The Bodleian KB Chen China Centre Library
The Bodleian KB Chen China Centre Library opened in 2014 at the Dickson Poon China Centre Building, at St Hugh’s College.
Formerly known as the Bodleian Chinese Studies Library, which was located in Walton Street, it shares the space with many of the University’s China scholars from the Humanities Division. The Social Sciences Division’s Contemporary China Studies Programme is also located at the centre, bringing together Oxford’s China study resources across the divisions in a way that has not been possible until now. The Bodleian KB Chen Library is named after the late father of Hong Kong-based businessman Henry Chan, in recognition of Mr Chan’s generous gift for the China Centre project.
Joshua Seufert, HD Chung Chinese Studies Librarian, explains that the library holds the principal teaching and reference collections on China, while special collections are kept in the Weston Library and those relating to art and archaeology are at the Sackler. The Bodleian KB Chen Library covers an enormous range in terms of both subject spread and languages, including material in Russian, Korean, Dutch, German and French. Joshua explains: ‘We cover everything connected to China, from Chinese folk religions or traditional Chinese medicine to current political topics like the switch to green energy in China.’
The good thing about having this library here in the China Centre is that you are very close to the academics and the students; you see them every day.
Joshua Seufert, HD Chung Chinese Studies Librarian
The library space itself has a Chinese flavour, with distinctive red book shelves and trolleys. With around 50,000 volumes on its shelves, it functions primarily as a lending, teaching and reference library. The bulk of the Chinese research collection is held in the Bodleian’s Book Storage Facility in Swindon, with impressively swift access available: readers ordering before 10am should have the material in their hands by 3pm. As part of the Bodleian’s overall service, it is also a library to which any Bodleian material, not just books relating to China, can be ordered. Joshua notes that readers more locally based, at St Hugh’s and St Antony’s for example, are making use of this convenient location.
‘What I also discovered’, he says, ‘is that a lot of Chinese students, not necessarily from the surrounding colleges but from all other subjects, are coming here.’ Students from mainland China and Hong Kong already form the second-largest international group in Oxford (after the US). At the Bodleian KB Chen China Centre Library they can borrow Chinese novels, sample Chinese food options in the tea room during term time, and perhaps, as Joshua puts it, just ‘enjoy a little of their own culture’.
Support the Bodleian Libraries