hanghai International Studies University (SISU) library is developing to Smart Library to develop public culture service, which fully complies  with the requirements of National Smart Library System Construction Project proposed by The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China on June 10, 2021.

Smart Library is an innovation based on Digital Library. It can store information resources just as Digital Library does and additionally connects different information resources. It can even enhance the interaction with users by Internet technology.

For example, two newly-set reading pavilions beside SISU library can record reading audios produced by users and compare them with the original transcript to help readers to read better.

Smart Library is deeply related to digital humanities, which refers to studying all humanities, like philology and history, by digital technology.

SISU’s construction of Smart Library is now in the early stage. The library plans to collect more information resources, improve intelligent technology to serve faculty and students, and introduce and cultivate digital humanities professionals to push the construction forward, according to Cai Yingchun, the executive deputy director of SISU library.

As part of SISU’s Smart Library construction project, SISU Digital Scholarship Center (DSC) was founded in the autumn of 2021, equipped with digital humanities labs. The labs offer professional literature of digital skills training and high-performance computer (HPC) to faculty and students to study or produce digital contents.

To propel the construction of Smart Library, SISU DSC will provide personnels with digital humanities education and training, support faculty’s major scientific research projects and promote the university’s academic output.

“With the future construction and improvement, SISU DSC will realize the function and utility of Smart Library,” Cai said.

On Nov. 24, 2021, SISU DSC held an online academic meeting and invited Wu Jianzhong, the director of the University of Macau library, to give a lecture on Smart Library. He pointed out that the library should collect and preserve all of the university’s academic resources, especially the original data resources and innovative academic resources, and become a platform interacting with faculty and students actively.

“In a word, Smart Library starts from the library and ultimately needs the support and help of the whole university,” Wu said.