Wednesday, January 28, 2015

New Consultant Librarians for UW-UBC CLIR Chinese Rare Book Project

Professor Boyue Yao and Mr. Ya Min Wu Join the UW-UBC CLIR Project as Consultants and Librarians for Chinese Rare Books and Cataloging


On behalf of University of Washington Libraries and University of British Columbia Library, we are very pleased to announce that two excellent Chinese rare-book and cataloging librarians, Professor Boyue Yao and Mr. Ya Min Wu, have joined the team of the UW-UBC CLIR project, Discovering Modern China, UW and UBC Chinese Collections, recipient of a 2014 CLIR grant to catalog the hidden Chinese collections at UW East Asia Library and UBC Asian Library. It is one of the first two CLIR grants awarded to two collaborative international institutions.

Mr. Boyue Yao, Professor and Chinese rare-book librarian of Beijing University Library in China, arrived at the East Asia Library of University of Washington on January 6th, 2015, for a 13-month appointment as the CLIR project librarian for Chinese rare-books and cataloging. He will also spend two months in April and May at the UBC Library as a Chinese rare-book consultant. Prof. Yao is a well-known rare-book expert in China. He served as head of the rare-book department of Beijing University Library for many years and also taught at Beijing University’s School of Library and Information Science on Chinese rare-book identification and cataloging, textual bibliography, and copyright. This is his third visit to the United States: He spent 2 months at UC Berkeley’s East Asia Library between 2000 and 2001; and served as a rare-book cataloging librarian at Harvard Yen-Ching Library for a full year in 2005, helping catalog Chinese Rubbings and other traditional Chinese books.

Professor Yao has published numerous articles on Chinese rare-books assessment and cataloging, and several monographs about Chinese rare-books and book history. His book, A Critical Biography of Huang Pilie, published by Nanjing University Press in 1998, won several national awards in China. His current research projects include “collection and research on the Atlas drawing in the Qing Dynasty,” “Studies on Cataloging and Retrieval of the Chinese Rubbings,” and “Studies on the Classification of Chinese Ancient Books,” among others. Prof. Yao graduated with a BA and MA, both in library and information science from Beijing University. He has worked at Beijing University as a teaching faculty member and librarian for about 30 years.

Mr. Ya Min Wu has been appointed the CLIR Project-cataloging librarian for Chinese rare-books and classical materials held at the Asian Library of UBC effective December 1, 2014. During this one-year appointment, Mr. Wu will focus on authenticating, cataloging, classifying and providing subject access to Chinese print materials produced between the 14th century and the end of the Republican Period.

Mr. Wu is a seasoned Chinese studies librarian with 15 years of professional library experience in China. Started as a cataloger, he later served as senior librarian and assistant director of Liaoning Provincial Library. He has a rich experience working with Chinese rare and ancient books and participated in several major cataloging projects such as the RLG Chinese Rare Books project. He also played a leading role in some major library system initiatives in China. Through his extensive training and experience, Mr. Wu has accumulated substantial knowledge of Chinese literature, history, and culture, as well as research expertise on Chinese book history, publishing history, and bibliography. Prior to this appointment, Mr. Wu worked as the Chinese Collections Support Assistant at the UBC Central Technical Services from March to November 2014. Mr. Wu holds a library degree from Beijing University and a graduate program degree in Philosophy of Science and Technology from Northeastern University in China.

We are delighted to welcome Professor Boyue Yao and Mr. Ya Min Wu to join the team for this important international collaboration. Prof. Boyue Yao can be reached at Room M236 Gowen Hall in the EAL, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195; 206-685-3705 (office phone); email: boyuey@uw.edu. Mr. Ya Min Wu can be reached at the Rare Books and Special Collections, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1; by phone (604) 822-9430, and via email at ya.min.wu@ubc.ca.

Zhijia Shen
CO-PI of the UW-UBC CLIR Project and
Director of East Asia Library
University of Washington

Jing Liu
CO-PI of the UW-UBC CLIR Project
Chinese Studies Librarian, Asian Library
University of British Columbia.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

CEAL Website Webhost Change

FYI
The CEAL website is moving to a new “webhosting” company, Arvixe (http://www.arvixe.com/). As a part of the move, for the next 24 to 36 hours (until Wed. Jan. 28th at about 4PM PST), the usual CEAL URL (http://www.eastasianlib.org) may (or may not) take you to a temporary message page, indicating that the website is moving to Arvixe.


In the meantime, you can still access the CEAL website at this temporary URL:
http://eastasianlib.org.lotus.arvixe.com/index.htm

Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.


Yours Truly,
Rob Britt
Chair, CEAL Library Technology Committee

Thursday, January 15, 2015

CEAL 2015 Schedule Page | PDF of CEAL 2015 Schedule


Dear Eastlib colleagues:
The official program for the 2015 CEAL Annual Meeting in Chicago is now available on the CEAL home page, http://www.eastasianlib.org/, on the right side, under "Annual Meeting." Or go directly to the schedule using the links above.

As I announced earlier, we will be trying something new this year: an official program. Committee chairs will continue to announce their program line-ups on Eastlib, but all of this information will be assembled into one program. This will bring all of the presenters and their presentation titles together in one place. You will be able to print this out from the website later in March. There will be an announcement when the program is ready for downloading.

CEAL Executive Board members and I look forward to seeing you in Chicago!

Best,
Ellen

Ellen H. Hammond
President
Council on East Asian Libraries

Monday, January 5, 2015

Mellon Foundation Awards Grant to the Council on East Asian Libraries

Mellon Grants on the CEAL Website

Ann Arbor, MI, January 5, 2015

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded funds to the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) of the Association for Asian Studies to establish a grant program, The Mellon Foundation – Council on East Asian Libraries Innovation Grants for East Asian Librarians. The new program will enable East Asian studies librarians to undertake projects addressing current and long-term challenges in collection development with the goal of strengthening the foundation for scholarly research in East Asian studies in North America. The Mellon Foundation award of $288,000 will be used for two rounds of grants over the period 2015-2017.

The Innovation Grants for East Asian Librarians will fund proposals that break new ground in research library East Asian collection development, encouraging new approaches to the acquisition of print, digital, or multimedia materials from East Asia and improvements in the ability to discover and access these materials. Projects might aim to collect and preserve web content or other “at risk” resources such as ephemera, identify and purchase films or other audio-visual resources not readily available through commercial channels, or improve the ability to discover East Asian-language resources in local and national online catalogs, repositories, or portals. Creation of infrastructure for digitized collections or open source software to enhance use of East Asian scripts in library applications are other examples of projects that could be proposed. Projects that are collaborative and look beyond the institutional level to solutions with national impact will be encouraged through the grant program.

Association for Asian Studies President, Dr. Mrinalini Sinha, said, “Congratulations to CEAL for receiving this generous grant from the Mellon Foundation to develop and expand East Asian library collections. This is an ambitious and innovative project that will benefit teachers and scholars for years to come.” According to CEAL President Ellen H. Hammond, “This funding will allow East Asian studies librarians to grapple with unresolved collection development issues, particularly those arising from the transition to digital formats. It is yet another example of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s strong support for library collections and services that enhance teaching and research in international and area studies. I am thrilled that the CEAL membership has been given this opportunity through the foundation’s generosity.”

CEAL will provide further information about the grant on the CEAL website (http://www.eastasianlib.org/) with a request for proposals to be issued early in January 2015. Members of the Council on East Asian Libraries may apply. Funds will be disbursed in two grant rounds, with first round applications due March 1, 2015.

Contact: Ellen Hammond, (President, Council on East Asian Libraries)
ellen.hammond@yale.edu

2015 CEAL Elections


Happy New Year! Best wishes for this “Year of the Sheep.”

I want to alert all CEAL members to the upcoming 2015 elections. The CEAL Executive Board has begun to organize the election process. We seek to fill four positions on the board:

Secretary
Treasurer
Member-At-Large (2)

Those elected will serve three years (2015 – 2018) beginning with Executive Board Meeting II at this year’s CEAL Annual Meeting (Thursday, March 26) and ending with Executive Board Meeting I at the CEAL Meeting in 2018.

This year’s Election Committee has been appointed. The members are:

Meng-fen Su (University of Texas)
Hee-sook Shin (Columbia University)
Fabiano Rocha (University of Toronto)
Dawn Lawson (New York University)
Jim Cheng (Columbia University), Chair

You will receive further news about the nominating process from Jim Cheng, Election Committee Chair. In the meantime, I hope everyone will think about this great opportunity to serve on the CEAL Executive Board and be prepared to nominate yourself or others!

Best,
Ellen Hammond
CEAL President