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From the Vice Provost and Dean - Autumn 2016

Discovering Modern China collaboration, Washington on the Western Front WWI exhibit

Partnerships. Where would we be without them?

Good things happen when major research libraries in different countries come together in the service of scholarship.  “Discovering Modern China” is a collaboration of the UW Libraries, the University of British Columbia (UBC) Library and Peking University Library to make previously “hidden” collections available tor researchers world-wide.  This 18-month project led by Zhijia Shen, director of the UW East Asia Library, opened up a treasure trove of significant and rare Chinese books.

Supported by a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) – with assistance from the Kenneth S. and Faye G. Allen Endowed Library Fund – library staff and student interns in Seattle, Vancouver and Beijing identified, catalogued and preserved thousands of books, manuscripts, rubbings and original art.  We had the honor of hosting Professor Boyue Yao, from the Peking University Library to lend his considerable rare book expertise to the project, working both on the UW and UBC campuses.

Now these once “undiscoverable” materials are available to scholars at UW and across the country, and, in a reciprocal arrangement, the China Academic Library and Information System’s (CALIS) Chinese Rare Books Union Catalog makes these materials accessible to scholars in China, while UW users can access the broad and rich resources of the CALIS Union Catalog.

See a complete report online.

Another boundless opportunity, aided by partners and relationships, continues to move us solidly in our mission of “connecting people with knowledge.”

An exhibit in in Allen Library shows a cross-oceanic connection of another sort.

Through January 2017, Special Collections exhibit “Washington on the Western Front: at Home and Over There” focuses, nearly 100 years later, on how the UW responded to World War I through the formation of Base Hospital 50, a naval training camp, the Students Army Training Corps and an ambulance unit.

Learn more about the more than 4,000 students, alumni, staff and faculty from the University of Washington who served. They are recognized in this exhibit of papers, personal diaries, photographs, artifacts and ephemera. The 58 individuals who were war casualties are permanently honored on two obelisks at the north entrance to campus and along Memorial Way.

- Lizabeth (Betsy) Wilson

Autumn 2016