September 19 to 22, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) held the 5th annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Business School Librarians' Group (APBSLG) at the Shanghai Campus.
Fifteen library directors and business librarians from business schools or universities in Asia-Pacific attended the meeting. These schools included Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Management University, Singapore Institute of Management, National University of Singapore, Sasin Graduate School of Business Administration, Melbourne Business School, Macquarie University, Australian Graduate School of Management, Indian School of Business, INSEAD, KDI School of Public Policy and Management, Copenhagen Business School of Business, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business and China Europe International Business School.
The theme of this year's meeting was "Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning: Identifying and Meeting Needs in the Digital Environment". During the four-day meeting, members introduced the information literacy programs in their schools. They shared experiences for success as well as problems and challenges were faced. Information Literacy has become a very important concept especially in the business environment. In the ocean of information, getting the needed information in a timely manner required sophisticated, but not basic, search skills. In order to let the business students be aware of this, librarians should take a proactive route. Some students are satisfied with what they can do because they don't know what they are capable of with certain simple training. It is librarians' responsibility to guide the students to be information literate and eliminate their information barrier for success. To be able to fulfill this responsibility, librarians themselves need to be fully prepared and trained. In the meeting, members had different points of view in terms of what competencies were required for a business librarian or an instruction librarian. However, members had reached consensus that not only information skills but also subject background and knowledge was needed to be able to take such positions.
In the second day of the meeting, local library directors and librarians who were interested in this topic were invited to participate. Librarians from Fudan University libraries, Shanghai Jiao Tong University libraries, and many other librarians attended and introduced the information literacy programs in their own universities.
Two scholars were invited to present in the meeting. Mr. Li Wu from Peking University shared his experience in creating the online information literacy instruction program for Peking University library. Mr. Jiang Yongxing from Shanghai University library presented us the historical review and future forecast for the information literacy development in China. Both speeches evoked enthusiastic discussions between speakers and participants.
The meeting was closed with the address by Professor Rolf D.Cremer, Dean and Vice President of CEIBS. He welcomed the ideas of information sharing among business schools libraries in Asia-Pacific and wished a successful meeting in Copenhagen next year.
The next annual meeting of the APBSLG will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. It will be the first time in history for three similar groups in Asia-Pacific (APBSLG), Europe (European Business School Librarians' Group) and America (Academic Business Library Directors' Group) to have a joint meeting together in May 2007.
APBSLG was found in 2002 in INSEAD Singapore Campus. Currently it has 21 members from 10 countries in Asia-Pacific.
