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University's rare book collections speak volumes

By Bradley Winterton
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Sunday, Jun 09, 2002, Page 24

National Taiwan University's new facility was completed in 1998 and houses some 2.3 million volumes. PHOTO COURTESY OF NTU

The library of Taiwan National University today contains a total of some 2.3 million volumes. Most of the books are conventionally shelved, accessible to browsing students and staff, and easily traceable via the library's on-line catalogue. Others, however, are stored away in off-limits Special Collections on the library's 5th floor. The history of some of these books is, to say the least, unusual.

Especially interesting are some 50,000 books in Western languages acquired during the Japanese occupation. These were at the time some of the institution's most prized possessions. But when the KMT took over Taiwan after the Japanese departure in 1945, their interest was in Taiwan's Chinese inheritance, not items originating in the West.

The result was the dispersal of the books in languages other than Chinese among different departmental libraries, and a long period of neglect. Only now, four years after the opening of the university's fine new library building, are these collections at last being catalogued, cleaned, and put in good order.

"...the Japanese ... had a remarkably international perspective. ... Certainly the many Western books they acquired were not a top priority for their successors. It's this situation we are now trying to remedy." Michael Keevak, NTU professor of literature PHOTO: BRADLEY WINTERTON

I saw them -- some riddled with bookworm, others almost falling apart, and those not yet sorted still thick with the dust deposited over a period of 100 years and in some cases more. The acrid taste of this historic residue stayed in my mouth for hours after I had left the building.

What is now Taiwan National University was founded by the Japanese in 1928. It was one of seven highly prestigious "Imperial" universities. Five others were in Japan, and the seventh in Korea. Because of their high status, these institutions were massively funded by Tokyo, and a wide-ranging book acquisition policy was pursued, augmented by private purchases by many of the professors. These together resulted in the extensive purchase of Western books, both about Asia and on other topics.

"The library's aim is to provide an accurate catalogue," the director, Wu Ming-der, told Taipei Times, "and eventually to make these Special Collections available for use by both local and international scholars."

Until recently, Michael Keevak, a professor of literature at the university and a Shakespeare scholar, spent one day a week sorting and cataloguing these Western books. He has completed work on one set of some 900 volumes, the Otori Collection.

This collection consists of Western books purchased around 1929, many dealing with the first arrival of Europeans in Asia. But there are numerous other volumes awaiting his, or someone else's, attention.

"I see the Japanese administrators as having had a remarkably international perspective," Keevak says. "After all, theirs was an empire, whatever we might think of it, and their attitude to cultures other than their own was generally open-minded. Certainly the many Western books they acquired were not a top priority for their successors. It's this situation we are now trying to remedy."

This international outlook is well illustrated by the library's most famous set of historic volumes, the Tanaka Collection.

The Japanese scholar Tyozaburo Tanaka was in Taipei (then called Taihoku) as a professor in tropical horticulture. He was also, until 1934, the library's first director. He had inherited a substantial amount of money from his father, and with this he personally accumulated 3,326 books, many of them concerned with citrus fruit cultivation, his own area of specialization.

It was not untypical of the period for prominent professors to buy books with their own money in this way. Whether or not Tanaka intended the books to remain with the library after his departure is debatable. The reality was that when the Japanese left Taiwan at gunpoint in 1945, each person was only permitted to take with him what he could carry, normally interpreted as two suitcases. They may have taken the jewels of the collections, but the bulk of necessity remained behind.

Among the material Tanaka purchased from Europe was the entire library of a celebrated Prussian horticulturist, Otto Penzig (1856-1929). Many of the volumes were ancient and rare studies on various botanical topics. These books are still in Taipei, though some of them are now inevitably in poor shape.

At the time, during the 1930s, Europe was experiencing an economic crisis and books, even rare ones, were relatively cheap. Even so, the collection cost Tanaka some US$100,000. The modern equivalent of that sum would be around NT$200 million. He glued a special bookplate in each of the volumes as a memorial to his father.

The vast majority of the books Tanaka purchased are in European languages, and many date from the 15th and 16th centuries. Four of them -- nowadays priceless items -- go back to the earliest days of printing. The collection is well known worldwide among specialists in botanical publications.

Tanaka's tenure also saw the library buy other important collections, including the Huart Collection comprising over 2,000 books, mainly on Arabic subjects.

The earliest Western volume in the library's possession is a copy of Aesop's fables in French dating from 1371, albeit 500 years after the art of printing was first perfected in China.

But the Western books in the university's Special Collections cover many subjects, from zoology to theology, and in languages ranging from Latin to Swedish.

The current library building was opened in November 1998. Before the opening of the new building, departments and faculties had their own collections. These added up to over 50 separate libraries, all housed at different parts of the campus, and in some cases in different areas of the city.

When I commented on the visible ravages of bookworms, librarian Hung Shu-Fen of the Special Collections Department was cautious. "Fumigation against bookworm is a controversial issue," she said. "The chemical that was used previously was poisonous and damaged the ozone. Any fumigating that took place was done before the new library opened. These days we use an herbal preparation instead."

First these volumes have to be entered in the on-line catalogue. This is not as easy as it sounds as under the Japanese several cataloguing systems were used, all different from the Library of Congress system currently in operation. Also, the many books that are in poor condition, or that are so valuable that hands-on access by readers is undesirable, have to be either microfilmed or digitized.

The total number of books left behind by the Japanese in all languages was about half a million.

Keevak commented on one remarkable volume -- a Latin-Japanese dictionary, published by the Papal press in Rome in 1632, that also contains parallel entries in Spanish and Portuguese. It must have been invaluable to missionaries. But eight years later, Japan was closed to all foreigners, partly as a result of missionary activity. It was the end of an era, and this dictionary remains one of its more unusual monuments.
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