EAC News Release

In the News: Library’s Collections and Davis Library (10-17-2006)

An article, written in Chinese by a visiting scholar, Professor Tang Huisheng of China’s Nanjing University, praises the entire UNC library, with focus on the Chinese collection; English collections on various subjects, especially archaeology; the Rare Book Collection; and Davis Library’s open stack environment. It ranks the library in the top ten in the U.S.
Article (in Chinese) is at Information on Chinese Relics (a scholarly Web site).

Announcement (10-06-2006)

Library Tour for East Asian Collection

If you are new to the UNC campus and/or are interested in learning how the library's East Asian Collections and library services can be of help for your class/research projects or just want to enjoy reading Chinese, Japanese and Korean publications available in the library, please come to join a library orientation session.

The East Asian Resources at Davis Library would like to plan a library orientation session in Oct. (between 16th-27th) for anyone who is interested in the library collection. If you are interested, please respond this message with your name, email address and the dates you prefer having the session. We would appreciate if you could share this information with others who might be interested in coming to the session.

UNC's Chinese collection is the largest Chinese collection in the South with strength in Literature and History along with other subjects in Humanities. UNC cooperates with Duke on the Japanese collection.

Announcement (4-11-2006)

Taiwanese Film Festival at UNC-Chapel Hill, April 21-22

You are invited to participate in the New Taiwanese Film Festival at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Festival honors the gift of a major film collection from the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office. The festival will feature the films of director Wang Tong, who will also speak about his work.

Festival events will take place in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room of the Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill. All events are free and open to the public. Films are subtitled in English.

Schedule:
Friday, April 21
“Straw Man” (1987)
Reception at 5:00 p.m.
Remarks by Director Wang Tong and screening at 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, April 22
“Banana Paradise” (1989)
Screening at 1:00 p.m.
Panel discussion with Director Wang Tong, Dr. Robin Visser and Dr. Li-ling Hsiao (both UNC), and Dr. Guo-Juin Hong and Dr. Leo Ching (both Duke Univ.)

For more information, contact Winifred Fordham Metz 919-962-4099 or freddie@email.unc.edu.

Sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Carolina Asia Center, UNC-Chapel Hill.

About the TECO gift -

TECO (Taipei Economic and Culture Office) gift collection

East Asian Collections (EAC) and the Media Resources Center are pleased to announce the arrival of a new gift to the library, a film collection of 130 16 mm films (est. market value $130,000), from TECO (Taipei Economic and Culture Office) in Atlanta. The Library would like to express its gratitude to the Carolina Asian Center (CAC), whose grant helped ship the collection to the library and process the collection to prepare for a film festival to introduce it to the campus community in the spring of 2006.

This TECO collection consists of films that were produced in Taiwan during the 1980-90s, the so-called "New Taiwanese Cinema" period. The collection includes feature films that were very successful commercially, government policy films, documentaries, and films by independent film makers. With English subtitles available in most films, faculty members at Carolina and Duke have expressed excitement about the opportunity to incorporate the collection into class instruction, research, mini film screenings, symposia, conferences or film festivals.

This collection not only brings invaluable works that are crucial to a historical understanding of Taiwan's cinema, it also covers works by directors/producers whose works have never been reformatted for use outside of Taiwan, such as Mr. Wang Tong. A professor of film studies at Duke noted that it had been impossible to teach his films in the US. He stated “Now, with this collection right on our very own shelves, I'm ecstatic to finally be able to cover him!”

Announcement (2-16-2006)

Keyboard covers for non-Roman languages

Davis Reference now has keyboard covers for non-Roman languages available for patrons to check out. The covers include one each for:
Arabic, Chinese (Bopomofo/Zhùyi-n fúhào - 注音符號), Farsi (Persian),
Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Korean, Russian, Urdu

Reference department ordered the covers for users who are learning to type using these keyboard layouts. For more information, please visit the link
http://www.lib.unc.edu/reference/eref/keyboardcovers.html

Announcement (10-12-2005)

Shōda Kazue Monjo [勝田主計文書], NCC-MVS Grant

The library was among a few recipients in the nation for the 2005 the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources Multi-Volume Set (NCC-MVS) Project grant. The NCC-MVS project makes grants for the purchase of expensive multi-volume sets of Japanese language materials that are in demand by users and are not held elsewhere in North America. The title Shōda Kazue Monjo [勝田主計文書] is a collection of materials of a prominent and influential Japanese economic official active during the early 20th century. The collection contains primary sources and major archival materials which are in demand for a Global History study being done by researchers on campus and would support faculty research in the business and economic history of 20th century Japan.

Announcement (10-01-2005)

Japan Knowledge - Database

Japan Knowledge, a reference database that provides a wide range of resources, ranging from encyclopedias and dictionaries in English and Japanese to a number of news and other informational sources that extend back to 1908. It contains a number of reference sources in Japan including Encyclopedia Nipponica, Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, Progressive Japanese-English/English-Japanese Dictionaries, Gendai Yogo No Kiso Chishiki, Nihon Jinmei Daijiten, recent issues of the Economist Japanese edition, and other full-text and partial full-text resources. Language is primarily Japanese. Some English.

Announcement (09-12-2005)

TECO (Taipei Economic and Culture Office) gift collection

East Asian Collections (EAC) and the Media Resources Center are pleased to announce the arrival of a new gift to the library, a film collection of 130 16 mm films (est. market value $130,000), from TECO (Taipei Economic and Culture Office) in Atlanta. The Library would like to express its gratitude to the Carolina Asian Center (CAC), whose grant helped ship the collection to the library and process the collection to prepare for a film festival to introduce it to the campus community in the spring of 2006.

This TECO collection consists of films that were produced in Taiwan during the 1980-90s, the so-called "New Taiwanese Cinema" period. The collection includes feature films that were very successful commercially, government policy films, documentaries, and films by independent film makers. With English subtitles available in most films, faculty members at Carolina and Duke have expressed excitement about the opportunity to incorporate the collection into class instruction, research, mini film screenings, symposia, conferences or film festivals.

This collection not only brings invaluable works that are crucial to a historical understanding of Taiwan's cinema, it also covers works by directors/producers whose works have never been reformatted for use outside of Taiwan, such as Mr. Wang Tong. A professor of film studies at Duke noted that it had been impossible to teach his films in the US. He stated “Now, with this collection right on our very own shelves, I'm ecstatic to finally be able to cover him!”

Announcement (04-15-2003)

Siku Quanshu (Wenyuange Edition)文淵閣 "四庫全書 "電子版

The Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Branches of Literature) was compiled during the years 1773-1782 under an edict from Emperor Qianlong. It includes 3,460 works, with a total of more than 36,000 volumes. It covers a wide range of subjects including the classics, history, literature, philosophy, geography, politics, governmental rules and regulations, economics, society, astronomy, science, technology, and medicine, etc. Only the best works representing the 5,000 years of Chinese culture and civilization were selected for inclusion in this gigantic compilation. The Siku Quanshu is the most comprehensive encyclopedia of Chinese scholarship from antiquity to the 18th century. Unarguably it is the single largest collection of literary works in the world.

Seven copies of the Siku Quanshu, all written by hand, were originally created. Due to the series of wars and civil upheavals throughout Chinese history, such as the Opium War, the Boxers Uprising, the invasion of the Japanese army and the civil wars in China, only three complete sets of the original copies exist today: one in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, one in the National Library of China in Beijing and the other in the Gansu Provincial Library. The Wenyuange edition is the first copy produced in 1782, and is now kept in Taiwan. The reprint of this version was published by Taiwan Commercial Press in 1969. The Davis Library has incomplete holding of this reprinted edition.

The Siku Quanshu (Wenyuange edition) electronic database, developed by Digital Heritage in Hong Kong, is a full-text retrieval system that contains the texts of the entire Siku Collection. Including approximately 800 million characters, it is by far the most comprehensive and versatile electronic database for the Siku Collection. The development of this database engaged over 300 technical experts and editors from Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan. World-renowned scholars were invited to serve as consultants for the project.

This electronic database is a significant contribution to scholarship. It provides powerful full-text retrieval functions of the entire Siku Collection. Special features include searches by title, author, caption title, special indices, subject divisions, name and dynasty of the author, special reference tools, book marking and note taking. With a variety of search methods, the database provides scholars with an easy, fast, and convenient search of the large amount of texts.

Announcement (02-15-2003)

Davis Library receives a gift donation: 乾隆大藏經(Qianlong Great Buddhist Canon)...(more)

Announcement (8-23-2002)

The Information Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Atlanta will donate 1,500 volumes of material about Taiwan to the Libraries at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on September 5, 2002...(more)