His presentation, which was in Mandarin Chinese, with slides in Chinese and English, was titled “北京大學圖書館和華盛頓大學圖書館的中國古文獻收藏與整理” (“The collection and organization of ancient Chinese materials at Peking University Library and University of Washington Library”).

The presentation was followed by an informal reception, to thank Prof. Yao for his work on the project and to say farewell before his return to Beijing later in May.

Both the presentation and reception were free and open to the public, and well attended by members of the community, UW faculty, students, and staff.

View the presentation slides for the section: “CLIR項目對華盛頓大學圖書館所藏中國古文獻的整理” (“CATALOGING CHINESE ANCIENT BOOKS THROUGH CLIR PROJECT “)

View the presentation slides for the section: “北京大學圖書館古文獻收藏與整理的歷史回顧” (“An Overview of the History of the Special Collections at the PKU Library”)

View the presentation slides for the section: “高校古文獻資源庫”的建設與發展”

View photos from the presentation and reception >>

This microgrant program—”Microgrants for Incentivizing Collaboration”—from CLIR offers small grants in support of further collaboration and cross-project connections among recipients of their Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grants.

In March, 2015, Project Co-PIs Zhijia Shen and Jing Liu presented at the CLIR Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives Symposium, the capstone event to the seven-year Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The two-day symposium and unconference brought together more than 180 participants, including many past and current grant recipients.

The proceedings of the symposium—in which more than 20 symposium presenters examine inter-institutional collaboration, student and faculty involvement, cataloging, arrangement and description, audiovisual collections, science collections, and outreach—have now been published.  The full report is available for download or viewing online at http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub169.  Or directly view the paper by Zhijia and Jing, entitled “International Collaboration to Reveal Rare Chinese Materials Hidden for Half a Century”, at http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub169/shenetal.pdf.

Their presentation, entitled “Collaboration to Reveal Hidden Treasures at PRRLA Libraries: UW-UBC CLIR Project on Chinese Materials”, focused on our project’s collaborative nature.  It addressed issues and challenges facing the collaborative work, such as those of working with policies, laws, and regulations of different countries; shared what was learned in terms of project planning and management, resource sharing, staff exchange and training between the two institutions across national boundaries, and with academic libraries in China; and demonstrated how international collaboration can optimize libraries’ capacity and resources to accomplish difficult tasks, and how we become greater when putting our efforts together.

Click to view the slides from this presentation.

Click to view the slides from this presentation.  (Note:  Presentation slides are in Chinese.)

Click to view the slides from this presentation.

On March 10, Professor Boyue Yao, CLIR Project Librarian and visiting scholar from Beijing University Library, delivered a public lecture, “Discovering the Origins of the Imperial University Library through Ancient Book Catalogs,” at the University of Washington East Asia Library.

Professor Yao spoke about his recent discoveries in ancient book catalogs—their contents, the seals that were used on them, etc.—and other sources which revealed that the Imperial University Library (now Peking University Library) was in fact founded in 1898, rather than 1902 as was previously thought.

Presentation Summary: 长期以来，北大校史都将1902年作为北京大学图书馆的创建年，比1898年建校的北京大学晚了整整4年！事实果真如此吗？原北大外国语学院沈弘教授从2002年开始，先后写了3篇文章，论证北京大学图书馆的前身京师大学堂藏书楼实际应该与京师大学堂同时建立，文章很有说服力，但遗憾的是一直无人理会。2013年，北大图书馆古籍编目人员在编目中发现了一部出版于1899年春的《大学堂书目》，于是事情终于出现了转机……

Photos from the event >>