• 2016-12-30

National Central Library’s collaboration with Kyoto University in Japan to establish a TRCCS (Taiwan Resource Center for Chinese Studies) on their campus attracted much attention from Japanese and foreign persons who attended the opening ceremony. Those in attendance included Kuo Chung-shi, deputy representative of the TECO office in Japan and professors and library staff from Kyoto University.

Kyoto University is Japan’s main hub for Chinese studies, with a plethora of talented sinologists there. Its library contains many Chinese books, including handwritten copies of ancient works. It’s Seike Collection containing rare private copies from the Kiyohara family are especially valuable. The Center for Informatics in East Asian Studies (part of the Institute for Research in Humanities) has nearly 600,000 volumes. Over the years, NCL has enjoyed many exchanges with Kyoto University. In 2013, the Institute for Research in the Humanities became a contributing partner of NCL’s Union Catalog of Rare Books Database project. To date, it has added more than 11,000 records to the Database. In addition, from 1990 to the present, a total of 65 Japanese scholars have received the research grants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Center for Chinese Studies to conduct research on Chinese or Taiwanese studies in Taiwan. Of these, five have come from Kyoto University.

Director-General Tseng stated in her remarks that she was very pleased to have a deeper collaboration with Kyoto University and to work together in promoting both Chinese and Taiwanese studies. Kyoto University has long been involved in Chinese studies and has contributed much to the field. To be able to set up a TRCCS at this university will greatly expand scholarly exchanges, as well as open an international window that will allow more people a glimpse of great publications and e-resources on Chinese studies from Taiwan.

Director-General of the Kyoto University Library Dr. Takashi Hikihara stated that Kyoto University has had a long history of collaboration with Taiwan. He also highly praised the Institute for Research in the Humanities for becoming an important research hub in Chinese and Taiwanese studies. Deputy Representative Kuo thanked both sides for making this scholarly exchange a reality and cited many connections of friendly ties between the people of both countries.

After the opening ceremony and the signing of the agreement, a special tour of the library was given. The most memorable items of the tour were the modern preservation equipment and the outstanding equipment for scanning ancient books.