• 2014-04-01

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) held its annual conference and book exhibition this year on March 28-30 in Philadelphia. National Central Library’s Center for Chinese Studies (CCS) invited the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange to attend the conference and book exhibition with them. Ms. Hsiu-ling Sun and Dr. Huei-zhu Chuang are representatives of this event.

For the book exhibition, CCS displayed 476 books and CDs (521 volumes) from Taiwan on Chinese studies and Taiwan studies from the last three years to show a snapshot of research achievements and publication conditions in Taiwan. The books, after being displayed as references for the thousand plus attendees from around the world, were donated to Columbia University’s East Asian Library to enrich their Chinese studies collection. This is the second exchange NCL has had with Columbia; the first being Taiwan Lectures on Chinese Studies held in 2013. To make the donation even more significant, NCL also invited National Taiwan University (NTU) and seven other university presses to participate in the donation. The combined donation ceremony was held on March 28 at the book exhibition. Director Chia-lin Chang, from the New York Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office’s Education Division, presented the donation, which was received by Columbia University’s East Asian Library President, Jim Cheng. A joint tea party was also held at CCS’s and NTU’s exhibition stalls. 

AAS’s annual conference provides a venue for scholars from across the globe to exchange scholarly research on Asian studies topics. During the three days, a total of 362 sessions were held. In conjunction with the conference, almost one hundred school or institutional publishers from various countries participated in the book exhibition, displaying and selling new books. Apart from CCS, this year marks the first year National Taiwan University Press joined seven other university presses at the book exhibition. This group received excellent ratings at the Taipei International Book Exhibition earlier this year. Not only did their participation provide the international academic community a clear view of Chinese study trends in Taiwan, it also displayed the great advancement taking place in both quality and quantity at university presses in Taiwan. This will help increase Taiwan’s academic visibility and is a large step forward in international exchanges.