Exhibition of Chinese Rare Books at EAL

Leaves of Enchantment, Bones of Inspiration: The Dawn of Chinese Studies in Canada is the first comprehensive exhibition of Chinese rare books held in the University of Toronto Libraries. This joint project by the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library was on display in the Fisher Library from May 25 to September 17, 2010. The current installation includes parts of the earlier exhibition.

Most of the Chinese rare books in the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library belong to the so-called “Mu Collection” - a private collection of scholarly books from Mr. Mu Xuexun (慕學勛1880-1929). Mu was born in Penglai County, Shandong Province. He graduated from Beiyang University (北洋大學堂) in Tianjin in 1911 and worked as the Chinese Secretary at the German Legation in Beijing for seventeen years (1912-1929). He spent over twenty-five years building up his personal library, which consisted of roughly forty thousand volumes of books.

At the time when Mu Xuexun passed away in 1929, his son had been assigned to a position outside of Beijing and so the family decided to sell the rare book collection. Canadian missionary Bishop William Charles White (1873-1960) offered $10,500 to purchase it in its entirety and his offer was accepted by the Mu family. White was the first Anglican Bishop in Henan Province (1901-1930) stationed at the city of Kaifeng （開封）and the first Canadian bishop to be consecrated for service in the mission field.

Ten Chinese workers were hired to prepare a descriptive catalogue for the library collection. The book shipment arrived at Toronto in June, 1935. At the time, it was the third largest university collection of Chinese books in North America, after the Gest Library at McGill University (later transferred to Princeton University) and the Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard University. The Mu Collection was first housed in ROM’s Sigmund Samuel Gallery. On 5 November 1937, the Library opened officially in a new addition specially built for the Mu Collection with the name “Professor H.H. Mu Library of Chinese Books”. Bishop White was appointed the first keeper of the Library.

In 1968, the majority of the Mu Collection became part of the University of Toronto Libraries’ holdings. At that time, an East Asiatic Studies Library was created with holdings of sixty thousand volumes— apart from the original Mu Collection - that had been added to the library in the years since 1937. In 1974, the East Asiatic Studies Library moved to the newly constructed John P. Robarts Research Library, the main humanities and social sciences library of the University of Toronto Libraries where it was absorbed into the Central Library and renamed as the ‘East Asian Library’. The Mu Collection was relocated to its own rare book reading room, with part of it kept in compact shelving in a restricted area.

In the Mu Collection, there are two volumes of Song Dynasty (960 - 1279) editions, ninety-eight volumes of Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368) editions, 230 titles of Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) editions, around 400 titles of Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) editions from before the 60th year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign (1795) and 50 titles of Ming and Qing manuscripts. Some of these are unique and exceedingly rare materials. This exhibition contains two parts: Part I is displayed in the EAL Rare Book Reading Room close to the main entrance of the library and the part II displays here. You can find publications related to the Chinese rare book collections and the history of this library in the last case of this display. For more information, please contact our staff.

2010-2011 EAL Film Lecture Series

Starting from the 2010 fall semester, the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library will launch a six-part Film Lecture Series, inviting acclaimed Asian Canadian directors/producers to share their filmmaking experience, especially from the perspective of being Asian Canadians in the multicultural landscape of Canada.

In each of the lectures, films will be screened starting from 2:30pm on the selected Wednesday afternoons. All lectures are free and open to all.

Lecture Schedule:

1. 2:30-5:00pm, Nov. 3, 2010
   Speaker: Dr. Tony Chan, on two of his documentary films, Chinese Cafes in Rural Saskatchewan and American Nurse.
   
   
2. 2:30-5:00pm, Nov. 24, 2010
   Speaker: Brenda Joy Lem, on her films, The Compact and Open Letter.
   
   
3. 2:30-5:00pm, Dec. 1, 2010
   Speaker: Richard Fung, TBD
   
   
4. 2:30-5:00pm, Jan. 19, 2011
   Speaker: Keith Lock, on his 2009 new film, The Ache.
   
   
5. 2:30-5:00pm, Feb. 14, 2011
   Speaker: Diana Dai, on China's Earthquake: The People in the Pictures, an award-winning documentary film she produced and directed in 2009.
   
   
6. 2:30-5:00pm, Mar. 2, 2011
   Speaker: Irene Chu, on one episode from the 20-part drama series, Once Upon a Time in Toronto.

The lectures are free and open to all. But registration is required due to a limited number of seats available. EAL is now accepting registrations for Dr. Chan's lecture. Please RSVP to Lucy Gan by email (lucy.gan@utoronto.ca ) or by phone (416978-1025).

EAL is now accepting registration for the first lecture in the series: Dr. Tony Chan is going to talk about his two films on November 3. For information about this lecture, check the the link at https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0QyP8yesA5-NzBmZDQ0MjQtNDY2Yy00YjRiLWI2Y2UtOTA5YzkxNWVmZGQw&hl=en

Extended Coverage for Kikuzo II Visual for Libraries (Asahi Shinbun Database)

We are pleased to announce that the coverage for Kikuzo II Visual for Libraries has been extended. Up to now, we had access to Asahi Shinbun full-text articles from 1945 to present. With the new additional package, we gained access to the full-text articles (Asahi Shinbun Shukusatsuban) as ealry as 1879. Please see below a description of the contents:

Meiji and Taisho Eras: 123,000 pages of the Asahi Shinbun between 1879 (when it was first published) and end of the Taisho era in 1926. Users can view the original newspaper as PDF, and all the articles and advertisements can be searched by dates, section numbers, time-line, keywords, and subject classification.

Pre-War Showa Period (early Showa): 80,000 pages of Asahi Shinbun as images. It covers the period of early Showa through the Great Depression to the post-war Occupation period. In addition, it includes 470,000 advertisements.

In order to search articles from 1879 onwards, make sure you click on the 朝日新聞縮刷版 [Asahi Shinbun Shukusatsuban] tab.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Fabiano Rocha, Japan Studies Librarian, at fabiano.rocha@utoronto.ca.

North Korean newspaper database, KPM

The Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library will have a trial subscription to the “KPM (=Chosŏn ŏllon chŏngbo kiji/조선 언론 정보 기지)” from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, 2010.

The KPM provides more than 100 real-time reports on a daily basis including all the paper articles in 6 major North Korean newspapers such as Nodong sinmun (노동 신문), Minju Chosŏn (민주 조선) and Pyongyang Times as well as articles and treatises in 15 journals including “Kyŏngje yŏn’gu (경제 연구).” KPM also offers news reports by the local journalists of the “Pyongyang Branch of Chosŏn sinbo (조선 신보).” News on political parties and government offices, news on metropolitan and local areas, in-depth coverage in the economic field, interviews with people in various industries, and so on, can be viewed with site photographs in real time.

Access to the KPM database

From the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library homepage:
Path: East Asian Library Website  Resources menu  Korea Studies Resources  Search  e-newspapers  KPM
(or http://link.library.utoronto.ca/eal/flash/menu.cfm?level=5&id=4)

We have two month trial subscription so we hope that you will make the most of it.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Korea Studies Librarian, Hana Kim at hn.kim@utoronot.ca.

Online Forum on Chinese Cultural Revoluation -- "地方文革"论坛

"地方文革" is an online forum devoted to collecting information of primary source materials about the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

The website results from a project undertaken by a UofT professor and one of his graudate students.


link: http://www.difangwenge.org

Chinese America: History and Perspectives

"Chinese America: History and Perspectives" is a peer-reviewed journal published by the Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA) to recount history of Chinese Americans through scholarly essays, oral histories, memoirs, and translations. The journal began publication in 1987. Some of its articles are now available at Goliath. Intersted readers can set up temporary logins at Goliath to retrieve these articles for free.

"Chinese America: History and Perspectives" is also available to the UofT community through two databases, Gale and Expanded Academic ASAP. The coverage of both starts from 2001. Access to the two databaes is restricted to current UofT students, faculty and staff.

OECD: International Migration Outlook 2010

OECD: Interntinal Migration Outlook 2010

For the first time in its annual International Migration Outlook, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development calculated "stay rates" for students converting their status from student to migrant. The 2010 report states that "international students have become a significant group in international migration flows in OECD countries" due to "broader policies to attract and retain highly skilled migrants." Such policies include Canada's facilitation of permanent residency for international graduates. According to figures based on 2007 status changes, the number of student-to-worker status changes is nearly 13,000 in Canada, one of the highest numbers among OECD nations. The OECD reports that the majority of students (61%) who changed status did so for work-related reasons, with a higher share of changes due to marriage in Germany and for humanitarian reasons in Canada.