Bulletin No. 1, 2024

As a CUHK librarian of more than three decades, Chau Yuan-weng feels privileged. The vast sea of knowledge was within easy reach every single day of her career. And yet, the experience was humbling because a librarian had to be receptive to lifelong learning to do the job well, she says. Much of Chau’s working life revolved around Hong Kong studies, starting with managing the Hong Kong Collection at the United College Wu Chung Library in the 1990s. In 2002, when the collection was moved to the University Library and renamed Hong Kong Studies, she went along as well, tasked with collecting material about the city’s history, politics, economy, society and culture. Her interest in all things Hong Kong deepened. “Since the opening of Hong Kong as a trading port, mainland China has gone through tumultuous times. Many people came to Hong Kong to take refuge, including intellectuals bringing artefacts and books,” she notes. “In a way, Hong Kong has been a haven. We have the duty to conserve the artefacts properly and introduce them to the public.” The role of the library, Chau stresses, is not only in storing books but also in letting readers know what resources are available. “I feel that the Library has been more proactive in recent years, having a team dedicated to handling donations and managing our collections,” she notes. “Apart from books, the Library also accepts donations of photos, letters, manuscripts and programmes of important events, even voice recordings of lectures by distinguished scholars.” Under Chau’s coordination, the Library received donations of several batches of taped lectures that included the interviews and lessons—numbering in the thousands—of the learned Chinese classics expert Ho Shok-wai, who exhorted her to take utmost care of the audio tracks. On a separate occasion, a friend asked her if the CUHK Library would consider accepting a personal collection of taped lectures of Hok Hoi Library from the 1970s and 1980s, which would have been a pity to discard. The lectures were delivered by esteemed scholars of the time at Hok Hoi, co-founded in Hong Kong in 1923 by Lai Serving the temple of learning   39