals and proper strategies, can catch the updated development trend of world libraries, comply with the digital library development trend, and develop the updated products to occupy the markets in time. He suggested that the future service should put importance on customers' personalization problems and solve those problems in time. He also hoped that Ex Libris would actively take part in the "Invitation to Tender" of National Digital Library of China.

Source: NLC International Cooperation Division