The First International Symposium on ETD in Taiwan - Hosted by NCL

Taiwan was the successful bidder to hold the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD). The first was organized by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NTLTD) in 1998. This year’s annual symposium, from September 26 to 28, was hosted by the National Central Library, after more than a year of planning and organizing. 
The theme of this year’s symposium was “Beyond the Boundaries of Rims and Oceans: Globalizing Knowledge with ETDs.” It enabled Taiwan to share its experience with electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) with scholars and experts from around the world, and discuss the joint creation and sharing of ETD resources, and showcased Taiwan’s academic strengths in this field.
The attendees included Dr. Edward A. Fox, Executive Director and Chairman of the Board for NDLTD, local Taiwanese scholars, and distinguished guests from Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, France, Germany, India, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, and the United States.
Dr. Lin Teng-chiao (林騰蛟), Taiwan’s Administrative Deputy Minister of Education, and Dr. Tseng Shu-hsien (曾淑賢), Director-General of the National Central Library, both spoke at the opening ceremony, expressing their enthusiasm about and their professional interest in the very important issues the symposium would explore. Dr. Tseng pointed out that the library is actively engaged in the development of Taiwan’s ETD resources, and has been working hard to promote the concept of open access to ETDs.
Some of the key topic areas discussed and analyzed were: • ETD collections and ETD sharing; • local and international ETD services; • use of big data for ETD collection and analysis; • national research capacity from the ETD viewpoint; • knowledge value adding and the development of the digital content industry; and • intellectual copyright and ethics in academia.
The symposium included eight special lectures, 30 conference paper presentations, this year’s annual general meeting of NDLTD members in Taiwan, a poster exhibition with an award for the best poster, and opportunities to relax and interact informally.
ETD 2018 won glowing praise from NDLTD and all the attendees, who found it well-organized, useful, and enjoyable. They were impressed by the range of topics covered, and by the hospitality of the National Central Library. The attendees are looking forward to meeting again next year at ETD 2019 in Portugal.

Photo:Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. Lin Teng-chiao, and NCL Director-General Tseng (6th left), and overseas attendees at the opening ceremony.