Mellon Grant Recipients for 2016

I am delighted to announce the recipients of this year’s awards of The Mellon Foundation – Council on East Asian Libraries Innovation Grants for East Asian Librarians program! The winners of the 2016 competition are:

University of California Irvine Libraries

Project Lead: Ying Zhang, Research Librarian for Asian Studies

Collaborators: Susan Xue (UC Berkeley), Zhaohui Xue (Duke), and Xiaohe Ma (Harvard) 

Award: $53,810

Project: From Curation of Collection to Creation of Knowledge: Building a Bilingual Dictionary of Ming Government Official Titles through Crowdsourcing 

Description: This project aims to fill a critical lacuna in Chinese reference collection development by creating – through an open source platform to “crowd-source” content – an online dictionary of Ming dynasty official titles. This work will build on the standard source for translations of official titles by Charles O. Hucker (A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China) by adding over 600 translations for the Ming dynasty. This will fill a major gap for scholars of the Ming and those who need standardized English translations of imperial government titles for digital humanities and other projects. The new dictionary will be publicly accessible through the UC-Irvine digital repository.


Stanford University Libraries

Project Lead: Jidong Yang, Head, East Asia Library

Collaborators at Stanford: Zhaohui Xue, Nicholas Taylor, and Gary Geisler; under the general oversight PI Michael A. Keller

Award: $39,650

Project: Recording the Emerging Chinese Civil Society: Archiving Websites and Social Media of Chinese NGOs and Making Them Accessible

Description: This project will enhance and extend an effort to collect born digital materials (websites and social media) published by Chinese NGOs active in the sectors of environmental protection, HIV/AIDS, labor and migrant workers, legal aid, social enterprise, women and gender issues, and ethnic minorities. The grant will be used to double the coverage of an initial project begun by the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, enhance the metadata to improve accessibility, and develop an existing open-source platform for online exhibits to feature the archived content.

The two projects impressed the review panel with both the importance of the collection development focus and the plans for technology development. Congratulations to both universities and the project leads and their collaborators!

CEAL is grateful to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the funding for the Innovation Grant Program and to the entire grant review panel.

External Reviewers:

• Michael Hunter, Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures, Yale University
• Hoyt Long, Professor, Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, University of Chicago
• Lizabeth Wilson, Vice Provost for Digital Initiatives; Dean of University Libraries, University of Washington

CEAL Executive Board Reviewers:

• Jim Cheng, Director, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University
• Charles Fosselman, Access and Digital Information Services Librarian, Stanford University
• Dawn Lawson, Head, Asia Library, University of Michigan
• Hyokyoung Yi, Head, East Asia Library Public Services; Korean Studies Librarian, University of Washington

Innovation Grant Program Principal Investigator:

Ellen Hammond, Director, International Collections & Research Support, Yale University

Ellen H. Hammond
Director, International Collections & Research Support
Head, East Asia Library
Yale University Library
PO Box 208240
New Haven, CT 06520-8240
USA

Tel: +1 203 432-1791
Fax: +1 203 432-8527

Mellon Foundation Awards Grant to the Council on East Asian Libraries

Mellon Grants on the CEAL Website

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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