Asian Library, University of British Columbia

Vancouver, BC CANADA

The Historical Chinese Language Materials in

British Columbia (www.hclmbc.org)

http://www.hclmbc.org

Background of the project– uniqueness and volume of the materials– inaccessibility of the materials– need of a finding aid for the collections

scattered across the province– under-researched– urgency and timeliness of initiation in 2000

http://www.hclmbc.org

Methodology– identify 27 resource centres & pioneer families in

British Columbia

– site visits and interviews of pioneer families and curators / librarians

– evaluation of documents & artefacts

– documentation / scanning / digital imaging by David Lam Centre, SFU technical support & UBC students

– batch upload at SFU / UBC

http://www.hclmbc.org

Scope of coverage– manuscripts, newspapers, correspondence,

genealogical records– business records, receipts, certificates, etc.– association records– readers, textbooks, creative writings– artefacts with vernaculars– photographs with Chinese captions

http://www.hclmbc.org

Structure of the Web page & major waves of Chinese settlements in British Columbia– database– image gallery– associations, religious bodies– Chinatowns– related materials

http://www.hclmbc.org

Challenges in documentation & maintenance– language related– limitation of MySQL– collaboration– storage as a special collection in the library– workload– as a model for Japanese, Korean & S. Asian

projects

http://www.hclmbc.org

Challenges in transnational networking

• start at home– with N. America & Europe

– with PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Asia

http://www.hclmbc.org

New tools and collections– publications of 150 clan and family

organizations in Guangdong, PRC– 180 textbooks and readers used by the Yip

Sang family in the pre-WWII years (1920 -1945)

– Learning Objects on WebCT