Rare Material in Shanghai
by Jing Liu ~ January 8th, 2008. Filed under: Reference Questions.Two requests can only be met by working with librarians in China: Korean rare books held in Shanghai Library and Shanghai District Court records of 1946.
English translations from selected works by Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi. UBC does not have the complete sets.
Important and expensive books missing from Asian reference. Shall we, more important can we replace them?
Undergraduate students need basic level of Chinese reading materials that have not been purposely collected.
January 9th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Welcome back, Jing! (though you seemed not to have left at all..:)
It’s sad to hear this about UBC Chinese collection, for it always claims to be among the top collections in Chinese studies in Canada (and maybe in North America too?). The good thing is we still can fulfill some of the requests by collaborating with librarians far beyond the border. Good luck!
January 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Thanks Mindy. Our users and their demands have been changing, but the collection development policy hasn’t. I am glad to hear the proposal for change from my new colleagues; and strong support of Access China Project from the teaching faculty. What an exciting restart?
January 10th, 2008 at 3:11 am
Hello Jing: Yes, when I worked with Dr. Duanduan Li at Asian Studies, I did feel that Chinese language learning materials were not the focus of Asian Library collection. Dr. Li has a sizable private collection, and her colleagues and students often borrow books from her. Surprisingly, when I had my professional experience at SFU, I catalogued quite a few Chinese language learning materials in a variety of formats there.
I agree that the collection development policy has to be changed to meet trend and needs. I hope your collaboration with colleagues and faculty members can make this happen.