• 2014-02-28

On February 28, 2014 National Central Library’s Director-General Tseng and National Library of Australia’s Director-General Anne-Marie Schwirtlich signed a Union Catalog of Chinese Rare Books Cooperation Memorandum. This brings participants in the joint catalog project up to 47. The National Library of Australia (NLA) has a rich amount of holdings on Chinese books and Chinese studies, including works by early Australian sinologist C.P. Fitzgerald, the Australian ambassador to China during the War of Resistance Douglas Copland, and German sinologist Walter Simon. Regarding its holdings of Chinese books, just a look at its London Missionary Society collection shows what valuable work it has. The London Missionary Society collection has 722 works, including 680 in Chinese, which were published between mid 19th century and early 20th. A few of the works were printed in the 17th century. The most unique aspect of the collection is the many works from mid to late 19th century on the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, such as The New Gospel of Matthew by Final Edict and the Taiping Heavenly Calendar. In addition, other holdings related to Christianity include 60 translations of the Bible, which are important in researching translation and Sino-interpretation issues. There are also many contemporary Chinese books and periodicals. The Australian government and academia have actively promoted Chinese studies; as such, since 1990 Australia has become an important academic center internationally, as well as an important partner in publication exchanges with NCL. The signing of this cooperative memorandum occurred in NLA’s Asian Collections reading room. Present were NLA’s Assistant Director-General Amelia McKenzie, Head of Chinese Collections Di-Pin Ouyang, and Yuri Yao-Tsung Chih, Executive Director of Education Division of TECO in Canberra.