Renewal

As I look out of my office window over the campus there are welcome signs of Spring and new beginnings. Trees are covered in pink or white blossom and as COVID-19 loosens it grip on Hong Kong more people are enjoying our beautiful campus scenery. All Library staff are now back on campus and the Library is gradually becoming busier with more in-person visits. You will see from the newsletter’s content that Library staff have not been idle when working from home, with major new service developments to support Research Data Management and Open Access, and exciting Special Collections news.

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China announced the sixth round of the National Catalogue of Precious Ancient Books on 13 November 2020. Fifteen Chinese ancient books from the CUHK Library’s Rare Book Collection were on the list. The selection criteria of the National Catalogue of Precious Ancient Books are extremely strict - listed materials must be of scholarly value, historical and cultural significance, and they should be handwritten or printed before 1912 in the form of classical binding. This is the first time that Chinese rare books from a Hong Kong academic library collection have been selected as national precious books since the first round announced in 2008.

Western Rare Books Collection

What makes a book rare? For western language books, there are no clear-cut definitions. In view of its relatively young history, the CUHK Library defines Western books printed before 1900 as rare. The scope of the collection is mainly on medicine, architecture and Western books on China. The medicine collection consists of a rare and significant collection in medical history built up over the years through purchase and donations. The architecture collection comprises books acquired since the inception of the Architecture Department in the early 1990s.

 Significant Special Collections Acquisition

Confucius Sinarum Philosophus is a magnificently printed folio, published from the manuscript in the Royal Library by orders of Louis XIV of France, (1638–1715).

New Electronic Resources

The library have purchased or subscribed number of new electronic resources as below since last November, covering different subjects and languages.

 Transformative Open Access Agreements

The Library has signed a transformative agreement pilot with the Cambridge University Press and Karger publishers. During the 3-year pilot (2021-2023), CUHK researchers can publish Open Access articles with the APC fully waived.

 DMP Guides You to a Better Data Management Practice

Data Management Plan (DMP) is a document in which researchers plan the details of data management in a research. To support CUHK researchers to create DMPs, the Library has developed various DMP services and trainings.