Two of NALIS’ senior librarians, Delise Thomas, Librarian IV, Educational Library Services Division and Jenna Sandiford-Maundy, Librarian IV, Special Library Services, will travel to China to participate in training sessions.

Thomas will attend sessions on the topic, “Leadership Capability Building for Female Officials from Developing Countries,” which will be held from October 11 to 31, and Sandiford-Maundy will attend the training session titled: “Chinese Language and Culture for South-South Cooperation for Officials in Developing Countries” which will be held from October 17 to 30. 

The sessions will take place at China Women’s University and the International Chinese College Beijing, respectively. These sessions will engender learnings in international development trends; social, political, economic and cultural development, and build capacity in the areas of mentorship and bilateral cooperation.

Attendance to these training sessions is being paid for in full by the aforementioned universities and the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, and follows the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) between NALIS and the National Library of China in June.

The MoC facilitates the exchange of expertise in a number of areas, including digitisation, services for the blind, visually impaired or otherwise print disabled, according to the Marrakesh Treaty; the implementation and use of technologies and the preservation and protection of heritage information.

Since the signing, NALIS has established a Chinese Book Collection at the National Library with books and e-books donated by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.  The Authority has also hosted Her Excellency, Hua Chunying, Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in a meet-and-greet event at the National Library in July.

In April, NALIS became a member of the Silk Road International Library Alliance (SRILA), an initiative of the National Library of China.  SRILA, which was established in 2018, is a non-governmental, open and non-profit international library cooperation aimed at building long-term cooperation and regular communication mechanisms among library communities in various countries and the development and business improvement of libraries and talent training of library workers.