Cambridge Librarians’ Day Forum held at UM

The 10th Cambridge Librarians’ Day Forum, jointly organised by the University of Macau Library and Cambridge University Press, was held at the University of Macau (UM). The event brought together more than 70 librarians and experts from Singapore, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan regions to discuss library development and other topics.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Rui Martins, vice rector of UM, gave an overview of the achievements of UM and UM Library in recent years. He expressed hope that the forum and related discussions could inject new impetus into library transformation and innovation. Chris Bennett, commercial director of Cambridge University Press, expressed gratitude to UM for its assistance in hosting the forum. He emphasised the importance of libraries in higher education and research, and looked forward to achieving a win-win situation for universities, researchers, and publishers by promoting more open research and high-quality publications.

The theme of the forum was ‘The Future of Research and Learning: Influence, User Support, and Opportunities in AI’. During the forum, attendees from various places explored how to meet the needs of future researchers and learners by increasing influence, supporting users, and identifying opportunities in the field of artificial intelligence. Wu Jianzhong, university librarian of UM, and Adam Der, head of Scientific Information Provision of Max Planck Digital Library in Germany, delivered keynote speeches on how academic libraries and research institutions can support open research, and the opportunities and challenges involved in open research transformation. The sharing of the two speakers attracted great attention from the attendees, who expressed appreciation for the work and efforts of the speakers’ respective institutions.

In addition, Caroline Black, publishing director of science, technology, and medicine journals of Cambridge University Press; Priscilla Pun, functional head of the Technical Process Unit of UM Library; Flora Ng, university librarian of the University of Hong Kong; and Xu Lifang, director of the Digital Publishing Institute of Wuhan University, and other experts engaged in in-depth discussions on transformative agreements for open access, covering various aspects such as development status, individual experiences, business models, problems and challenges, and possible solutions.