Zhao Jihai – Library, Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University
The libraries in China may be categorized into three types based on their superior government agencies or affiliated institutions: public, academic and special libraries. The public, academic and special libraries are usually governed and sponsored by the culture, education and sci-tech administrations at the central or local government levels respectively. For the past 10 years, dozens of digital library projects have been implemented in China, and they have been led and sponsored by different government agencies based on their administrative systems. The funds and the digital products of the DL projects are usually shared only within a type of the libraries. Therefore, the mass digitization of print collections and the software development in the different DL projects have serious duplications, and the resources are not reasonably shared among the three types of libraries, either at the national or local levels.
Ningbo is a coastal city in Zhejiang Province with a population of 5.65 million. Ningbo Digital Library (NBDL) is the first joint digital library project across the three types of libraries in the nation, cosponsored by the three local government agencies, Bureau of Education, Bureau of Culture, Radio & TV, Press and Publication, and Bureau of Science & Technology. There are 18 individual libraries, including 16 academic libraries, 1 public library system (the city library and the subordinate public libraries at county and community levels) and 1 special library (the city information institute) join the project. The goal of the project is to digitize the local cultural, sci-tech, industrial and educational resources, integrate the born digital materials of the participating institutions and local enterprises, develop several special databases with local characteristics, establish a unified portal and serve the local industries, education and research institutions, and the citizens as well. The first phase of the NBDL project was initiated in early 2007 and will be completed in 2010. Ningbo Municipal Government allocates RMB40 million yuan (US$5.85 million) to the first phase of the project. In March 2009, the NBDL portal (http://www.nbdl.gov.cn/) began to open to the local users. By the end of June 2009, 750,000 full-text documents have been viewed by the users, and 71,000 titles of different types of papers have been delivered to the patrons via the document delivery system of the portal. The digitization duplications of the project are avoided, and the digital resources are shared with different types of libraries at the city level.
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