From November 9 to 11, 2022, the 8th Annual Conference of the National Federation of Libraries of Foreign Language College and Universities, organized by the National Union of Foreign Language College Libraries and CALIS Shared Domain Center and hosted by Zhejiang Foreign Language Institute Library, was successfully held in a combination of offline and online manner. The theme of this year's conference was "Construction of 'Belt and Road Initiative' and Multilingual Literature Support and Guarantee". More than 130 representatives from 30 institutions, research units and vendors, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai Foreign Studies University and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, attended the conference. Our Deputy Director Zhang Meiping participated in the online meeting with more than 10 librarians.

Founded in 2009, the National Federation of Libraries of Foreign Language College and Universities (hereinafter referred to as "the Alliance") has created a new cooperation and resource sharing model among foreign language institutions in China, and has proposed solutions to coordinate procurement of multilingual resources, joint cataloguing and sharing of literature resources. In order to strengthen cooperation and academic exchanges among the member libraries and to seek common development and academic innovation, the Alliance has successfully held eight annual conferences so far. At present, there are 26 member libraries in China.

At the conference, Professor Chen Ling of Peking University Library, Deputy Director of CALIS Centre, Secretary General of Secretary General of the Library and Information Work Steering Committee of Higher Education Ministry, presented the topic "Thinking about the construction of university libraries under the strategy of education digitization"; Professor Zhou Deming, President of Shanghai Library Association, presented the topic "Exploring Forward: Brief report on the Innovation Point of East Wing of Shanghai Library"; Huang Chen, Research Librarian of China Academic Digital Associative Library (CADAL) Project Management Center, presented "Twenty Years of CADAL Project: Review and Prospects"; Shao Min, Deputy Director of Tsinghua University Library, presented "Construction and Utilization of Characteristic Literature Resources: An Example of Tsinghua University Library"; and Professor Chu Jingli, Director of the Academic Committee of China Scientific Documentation and Information Center and President and Editor-in-Chief of the Library And Information Service, gave a report on "From Resource Capacity to Service Capacity". Fourteen directors or librarians from member libraries took their respective libraries as examples to carry exchanges on resource building and innovative services. In addition, participating vendors such as De Gruyter, Elsevier, Bonree and Clarivate Analytics also presented projects related to foreign language resources and services to the conference.

In the closing ceremony on the morning of the 11th, King Abdulaziz Public Library Branch in Peking University was presented as a new member library of this year. Zhang Meiping, the deputy director, introduced the institutional setup, development effectiveness and future work of the branch library, under the title of "Introduction to King Abdulaziz Public Library Branch in Peking University", which was warmly welcomed by the participating member libraries.

Finally, Shanghai International Studies University Library, the organizer of the 9th Annual Conference, gave an introduction on its own library, and Wang Shuyuan, the Secretary General of the Alliance and Executive Deputy Director of Beijing International Studies University Library, gave a summary of the conference.

After the meeting, the branch librarians responded enthusiastically to the annual meeting, saying that they had benefited a lot and hoped that they could strengthen the exchange and cooperation with the member libraries in the future, so as to better serve the cultivation of Arabic language talents and Area studies.