• 2025-04-17

On April 7^th, National Central Library donated Taiwan Corners to two French libraries: Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon and Médiathèque Gustave Eiffel Levallois, in order to help bring awareness about Taiwan to foreign citizens, providing quality books to readers, and using books as a bridge across nations and cultures. This donation marked NCL’s first establishment of a Taiwan Corner in France and symbolizes a new chapter in book and cultural exchange between France and Taiwan.

Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon has long strived to provide rich knowledge and cultural resources to the greater community in their city and their collection of rare Chinese texts is a major feature of the library. This collection includes precious historical materials, works of literature, and periodicals from the former Institut Franco-Chinois de Lyon. Furthermore, Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon and National Central Library have a long history of friendship, with frequent visits and exchange between them, as well as having signed a collaborative agreement on the Union Catalog of Rare Books Database in order to collectively promote resource sharing.

Levallois City was the location of Taiwan’s Athlete Training Center during the 2024 Paris Olympics. Their municipal library Médiathèque Gustave Eiffel Levallois is named for the famous architect Gustave Eiffel. Levallois Mayor Agnes Pottier-Dumas, who gave Taiwan her warm support during the Olympics, paid a visit to the library to welcome the donation of outstanding books from Taiwan.

The donation ceremonies for the Taiwan Corners were held respectively at the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon in the morning and at the Médiathèque Gustave Eiffel Levallois in the afternoon. NCL Director-General Han-ching Wang was accompanied by Education Division Director Mei-chen Lu of the Taipei Representative Office in France, traveling to personally make the donations to both libraries. Consul General Ambassador Cheng-Hong Shen of the Bureau Annexe d’Aix-en-Provence and his wife were present at the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon ceremony and Representative Philippe Yen Chia-Liang of the Taipei Representative Office in France attended the Médiathèque Gustave Eiffel Levallois ceremony, paying witness to the significant events marking new cultural exchange between the two countries.

NCL Director-General Han-ching Wang expressed that the donations of these two Taiwan Corners included 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 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 between the two countries.

NCL would like to specially extend gratitude to the Taipei Representative Office in France for their long-term efforts in promoting cultural and educational exchange between Taiwan and France. Director-General Wang commended Ambassador Pei-chih Hao for her support, Education Division Director Mei-chen Lu for her work as a liaison, and Representative Philippe Yen Chia-Liang for attendance at the ceremony. In addition, Consul General Ambassador Cheng-Hong Shen of the Bureau Annexe d’Aix-en-Provence, who has worked hard to promote exchanges with Taiwan and developed excellent relationships with a variety of cultural and educational institutions in the south of France, also attended the event. Further, NCL expressed gratitude and admiration for hard work in preserving and maintaining Chinese-language collections and data as well as the enthusiastic promotion of this donation by Mr. Olivier Bialais, of the Chinese-language Department of the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon. NCL expressed collective gratitude to each of the above offices and partners for working together tirelessly for months to plan and make this mutual exchange between France and Taiwan possible.