Abstract

The Chinese Library of NUS Libraries has a growing unique collection of historical documents on Chinese in Southeast Asia.  To preserve and share this research collection of primary and secondary materials with scholars worldwide, NUS Libraries had undertaken a project in 2004, to digitize the documents in our collection, as well as those in other organizations.  Access to this collection is via the website, Historical Documents of Chinese in Southeast Asia.

The project not only achieved the primary aims of preservation and sharing of a special collection with international scholars, but also, to our surprise, provided the much needed publicity to attract potential donors from the public and the scholarly community.  Viewing the collection online had prompted some to offer their personal collections to us voluntarily. It also made it easier when persuading others to donate their personal works or loan their collections for digitization. Most importantly, it helped attract donors to offer monies to help fund our acquisitions efforts in this area. This paper will provide a description of the website and our experiences in digitizing the collection.  We will also share how our collection development efforts benefited from the launch of this website to the public.

Presentation (PDF) ^[1]