By the University Library, UC Berkeley
Chinese Consul General to San Francisco Luo Linquan and his wife Qiao Li visited the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at the University of California, Berkeley on Tuesday, August 23. Luo presented a $25,000 gift to the library, which will primarily be used to purchase Chinese publications that will serve the informational, educational and cultural needs of scholars and patrons.
“To see is to believe,” said Consul General Luo, on his first visit to the East Asian Library. “When I saw this new shining and spacious building, I was convinced and impressed.”
Luo said that the services and scholarship provided by the East Asian Library strengthen exchanges between the two countries and “inject new and positive energy into China-U.S. relations.”
Peter X. Zhou, assistant university librarian and director of the East Asian Library, shared selected treasures from the East Asian Library collection, including a Buddhist sutra with an engraving date of 1115 and one of the first books to employ separate woodblocks for each color printed.
“We appreciate the support from the Chinese consulate general,” Zhou said. “Their wonderful gift will allow us to expand and further build our Chinese collections. The success of our work depends in large measures on the support from friends like the consul general and donors around the globe.”
Luo toured the library’s peaceful study spaces and rare book vault before attending a luncheon hosted by the library as a thank you for the gift and goodwill.
“The Berkeley Library is deeply grateful to Consul General Luo Linquan and the consulate for their support,” said University Librarian Jeff MacKie-Mason. “Our Starr East Asian Library provides public access to one of the most comprehensive collections of rare, historical and contemporary scholarly materials from China in the country, and thus serves as a valuable cultural, historical, and social bridge between our two nations.”
The C.V. Starr East Asian Library contains one of the most vast collections of materials in East Asian languages in the United States. Its combined holdings total over one million volumes in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other East Asian languages, making it one of the top two such collections in the United States outside of the Library of Congress.
