Abstract
The title of this collection of interviews with librarians and curators responsible for global collections of material from China and Japan is far from helpful. The reader will struggle to create a connection between the Chinese international infrastructure and investment programme entitled One Belt One Road, and this eclectic, personal set of reflections about professional library, archive and museum practice. The format consists of structured interviews introducing European, Asian and North American institutions which steward mainly humanities material originating in the East Asian region. The editors offer a collection of 36 undated interviews which took place in person or by Skype over a 12-month period. The subjects were library professionals working in international collections of Chinese and Japanese resources. The coverage is uneven, with strong representation from Europe, but nothing from mainland China or Korea. Of the great North American library holdings on East Asia, only Berkeley and Princeton are discussed. The interviews contain much fascinating information about the collecting, digitisation, linguistic and information science competence and general Weltanschauung of the diverse individuals working with holdings of East Asian materials and of course about the books, manuscripts, archives and other objects in their care.
As a collection, diligently and consistently edited and illustrated by the editors, this book will be of historic interest to library studies scholars who monitor changes in working practices in the early 21st century. Many references are made to networking, peer group support and digitisation. Interviewees lament the shrinkage of their working community and the challenge of purchasing expensive print and digital materials out of reduced budgets. University librarians describe communities of researchers and professors whose needs are unpredictable. It is striking that in some small countries, national, academic and public library systems converge in a remarkably unfettered manner, suggesting that, in TS Eliot’s words, ‘the very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man’. Elsewhere, by contrast, provision for the scholarly and the wider public is sharply distinguished.
The editors, a librarian and two professors, have included a few museum collections and museum libraries in their selection; their subject range includes medicine, contemporary art, martial arts and Chinese diasporic experience in Canada. The interview transcripts include copious digital referencing, a sprinkling of images of interview subjects, building exteriors and library architecture. Perhaps, the most valuable illustrations are those of little-known collections such as the Danish Royal Library’s 1946 Mickey Mouse cartoon from Shanghai (p. 165) or the 14th-century Buddhist sutra from the Vatican Apostolic Library (p. 3). These offer insight into holdings of historic materials that have hitherto been overlooked by standard reference works about international East Asian library and archive holdings.
For anyone with a professional formation in East Asian studies who is contemplating a career as a library and information professional in the field, the personal narratives of the interviewees will provide rich material for reflection. David Helliwell describes the working environment at the Bodleian Library as ‘like being in jail’. Matthias Kaun of the Berlin State Library talks about the King of Prussia and his passion for collecting Chinese books, before describing his own working day: starting at 9 am with meetings and ending, having gone home in the evening, with more work ‘at night because I need to write applications for grants…I can’t do that in the office because there are too many people around’. Kaun is eloquent on the challenges of managing repositories in the context of copyright, censorship and contractual issues.
Throughout, there are many vignettes of working lives spent in passionate pursuit of excellence in collecting, reader relations, and personal competence in the ever more complex business environment surrounding resource provision in the modern, networked age. The East Asian library specialists who tell their stories to Cho, Lo and Chiu are divided by language, culture and geography, but their common commitment to enabling understanding of the rich cultural and historical publishing and library resource of their professional specialism is a unifying thread.
With its colour illustrations, pervasive reference to library terminology, bibliography and index, this is a volume which will find a place on the shelves of library studies departments and of academics hoping to see libraries from the perspective of the information specialist.