• 2025-04-16

Books can serve as a bridge to friendship, allowing members of the French public to get to know Taiwan through reading good books. On April 11, 2025, National Central Library Director-General Han-ching Wang visited Director Jean-Arthur Creff of the Paris Municipal Libraries and Reading Department. Three deputy directors were also in attendance and the two parties engaged in professional exchange about libraries and reading promotion. On the same day, NCL also donated books to establish a Taiwan Corner at the Paris Sorbier Library (Bibliothèque Sorbier).

In order to promote book and cultural exchange between the two countries, NCL Director-General Han-ching Wang visited the main branch of Paris Municipal Libraries to meet with Reading Department Director Jean-Arthur Creff, with three deputy directors also in attendance, to discuss professional efforts by libraries to promote reading. Meeting attendees proposed the signing of a joint MOU between the two library systems and to further research the systematic establishment of Taiwan Corners throughout Paris, in addition to the promotion of Taiwan Academic Digital Resource Centers (TADRC). TADRC is a new brand of service promoted by NCL which serves to provide substantial benefit to collaborating institutions abroad by providing high quality digital research resources from Taiwan through sustainably operating model. The program will thereby promote and develop academic exchange, spurring cultural marketing, and increasing the visibility of Taiwanese academic research accomplishments.

The Sorbier Library is located in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, a diverse melting pot of cultures which has gained a positive reputation its “Heart of Asia” due to its high population of ethnic Chinese immigrants. The library is committed to providing local residents with knowledge and cultural resources and is a site of strong community cohesion. The donations as a part of this Taiwan Corner include 90 kinds of carefully selected publications including Chinese, English, and French-language publications, spanning a variety of areas such as Taiwanese history, culture, society, and the natural environment, in addition to offering children’s picture books and periodicals. NCL Director-General Wang expressed her hopes that the Taiwan Corner can become a window through which readers get to know Taiwan. Sorbier Library Director Céline Rollet expressed the great importance she places on this collaboration as well as her hope that reading and exchange can increase friendship between people of the two countries. She also explained that book club discussions will be held around books from the Taiwan Corner in order to encourage members of the public to read these excellent books and increase their understanding of Taiwan.

In recent years, NCL has actively worked to expand international exchange and the establishment of Taiwan Corners abroad have brought an abundance of Taiwanese books and cultural resources to the world. The Taiwan Corner program has collaborated with outstanding libraries across the world. By continuing to make donations of high quality Taiwan-published books, children’s picture books, and Chinese-language learning books, NCL hopes to plant seeds and cultivate more young readers of Chinese, increase understanding of Taiwan, and inject more momentum into the cultural exchanges among the two countries.

NCL would like to once again express the sincerest gratitude to the Taipei Representative Office in France for their long-term efforts in promoting cultural and education exchange between Taiwan and France and to Education Division Director Mei-chen Lu for her assistance in facilitating this donation and visit, working together to make this bilateral exchange a success.