I

With the increasing popularity of wireless networks and in this age where almost everyone has a notebook and a Facebook account, many individual activities from within the study can be carried out in an open space following the advances in digital technology. The library is inherently a place where scholars are familiar with, and other than being a place for reading and writing, to a certain degree, it has now become a place where people chat and kill time. As long as you confirm that your keyboard would not make deafening noises, the comfortable air conditioned library with large tables is probably akin to a second home for graduate students in departments related to history.

As I had attended several schools during my period of study, and due to other regional factors, I am familiar with quite a few libraries. One event which has left a strong impression on me was once when I was instructing a fellow student of mine to search for a book and some data in another library through MSN from my location in a different library. During this event, because I was so familiar with the filing arrangements of that library, I was able to give this student precise instructions such as: “the book is on so and so row of the shelf of that room; can be found several rows over from that book; and the data I need is in this section of that chapter.”

This is not possible because of any extraordinary powers; rather, it is possible because public libraries and studies are all similar in nature with the difference being that libraries are studies open to the public for shared use, hence there are rules that need to be followed and familiarity is limited to just a small section of this large study.

Searching for books is actually a simple task, and we can certainly carry out searches through interlibrary cooperation. Digital technology can make it possible for everyone to have a personal “library connection.” If you have many like-minded friends with a common interest in reading, then they may be more willing than librarians to approach the books you are familiar with. Also, if you have enough of these friends, and they are spread out over different areas, then you may even possess your own personal “National bibliographic collection enquiry system” as well as dedicated librarians just by being friends with these people.

II

In Taiwan, the regularly frequented libraries are the various government established public libraries where all citizens are allowed access such as the Taipei City Library or the cultural centre libraries of various counties and cities. Following these libraries, the next group of frequented libraries consists of those established by schools of different education levels such as the National Taiwan University Library and so on. Most libraries will have their own archive selections. The Taipei Public Library, for example, has 42 branches (as well as 11 public reading rooms), and as the Wing Kin branch library is opposite the examination centre, this branch is known for providing a predominant selection based on “examinations.” Other branches will have different archive selections.

When compared with public libraries, the archive selection of school libraries is usually more obvious as it usually matches closely with the school’s historical development and the school’s teaching specialties. An example of this is the Taiwan University. As National Taiwan University was formerly the Taipei Imperial University during the Japanese occupation, this University now has a large collection of valuable Japanese texts. Similarly, vocational schools or those reformed from being a vocational school would have libraries that possess texts in the area of the school’s specialties. Since the Shih Hsin University was a college of communications, the university library attaches more importance to texts related to communications technology and prides itself on the understanding, research and creation of mass media communications. The Shih Hsin University Library has a collection of more than 300 kinds of classic comic books from Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States and has set up a special zone for comics within the library. Comic books are traditionally viewed as non-mainstream average reading materials and few libraries would have a collection of them. This, however, is a major feature of the Shih Hsin University Library.

III

It is only natural for a graduate student to pay more attention to libraries of academic research. A university library usually provides enough support for the research of a graduate student, but not necessarily all users of these libraries are graduate students. On the other hand, an integrated university may engage in very different areas of research at the same time; hence its collection must accommodate the needs of all the subjects. Throughout the whole of Taiwan, Academia Sinica’s group of libraries is probably the only group dedicated to academic research with established libraries for different areas of research. Thus every single Academia Sinica library is extremely “specialized.” The Fu Ssu-nien Library of the Institute of History and Philology would not have a Chinese translation of the novel, The Lord of the Rings, and a person would have to go to a European and American library that is related to European and American literary studies to find a copy of it. On the other hand, a scholar or graduate student researching Chinese history, historical anthropology, history of life rituals, medical history, Chinese frontier region ethnicities, cultural history, and other related subjects, would definitely find the collection at the Fu Ssu-nien Library to be the most comprehensive collection of literature on these areas.

An advantage of a library established for a field of specific research is that almost all the locatable text books are related to your academic studies. For example, you are looking for a “specific book” on a topic, and while you are looking for this book, you will find a series of textbooks containing similar information on the same shelf. In essence, you have now found “many books” while searching for one. Public libraries may shelve many non-academic books among academic texts which will decrease the efficiency of searches. This problem would not exist in the Academia Sinica.

In addition, Academia Sinica is a central unit that fought alongside the government, and relocated with the government during the war; hence all important documents were preserved along with the government’s renovations (Nanjing, Chongqing, Taiwan). This situation is not common amongst other libraries as the documents of libraries would invariably be lost or destroyed during wars. Academia Sinica itself possesses more than just a long history as it preserves all documents that should be, and are able to be preserved.

At Academia Sinica, in addition to the data being under national protection, the researchers are also employed by the state, and texts purchased under the name of academics would have received special treatment during the martial law era. For example, there is a vast quantity of texts on foreign academic information in Academia Sinica which includes a large number of “bandit books.” Those in Chinese literature of the history department should understand that having access to a large number of books in simplified Chinese is a good thing – especially when they are ancient books that are out-of-print.

IV

When the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology relocated to Taiwan many years ago, its greatest assets was not the documents or the textbooks, but rather the scholars. It can almost be said that Taiwan’s current scholars in the field of literature and history are almost all direct or indirect students of those scholars. Examples of these are Mr. Fu Ssu-nien, Mr. Li Ji, Mr. Lao Gan, Mr. Zhou Fa-gao, Mr. Qu Wan-li, Mr. Wang Shu-min, Mr. Zhang Yi-ren, and more.

Literature and history scholars usually keep their own collection of books and will give away, donate or sell duplicates of books that are of no use to them as they are for a different field, to booksellers, other scholars or their own affiliated libraries. This reduces the pressures from limited storage space, while also benefitting the rest of the academic world by providing more people access to these books.

The scholars mentioned previously are no exception to this, particularly since many scholars have a concept regarding book versions, and will record details such as the book acquisition process and time required in the manner of prefaces and postscripts. A person may find pleasant surprises in the Fu Ssu-nien Library as different handwriting can often be found in books that may have been passed from teacher to disciples, books that may have been annotated with notes from a student asking for their teacher’s help, or books that have been exchanged between friends during communicative exchanges.

Cheng Qian-fan’s inscription in a donated book.

Mr. Wang Shu-min’s inscription in a book donated to the library.

These old scholars have been passing away one after another in recent years. When these books were donated to the library, they were merely unwanted old books that the scholars possessed. However as time passed, these books that contain the handwriting of these old scholars have gradually become a part of historical heritage. I came upon a copy of the Chiao-ch'ou kuang-I, written jointly by Cheng Qian-fan and Xu You-fu in the library, and written in the Pan-pen pien was a handwritten sentence by Cheng Qian-fan which read: “verified by Mr. Shu-min;” and another handwritten sentence by Mr. Wang Shu-min which read: “donated to the Fu Ssu-nien Library.” Although this may have been an unremarkable book, it is now valuable by virtue of these written words.

In a few years time, TELDAP may consider collecting all of the old books and notes that belonged to these old scholars, and converting them into a new valuable document along with the preface and postscripts. They may then be compiled, edited and published, or stored in an electronic database as new historical data of Taiwan’s academic history.