The 27th Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) was held by the School of Information Management, Wuhan University (WHU) and the School of Public Administration, Northwest University (NWU) on August 1. It was the first time that the JCDL, which attracted around 380 experts, industry professionals and postgraduates from over 20 countries and regions around the world, was held in Asia. The five-day event was convened online.
Under the theme of “Speedier Innovation, Sustainable Development and Societal Transformation”, the conference offered a platform for the discussion on the theory and practice of for digital libraries, innovation, the construction of a sustainable ecology system of knowledge, the promotion of societal transformation in times of rapid change and some other topics.
Tang Qizhu, vice president of WHU attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. He noted that the JCDL was a grand gathering of both researchers and practitioners in the field of digital libraries, which covers various disciplines including information management, computer science, social science, humanities and so on, demonstrating the interdisciplinary nature of this emerging and rapidly growing field. It is expected that the meeting will stimulate new exchanges, discoveries and ideas in digital library research, practice and education.
Professor Lei Xiankang, dean of the School of Public Administration of NWU, Professor Wu Dan, chairman of JCDL 2020 from the School of Information Management of WHU, and Professor He Daqing, chairman of the Procedure Committee of JCDL 2020 from the School of Computing and Information of the University of Pittsburgh delivered speeches respectively.
Three renowned specialists in the field of digital libraries were invited to deliver keynote lectures at the conference. Professor Edward A. Fox from the Department of Computer Science, and chief of the Digital Libraries Research Laboratory at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who put forward the idea of the digital library gave the first speech titled “How Should One Explore the Digital Library of the Future?” Professor Gary Marchionini, joint chairman of the conference and dean of the School of Information and Library Science in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill acted as the host. Another two talks were given by Professor Peter Zhou, deputy curator of the library in the of California, Berkeley and curator of the East Asian Library, (“Towards a Sustainable Infrastructure for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Digital Scholarship”) and by Doctor Luo, Vice President of Alibaba Group and the chief scientist in the language laboratory of the Alibaba Damo Academy, (“Natural Language Technologies for Internet Applications”).
The conference was held using many delivery formats including full-length papers, short-length papers, posters and presentations, doctor forums, lectures on special topics, seminars, symposium groups and case practice, the themes of which embraced data science and analysis, digital curation and management, information behavior, information organization, information retrieving, information science, information service, human-computer interaction, digital humanities, machine learning, artificial intelligence and heritage and culture. It provided a subject-blending and brainstorming platform where academics from all over the world could present the cutting-edge theory on international information management research.
ACM/IEEE JDCL is an important international forum focusing on digital libraries and relating techniques, practice and social issues. It is a top international conference with a long history and strong influence, which is also of great academic value. Together with the Europe Conference on Digital Libraries (ECDL) and the International Conference in Asia on Digital Libraries (ICADL), it is called the three international academic conferences in the field of digital libraries.
It is said that JCDL is the most important academic meeting in the School of Information Management of WHU, and it is also one of the activities celebrating the school’s hundred-year anniversary. The successful convening of the meeting promotes the construction of first-class University of WHU and first-class discipline of library and information and data science, further strengthens the communication and collaboration between WHU and Top-Notch universities and institutions in Europe and America and enhances China’s international influence in the field of library and information.
Rewritten by Lin Hanfei
Edited by Wan Qian, Luo Yuanyuan, Li Yushan, Sylvia and Hu Sijia
