Page 164 - Journal of Library Science in China 2020 Vol.46

163
Extended English abstracts of articles published in the Chinese edition of Journal of Library Science in China, Vol.46, 2020 163

By insisting on the rigorous test, deductive procedures would bring a healthy critical spirit into the
subject.
This paper is a review of McKenzie’s sociology of texts based on McKenzie’s book Bibliography
and Sociology of Texts, a collection of his essays Making Meaning: “Printers of the Mind” and
Other Essays and reference to relevant studies of other western scholars.

Make library open to all: Interview with Dr. James K. M. CHENG, the
librarian of Harvard Yenching Library

〇a*
XIE Huan〇
On July 22, 2019, Dr. XIE Huan who came from Nanjing University (China) held a discussion
with Mr. James K. M. CHENG, Director of the Harvard-Yenching Library, at the Yanjing
Library of Harvard, USA. The topic of this discussion was the East Asian libraries in the North
America. Director CHENG pointed out that the East Asian library originated from the European
Missionaries’ systematic collection of Chinese classic literatures, which was closely related to
the development of Sinology. Since World War II, with the rise of the United States, the center of
Sinology gradually moved from Europe to the United States, at the same time the number of East
Asian libraries in the North America began to increase rapidly. The development of East Asian
library followed closely the spread of East Asian studies in North America in the postwar years.
Today, East Asian studies in the United States is probably the largest and most comprehensive one
in the Western world. There are now more than 100 East Asian libraries in North America which
collected more than 10 million volumes of Chinese books. These collections strongly supported the
East Asian studies in the North America. If by the size, these East Asian libraries can be classified
into three categories. The first category is the large East Asian libraries (with more than 500,000
books), the second one is medium-sized East Asian libraries (with collections between 100,000 and
400,000), and the third one is small East Asian libraries (with a collection of less than 100,000).
Director CHENG emphasized that although the size of these East Asian libraries is different, each
one has its own characteristics and expertise. We cannot evaluate which one is more important just
according to its size.
Chinese librarians is a very important and special group among the librarians of East Asian
libraries in North America, and so far, Chinese librarians in the East Asian libraries can be roughly
divided into three generations: the first generation was the people who were good at Sinology and
most of them went to the USA before 1949, however, English was this generation’s weakness. As a
result, at the early stage of the development of East Asian library in the North America, they were
isolated from the American’s academic libraries. The second generation was those who went to the

* Correspondence should be addressed to XIE Huan, Email: weizhaizhuren@163.com, ORCID: 0000-0003-3883-2382.