The 1st International Conference on Universal Digital Library

Nov. 03, 2005

On November 1, 2005, the 1st international conference on Universal Digital Library (ICUDL 2005) was held at Zhejiang University. Mr. Qidi Wu, vice-minister of the Ministry of Education, pressed a button to open the website of the International Cooperation Project on Chinese-English Book Digital Library - China-America Digital Academic Library(CADAL). Professor Yunhe Pan, president of Zhejiang University, Mrs. Changli Cheng, vice-governor of Zhejiang province, attended the ceremony.

Two hundred experts, in the areas of sciences of computer and library from all over the world, participated the conference, discussed frontiers, hotspot issues, tactic and innovation of global digital library, and exchanged international and research achievement.

The CADAL project is led by Zhejiang University and Chinese Academy of Sciences. There are sixteen Chinese universities participating it, and they have completed scan processing of 310,000 Chinese books and 70,000 English books. The Chinese digital books include: precious ancient books, books published before the liberation, modern academic library, PhD and mater theses and other literature resources, which were collected by top Chinese universities and Chinese Academy of Science. The English digital books include: core books and technologic reports, collected in American university libraries, which are available publicly. According to the news, the CADAL project will establish a large-scale commonweal digital library.

A multimedia speech given by Professor Raj Readdy, a joint chairman of the conference from Carnegie Mellon University, USA, was played at the conference. Professor Maode Lai, vice-president of Zhejiang University, presided the opening ceremony.

After the conference, leaders inspected CADAL Centers of Technology, Data, Scan, and quality examination, and listened reports, and watched demos.