Providing Global Access to Local Treasures: UW-NCL Chinese Rare Book Digital Project

Zhijia Shen ,Charles Chamberlin,

University of Washington Karl Min Ku,

National Central Library on Taiwan

PRDLAShanghai

October 21, 2010

OutlineUW Libraries and its digital initiativesUW-NCL digital collaboration on Chinese rare booksBrief History of the EAL Brief History Chinese collection at UWUW Chinese rare book collectionPlans and impact of the project

University of Washington

One of the oldest public universities on the West Coast, 1861-3 campuses: Seattle, Tacoma, and BothellPublic research university

30,000 undergraduates12,000 graduate students4,000 faculty

1st in US federal research funds8 DOE NRC for area studiesSince the 20th century, known for its

Far East StudiesFishery Forestry

University of Washington Libraries

Uni

University of Washington Libraries

Large, public research library

17 geographically distributed library facilities

Over 7 million volumes

7 days a week

24 hours a day

Research commons

East Asia Library

Digital Initiatives

Just opened Oct. 7th 2010: Research Commons

R

UW Digital Initiatives

Over100 collections featuring materials from the UW Libraries, local and regional partners.American Indians of the Pacific Northwest digital collectionKing County SnapshotsOlympic Peninsula Virtual Community Museum.Research Works

ResearchWorks Services

ResearchWorks Archive ServiceResearchWorks Media Publishing ServiceResearchWorks Open Journal Hosting

Media Publishing Service: Digital Collections

UW-NCL Digital Collaboration: Chinese Rare Books

Agreement

Timeline: January 1, 2010 –Dec. 31, 2012

Scope: Chinese rare books held at UWL

Digitization scheduleDivision of responsibilities

in the cooperationScan and metadata catalogingArchiving copies of the

digital filesAccess

National Central Library on Taiwan (NCL)

NCL Chinese Rare Book Collection and Digitization

NCL rare booksNCL-LOC digitization collaboration project

2005: Signed agreement

2009: 1,494 volumes had been completed, totaling 734,566 image file.

2012: project slated to complete

•Taiwan Fan She Feng Su [Customs of Taiwan’s Aboriginal Tribes]

Started 1998 and expanded to include Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, Australia, and other overseas rare book collectionsover 609,941 recordsSearchable through 14 search valueslinked searches in collections in Mainland China, Japan, U.S., and Europe

NCL Chinese Rare Book Catalog

East Asia LibraryTop 12 EALs in North

AmericaTotal 616,700 vols;

280,000 Chinese.Support Jackson school

and AL&L Department and other EA related programs, and local EA Communities.

Third most used collection of the 17 UW libraries

UW EAL collections can be traced back to1909 when UW first started teaching about Asia .

Mostly private collections of faculty and on loan to the library and department, which all ended in the EAL.

1937: the library received first official funding from a Rockefeller Foundation grant to acquire Chinese books

1947: Library hired the first EAL curator, and named the library Far Eastern Library, thanks to another grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

1950s and 1960s: acquired major rare book collections- J. F. Rock and H. Wilhelm Collections

1968-1990: Karl Lo was its second curator

EAL Collections

1976: changed to its current name and moved to its current location in Gowen Hall

1975: Chik-Fong Lee published A Descriptive Catalog of the Ming editions in the Far Eastern Library of the University of Washington

1977: Purchased Wu Xianzi manuscript from Hong Kong

1989: EAL purchased the warehouse of Hong Kong Universal Book Store of over 100k vols of Chinese books

1990: EAL Chinese rare book preservation and cataloging project initiated

1995: EAL became the official repository library of Taiwan government publications

2006: EAL became one of the recipients of the Five-Year Donation Plan of Window to China

UW EAL was build by the joint efforts of faculty and librarians : one-hundred partnership in developing a world class academic program and library

Historical Timeline of UW Chinese studies

Herbert H. Gowen (1864-1960)George E. Taylor (1905- 2000)Helmut Wilheim (1905-1990)Karl A. Wittfogel (1896-1988

李方桂（ 1902-1987 ）

萧公权 （ 897-1981 ）

施友忠 （ 1902-2001 ）

Chinese Rare Book Collection at UW

Chinese Special Collections

Hellmut Wilhelm CollectionSpecial Collection of Qian Qianyi’s worksJoseph Rock CollectionWu Xianzi Papers

Bibliographies on UW Chinese Rare Books

A Catalog of the official gazetteers of China in the University of Washington. Compiled by Joseph Dzen-His Lowe. Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Co. [1966]Ad descriptive catalog of the Ming editions in the Far Eastern Library o fthe University of Washington.（华盛顿大学远东图书馆藏明版书录） compiled by Chik-Fong Lee (李直方 ). San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, Inc, 1975.Wang Jue. “Rare works by Qian Qianyi and other Qing Dynasty Rare books of peotry and literature. Bulletin of NCL. V. 25, no. 2.

Hellmut Wilhelm Collection

Collection of Qian Qianyi Works

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牧齋初學集詩註 東京 : 擁書城印行 , [ 明治 16, 1883],

據淸康熙間玉詔堂本刻字排印

J.F. Rock Collection

Joseph F. Rock (1884-1962)

The Wu Xianzi Papers

Wu Xianzi (1881-1959)Purchased from the Sino-American Book Co.,

Hong Kong, 1977. Collection includes 120 items of diaries,

documents such as certificates of official appointments, etc.), letters, manuscripts of essays, poems, etc., newspaper clips, and notes, and manuscripts of Kang You-wei, Sun Yat-sen and other significant figures of the Chinese Republican period.

Plans

Over 255 titles selected for the first digitization NCL is sending 3 technicians to scan the book and develop metadata at UW in November EAL sets up space and workflow for the NCL crewEAL Staff continues recon-cataloging of its rare booksProject schedule

1st List of rare books for digitization from UW East Asian Library: 255 titles and 2759 volumes

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Take Kong Zi Jiayu for example:

UW copy of Kong Zi Jiayu

NCL Rare Books Image Search Systemhttp://rarebook.ncl.edu.tw/rbook/

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Making this local treasure accessible globallyAll digitized UW Chinese rare books will be listed and searchable in the NCL Chinese Rare Book Catalog—more accessibilitypreservation of these rare materialsThrough the UW-NCL collaboration, we not only make our local treasures available to global users, but also allow UW users to access rare materials owned by NCL and its other digital partners.

Gen zhi tu (Cultivating and Weaving)48

Beckman Reading-room of East Asia Library

University of Washington Libraries

Thank you!

谢谢！