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Chinese Library, located on the 5th and 6th floor of the Central Library, is a
special
library within the National University of Singapore Libraries System.
The Library is an amalgamation of five Chinese library collections in Singapore, namely the former Ngee Ann
College Library, the former Nanyang University Library, the former University of Singapore
Library, the former Institute of East Asian Philosophies and the National University of Singapore Chinese Collection.
From 1 October 2002, the Japanese Resources Department from the NUS
Central Library has merged with
Chinese Library to form one department. History
The Chinese Library was established in 1953 at the Bukit
Timah campus to provide resource materials in the Chinese language in support of the
Chinese Studies Department set up earlier in the same year.
With financial assistance from Mr Lee Kong Chian and Mr
Yeap Chor Ee, the collection grew rapidly in the first three years. By 1956, the Library
had about 130,000 volumes, which was largely purchased in Hong Kong and Japan by Mr Ho
Kuang Chung, the head of the new Chinese Studies Department. This collection was then the
largest collection of Chinese language materials in Southeast Asia.
 Chinese Library reading room-1960
The Library staff started organising the collection in
accordance with the Harvard-Yenching system. In 1955, with the removal of the offices on
the top floor of the Main Library, space was made for the Chinese Library. The Chinese
Library collection was further strengthened in 1964 by a gift of the library of 7,000
volumes owned by late Mr Koh Siow Nam.
 Chinese Library loan counter-1970's
In April 1981, the Chinese Library moved to the Kent Ridge
campus. It is now located on the 6th Floor of the Central Library Building. The Library of
Congress Classification system was adopted in 1983 replacing the Harvard-Yenching system.
In the same year, the Library computerised the cataloguing process by using MINISIS to
input the records in hanyu pinyin. In June 1993, loan services at the Library were
computerised using the Library Automated Circulation System (LACS).
From 1 October 2002,
the Japanese Resources Department has merged with Chinese Library to
form one department. This is to streamline the manpower resources
for the Chinese Library and Japanese Resources Department.
Collection
The Library collects mainly Chinese and
Japanese materials on Chinese and Japanese studies. The scope of the
Chinese collection has been extended to include Chinese law, business administration and
management. Chinese and Japanese materials on Southeast Asia and Chinese
Overseas are also collected extensively. The
present collection is over 550,000 volumes, with subscriptions to over
800 journal titles.
It is particularly rich in the classics and their commentaries, bibliographies,
archaeology, philosophy, language and literature. Rare editions handwritten or printed in
the Ming (1365-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties, academic and scholarly periodicals
published in the early Republican period (after 1911), as well as works on Buddhism are
special features of the Chinese collection. Local newspapers which were published in the
nineteenth century, books on the fine arts and the Southeast Asian Chinese also make up a
sizeable portion of the collection.
 The
Library catalogue, LINC is accessible world-wide. To
view and search Chinese materials, you could use any Chinese software supporting
GB/Big5/EACC codes. To view and search Japanese materials, you could
use any Japanese software supporting Shift-JIS/EACC codes.
Apart from the materials kept in the Chinese Library, other
special collections of the Library include:
- Media Collection : Comprising
audio cassettes, film, tape programmes and video cassettes on Chinese language and
culture, which are kept at Loans Desk, Central Library.
- Microfilm Collection :
Comprising backruns of Chinese newspapers and rare Chinese items on microfilm, such as the
Peiping Library's collection of Chinese rare books, Dunhuang
manuscripts in the British Museum. Users who wish to consult these
materials may approach Loans Desk, Central Library.
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