It is my third time to participate in Cambridge University Press Asia Library Advisory Board. This year it was held in the campus of University of Indonesia. As always it was very nice to meet experts in libraries and publishers from different country and learn from each other. The most interesting thing is that from the talking with people we can see the trends in academic publishing.
To me the meeting is also a good chance to learn the culture of Indonesia, the dance before the event has been well enjoyed by all. It is also very impressive that two university staff seriously annouced how to deal with emergency such as in case of earthquake during the meeting though it is very unlikely to happen, but I do appreciate this kind of strict formal procedure. This is something that seems minor but do matter.
I always enjoy travel to diffent country and to walk randomly on the streets, listen and observe. Jakarta is a huge city, the inner city is very modern and the outer circle is much more less developed. And it is true that the traffic is very heavy. When I took a taxi from the hotel in Depok where the University of Indonesia is located, it took more than one hour to go to the city centre where the indepedent plaza and national museum is and I took a good nap in the taxi.
While the experience in Jakarta airport custom was not good, though I have been told the staff in the custom has been changed for better but to my observation, they are trying to ask people for money while doing their job, especially to Chinese people. While I refused to give any money, I felt very shocked to see this in a custom which ususally would be seen as the showcase window for a country.
I did a presentation titled as “Physical use of the Library how to deal with declining rising trends What the implications are for resource provision” in the CALAB meeting. With my rather “radical” view of the role of the library in the era of Internet, the conversation has been triggered and people started to argue with me and each other. But anyway we all do agree that the library still have a future, the librarians still have a future.
New Ideas 新思路 