On November 14, 2017, the International and Area Studies Library (IASL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted a ceremony to celebrate a new Taiwan Resource Center for Chinese Studies (TRCCS) .
The TRCCS was established through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the University of Illinois and the National Central Library (NCL) of Taiwan. Illinois joins fellow Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions, the University of Washington, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Toronto, in hosting a TRCCS. The TRCCS will serve as a platform to share both Taiwanese and Chinese studies with faculty, scholars, students, and the community surrounding the University of Illinois.
Through this partnership, the NCL donated academic books to the Taiwan Resource Center for Chinese Studies. The TRCCS books are shelved within the IASL’s newly available public service space and new books area. In addition to the roughly 1,000 books annually, the NCL will provide access to its Center for Chinese Studies digital resources and support visiting scholars to share their research and promote scholarship and engagement focused on Chinese and East Asian studies.
Chinese Studies Librarian Shuyong Jiang, Ph.D. serves as the director of the TRCCS and coordinates the activities of the Center. The opportunity to host the TRCCS resulted directly from Jiang’s 2015 International Field Work project in Taiwan.
“TRCCS provides another platform to international library collaboration which will increase the potential for sustainability in supporting teaching and research on campus,” said Jiang.
Also on November 14, the International and Area Studies Library celebrated the opening of an exhibit, “ The Fascinating Culture of Books ,” which includes materials from the Rare Book Collection of the National Central Library and contemporary publications in Taiwan. The IASL exhibit runs through the end of December.
For more information, visit library.illinois.edu/ias/chinesecollection/trccs .
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