In March 2001, Hong Kong Baptist University Library successfully conducted a staff development program, "Library Trends and Management Issues", for twenty selected academic librarians from Mainland China, focusing on providing the participants a theoretical framework of current library United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia and rated as highly successful by participants.

    A number of March 2001 participants also commented that it would be very desirable if the HKBU library would develop some short-term program to allow more substantive hand-on learning and working alongside of the HKBU Library staff. Therefore, the HKBU library solicited the funding support again from United Board to conduct "Residency Program for Academic Librarians for Mainland China".

    The goal of this program is to provide participating librarians from Mainland China universities the opportunity to gain hand-on experience by working in the HKBU Library. This will enable the participants a more in-depth understanding of the new challenges of a library in the new era. At the same time, information exchange and collaboration between two sides will be further enhanced.

    It is a three-month residency program for three selected academic librarians from Mainland China universities each year over a three-year period. The phase I & II of the program was funded and successfully carried out in HKBU library. Six participated Mainland librarians completed the training program in June 2003 and June 2004 respectively. They gave a very positive feedback and thoughtful suggestions for improvement. This year, United Board has also funded the Phase III of this program to provide more opportunity to Mainland China university librarians.

    Totally nine librarians from Mainland China universities have been selected to participate the training program. They are: