1 – inside the vatican apostolic library...inside the vatican apostolic library 3 well, in my...

Inside the World’s Major East Asian Collections. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102145-3.00001-7Copyright © 2017 Patrick Lo, Allan Cho, Dickson Chiu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Inside the Vatican Apostolic LibraryClara D. YuVatican Apostolic Library, Rome, Italy

Could we begin this interview by getting you to give us a little bit of your background? For example, where did you come from? What have you studied at university? And where/how have you received your professional training to become a librarian?

There is no East Asian department here. I am currently serving as the Researcher, the Librarian and the Curator of the East Asia collections at the Vatican Library. I gradu-ated with a bachelor’s degree in Library Science from Wuhan University,1 a university that is famous for its library and information science (LIS) programmes throughout mainland China. After receiving my bachelor’s degree in LIS, I worked for a few years as a librarian at a research institute in China. I then came to Italy to further my studies. I studied pedagogy at the Università di Roma LUMSA2 and later literature at the Sapienza University of Rome.3

Since 1992, I have been working as the East Asian Librarian at the Vatican Library, Curator of Asian collections (excluding West Asian), Researcher, mainly for Chinese manuscripts and other rare books, and also collaborating with the Numismatic Department for Chinese coins (Figs 1.2–1.4).

1 Wuhan University – Homepage. Available at: http://en.whu.edu.cn.2 Università di Roma LUMSA – Homepage. Available at: http://www.lumsa.it/.3 Sapienza University of Rome – Homepage. Available at: http://www.uniroma1.it.

1

Introduction

The Vatican Apostolic Library in Rome is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally established in 1475, although it is much older, it is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. The Vatican Secret Archives were separated from the library at the beginning of the 17th cen-tury; they contain another 150,000 items. While the Vatican Library has always included Bibles, canon law texts and theological works, it specialised in secular books from the beginning. Although the East Asian collections are not as well known, this chapter high-lights the important work of one librarian (Clara Yu Dong, Fig. 1.1), who manages it so that researchers from around can access it.

2 Inside the World’s Major East Asian Collections

Did you study the Italian language in China before coming to Italy? In addition, there are so many European languages that one could choose to learn as a foreign language in mainland China, but why did you choose Italian? As you understand, the speaking population of the Italian language is comparatively small. Unless you are training to become an opera singer, or you are in the food trade business, the opportunity for speaking Italian the outside its native land is very limited; would you not agree?

Figure 1.1 Clara Yu Dong at her desk in the Printed Books Reading Room (Leonina) of the Vatican Library.Photographed by Federico Sardella.

3Inside the Vatican Apostolic Library

Well, in my opinion, it is always interesting and useful to be able to speak more for-eign languages. Learning a foreign language helps one understand other cultures, as well as meet interesting people. How I became interested in the Italian language? Back in China, I got to know a group of friends, and we used to go to study the language together on weekends. So I continued my studies on weekends, I later won a scholar-ship to come to further my studies in Italy and the rest is history.

Figure 1.3 Vat. estr.-or. 40, 清明上河圖 (Along the River During the Qingming Festival) (detail). 16th century; ink and paint on silk; 9854 × 343 mm (painting 4994 × 294); scroll.

Figure 1.2 Vat. estr.-or. 1, 大方廣佛華嚴經. 卷第五十六. Avatamsaka-sutra, juan 56 (detail). Chinese; 1346; manuscript in gold ink on dark blue paper; 337 × 122 mm; accordion binding.


How many years did you spend on learning the Italian language before going to Italy to study at university?

I estimate about 2 years.

Did you further you education or undertake any professional training related to LIS before taking up your current job as a librarian at the Vatican Library?

I started working for the Vatican Library as a librarian while I was studying at La Sapienza University. My 4-year university study in LIS at Wuhan University, combined with my previous library working experience in China, was already con-sidered sufficient for taking up the librarian job at the Vatican Library. In Italy, a graduate from 4-year university program is called ‘doctor’, ready to take up profes-sional jobs.

How did you find your job at the Vatican Library? Or was it an open position? Was it via open recruitment? Was there much competition amongst the applicants fighting for the same job?

This librarian position for the Chinese collection at the Vatican Library was open for centuries. For many centuries, the Vatican Library has been receiving large numbers of books and other types of library materials with high historical, cultural, as well as religious values coming not just from China, but also from many different East Asian countries. However, before I came to work for the Vatican Library, there had never been a ‘real librarian’ with the necessary language skills to process, to interpret, to conduct research on and to catalogue all these materials from China. For this reason, my professor (at the Sapienza University of Rome) recommended me to apply for this

Figure 1.4 Disegni.Generali.2, Vincenzo Marchi (1818–1894), View of the Sistine Hall. 1860; watercolor; 464 × 687 mm; framed.


Chinese Librarian position at the Vatican Library. Luckily, they offered me this job, and I happily accepted it without any hesitation.

Could you describe your first day of work as a Chinese Librarian at the Vatican Library? If you cannot remember the technical details, maybe you could describe your very first impression of the Vatican Library. For example, could you share your feelings from the moment you first put your foot into the door of the Vatican Library?

It was absolutely impressive and moving! I will never forget the excitement I felt, knowing that I could actually get behind the closed doors of the Vatican and work for one of the oldest libraries in the world that contains some of the most significant col-lections of historical texts. The Vatican Library and its Secret Archives have captured people’s imaginations for centuries. Many of its contents still remain a mystery to the outside world. Very often, you only hear the mention of such immeasurable Vatican treasures (handwritten correspondences by great masters, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci or Henry VIII’s love letters to Anne Boleyn) in literature, news-papers, films and television, but being able to work so closely with such important treasures, having such convenient and direct access to this ancient repository of knowledge, being able to learn directly from them and being able to touch them with your own hands, these were undoubtedly enlightening experiences that could not be described in words.

Could you describe your typical day of work at the Vatican Library?

In the beginning, it was very quiet. In the early days, I would just come to the Library and spend most of my time doing research and cataloguing work at my desk in soli-tude. In comparison to now, there are so many visits from different foreign embassies, ambassadors and government officials representing various countries, not to mention the number of external visitors we have been receiving from different universities, as well as other research institutes worldwide. Because of that, I am now spending much of my working hours away from my desk, doing public relations and other duties for the Library.

Can you tell me why they would want you to be a foreign liaison and do public relations?

My main duty is to perform research and cataloguing the materials (mostly in Chinese) coming into the Vatican Library. However, so much has been changed since the last 10–20 years. I think many of such changes (the Library’s daily operations) are caused by the fact that the Vatican Library and its materials have become increasingly open and more accessible to the outside world. In addition to becoming more accessible to people outside the Vatican, we also welcome support and collaborations with different externals partners, researchers and scholars to carry out our large-scale digitalisation projects. In March 2014, the Vatican Library began an initial 4-year project of digitis-ing its collections of manuscripts to be made available online.


Given the enormous size, sheer scope and the unparalleled history of our Library’s collections, converting them into the digital format is, without any exaggeration, a ‘monumental’ as well as a ‘marathon’ task. Luckily, there are many professionals and experts from outside the Vatican who are interested in forming collaborative part-nerships with us. The Vatican Library’s ambitious project is to digitise all its 82,000 manuscripts.

Could you elaborate more on the Vatican Digital Library Project (http://digital.vatlib.it/)?

All the manuscripts (including Chinese and Asian rare materials in our manuscript collections) will be digitised. By now, most of our Chinese manuscripts and rare books have been digitised under the Qingshi Project. The Japanese and other Asian materials in our ‘Vaticano estremo orientale’ collection are also being digitised as part of our manuscript digitisation project in collaboration with NTT DATA. Currently in discus-sions is a new project of digitising our East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian materials in collaboration with four major universities in China, Japan, Singapore and Italy. Besides, in the library we are preparing a project on our digitised docu-ments, making links and inserting texts of comments, etc., interactive, as other people could progressively work on it. Very precious Chinese material, such as 清明上河圖, Matteo Ricci’s 坤輿萬國全圖 and Michael Boym’s Magni Catay, will be included in the project.

Can you tell us about the highlights of Vatican Library collection?

According to our official homepage, ‘The primary task of the Vatican Library, as an institution of both conservation and research, is to keep and conserve as carefully as possible the cultural treasures which have been entrusted to it. Further, the Vatican Library’s responsibilities include:

1. increasing its holdings of manuscripts, printed books and coins through acquisitions, exchanges and donations, in accordance with the materials already present in the collections and with the purpose of the institution;

2. studying and promoting knowledge of these materials through the work of the Library’s regular and supernumerary staff, and by means of publications; and

3. making available to qualified readers from around the world, with all necessary caution, both the originals and reproductions of the various types of documents and objects preserved in the Library, and providing for these readers all possible and appropriate scientific and tech-nical assistance to their research, continually updating the instruments and aids which are helpful or necessary for their work’.4

As a research library for history, literature, law, philosophy, science, music and the-ology, and also because of our unparalleled long history, we have a countless number

4 ‘Responsibilities of the Vatican Library’. Rules for Readers in the Vatican Library. Available at: https://www.vatlib.it/home.php?pag=regolamento.

http://digital.vatlib.it/


of precious, important and many world-famous manuscripts. The following are some of highlights from the Vatican Library:

The Vatican Library holds 82,000 manuscripts (as of October 2015). Amongst them, there are famous pieces:

• the papyrus from Egypt of end of 2nd century, the almost complete Gospels of Luke and John;

• the Codex B of 4th century, one of the most important manuscripts with the complete text of the Bible;

• Codex Borgianus: Pre-Columbian Aztec manuscript, written probably near Puebla (Mexico) at the end of the 15th century;

• Mishneh Torah: Beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript of the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, dated between 1451 and 1475;

• Koran in Kufic: Collection of 73 fragments of the Koran Kufic; • illustrations of Divine Comedy by Botticelli: Illustrations of The Divine Comedy by Sandro

Botticelli for Lorenzo the Magnificent, in the XV century; • Urbinate Bible: The Urbinate Bible, an undisputed masterpiece of Renaissance book art,

made on behalf of Federico da Montefeltro, from the Florentine workshop of the bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci between 1476 and 1478; and

• Vatican Virgil: Vatican Virgil produced in Rome around AD 400, one of the few surviving examples of ancient illustration of a classic text. The codex, studied by Raphael and pur-chased by Fulvio Orsini in 1579, arrived in the Vatican Library in 1600.

Presently, the Library preserves over 182,000 manuscripts (including 100,000 archival units); 1,600,000 printed books; around 9000 incunabula; over 300,000 coins and medals; 150,000 prints, drawings and engravings and over 150,000 photographs.

Could you provide a brief introduction to the Chinese language collections of the Vatican Library? Does it have a separate mandate and mission within the Vatican Library, or is it treated the same as a whole library?

Because the Roman Catholic Church had such a long history of missionary work in China as well as in other neighbouring countries, our Chinese collection contains some of the most frequently consulted materials inside the Vatican Library. Many of such frequently consulted materials are, in fact, original manuscripts written in Chinese. In addition to that, we have many old rare books, manuscripts and other precious objects that came from China. For example, the oldest item we have in our Chinese collection is an original 14th-century Buddhist manuscript that survives from the Yuan Dynasty of China.

In fact, the first notice of the existence of Chinese material in the Vatican Library dates back to 1576–77 when Nicolas Audebert, French traveller and humanist from Orléans, copied some documents that were shown to him in the Vatican, including an Alphabetum idiomatis de Cina, as recorded in his travel account now in the British Library.5 In his account, Audebert states that the Vatican Library also preserved plures other Chinese books.

5 The British Library – Homepage. Available at: http://www.bl.uk.


The following is a brief description of the contents of the Chinese collection at the Vatican Library:

• books and archival documents of missionary works; • other volumes, not missionary works, but often collected and annotated by them: classics

of literature, scientific works and Chinese popular encyclopaedias of the 16th and 17th centuries;

• rubbings; • paintings of the Ming and Qing periods, silk embroidery and other art objects; • a collection of Chinese coins, consisting of about 3000 specimens from the origin (the oldest

are of 5th–4th centuries BC) until the period of Manchukuo; and • amongst the maps, the most important are those, celestial and geographical, made by the first

missionaries, including Matteo Ricci’s famous world map of 1602, and many other regional or military maps of late Qing Period.

There is no separate mandate and mission within the Vatican Library for any of the languages. Manuscripts, printed books and other materials in different languages are all treated the same as a whole inside the Library. However, the Library Research Staff is made up of specialists coving different language and subject fields: Greek, Latin, Middle Eastern, Far Eastern, etc.

With reference to the Buddhist manuscript from Yuan Dynasty of China you mentioned earlier, how could it arrive in the Vatican?

According to some sources, this Buddhist manuscript was probably brought back to the Vatican from China around the 16th or 17th century.

Could you tell me about the staffing structure in your department? For example, are you the only librarian overseeing the entire Chinese collection at the Vatican Library? Do you also need to manage the Japanese and Korean collections? In addition, do you also need to process materials in other East Asian languages that are not writing in Chinese characters, for example, Mongolian, Manchu or Tibetan?

Technically speaking, I am not only in charge of the entire East Asian collections, but also overseeing the collections in other Southeast Asian and South Asian languages. Despite having to concurrently manage several collections that span a wide coverage of a variety of subjects and languages, my specialty and research focus still very much remain in the area of premodern Chinese manuscripts and rare books.

As the Librarian who is in charge of the Chinese collection at the Vatican Library, what are your specific roles and duties?

First of all, as a member of Library Research Staff, my core duty is to perform research and cataloguing on the old Chinese manuscripts and other rare books that come to the Vatican Library.

As a reference librarian, I need to answer reference enquiries concerning our Asian collections, but excluding the West Asian collection, which is the responsibility


of another library colleague, who is responsible for overseeing the Middle Eastern materials.

As a co-organiser, one of my key roles is to liaise between the Vatican Library and Asian (not West Asian) world, promoting various cross-national and cross-cultural collaborative projects, that is, including: cataloguing, digitisation and publication of manuscripts and other old materials; co-organising conferences, exhibits, receiving external visitors, arranging foreign visits, as well as collaborating with the media.

In addition to original manuscripts, I also need to process the Chinese printed books, taking care of book exchanges, providing assistance for accession of library materials; all these are a big part of my daily work at the Library. I am also responsible for supervising the cataloguing of modern Chinese and Japanese books, a cataloguing project that will soon begin with a new cataloguing system, which will support the input, searching and display of non-Roman scripts.

How many different languages and/or scripts do you need to work with at the Vatican Library on a regular basis?

I do not really know because we have never counted. Moreover, it is not possible for us to find out! As I mentioned earlier, due to the long history of missionary work carried out by the Catholic Church throughout Asia, we have all sorts of manuscripts, books, artefacts and 3-D art objects in almost all possible languages in Asia coming into our Library.

The Vatican Library homepage suggests that photocopies of pages from books published between 1801 and 1990 and photocopies can be requested in person or by email. So how often do you receive such requests for photocopies of books? Do the requesters usually issue their requests for photocopies of books in person or via email?

Well, it is rather complicated question. We do receive requests for photocopies of books on a regular basis. However, we do not deliver the actual photocopies to our requesters by email. Photocopies for private study of pages from books published between 1801 and 1990 may be requested in person or by postal mail. Photocopies are usually made available within the same day or on the following day after a request has been issued. So I think our photocopy request service is relatively speedy. These pub-lishing dates, 1801–1990, only refer to the Western printed books; for Chinese books, only those published after 1911 could be photocopied.

The people who request information from the Vatican Library, who are they? Are the people from different religions groups? Scholars? Academics? Professors or students of theology?

The Vatican Apostolic Library, more commonly called the Vatican Library, is the library of the Holy See, the personal library of the Pope. It was established, in accor-dance with the intention of the humanist Pope Nicholas V (1447–55), ‘pro communi doctorum virorum commodo/for the use and the common interest of learned people’ (brief of 30 April 1451).


It is a private library, meaning that the Library and its collections are private prop-erties belonging to the Vatican. Since the modern Vatican Apostolic Library was truly humanist in origin, scope and mission, Nicholas V ordered that it be opened ‘for the use and the common interest of learned people’ and its collection had to be ‘univer-sal’ in nature. There was to be a ‘universal’ representation of a variety of subjects of interest, and thus the collection of books was not to be specialised in theology or church law, as was the case in the great university libraries of Europe at that time, but would have to cover all fields of knowledge as well as various languages of the liter-ature besides in Latin and Greek. In the course of the centuries, the Vatican Apostolic Library has continued to host scholars from all over the world and enriched its assets according to the same criteria.

According to our official website, ‘The Vatican Library is the inalienable property of the Supreme Pontiff, and it is by his sovereign will that it is open to consultation. It is not a public institution. It is a library specialized in the philological and historical disciplines; it also has historical holdings in the fields of theology, law and science. It is reserved for scientific research based on the study of manuscripts, printed books, coins and medals, prints, and other graphic and cartographic materials’.6

In addition, due to our limited storage space, the Vatican Library only collects books and other materials that are only meant for research purposes. For these reasons, we are not open to the general public, but only to qualified scholars, and we have very strict admission policies for our external readers. For example, university students are not normally granted admission. Exceptions may be made for graduate students preparing a doctoral thesis or studying for the degree of doctor of philosophy (Dr. phil./PhD), as well as for undergraduate students who have a specific need to consult the manuscripts or other materials. Our qualified readers from outside the Vatican are mainly advanced researchers, scholars, doctoral candidates, etc. The Vatican Library can only be accessed by 200 scholars at one time, and it saw approximately 15,000 presences by 4000 scholars last year.

If people wish to do scholarly research at the Vatican Library, they must acquire the proper credentials from their schools or affiliated institutions. For graduate stu-dents who wish to use our Library collection, they need to present to us a letter of recommendation issued by their professor or affiliated university, indicating that their institution accepts liability for their students’ actions before valid passes are granted for admission. As a long-standing tradition, readers are also requested to indicate the nature of their research project.

For these qualified readers who have been granted valid passes for using the Vatican Library, would there be any fees involved?

It is 100% free! Even since the Vatican Library opened to all qualified readers in 1883 under Leo XIII (who eased the admission process and, at the same time, also

6 ‘Nature of the Vatican Library’. Rules for Readers in the Vatican Library. Available at: https://www.vatlib.it/home.php?pag=regolamento.


opened the Vatican Secret Archives to readers), there are absolutely no costs involved for using the Vatican Library. It is totally free now and will also be free in the future.

What best prepared you for your work at the Vatican Library?

I think my professional education in field of LIS was considered very import-ant. However, there is no substitute for the actual experience gained ‘on the job’. Professional education and actual on-the-job experience are both equally important!

Can you tell me what kind of special knowledge and research skills are required for doing your job at the Vatican Library? How is it different, when compared against other special libraries? For example, do you also need to be able to read Latin, in addition to your Italian, English, French and Chinese language skills? The ability to read Latin, it is necessary for your daily work at the Vatican Library?

For the nature and scope of work that I am doing at the Vatican Library, there are no requirements of Latin skills, although a large number of documents entering our Library are still written in Latin until today. Therefore, with a scholarship, I took a 2-year course to study Latin at the Augustinianum Pontifical University and passed the final exam, although the Latin knowledge gained in 2 years could be only in working knowledge level. There are always new skills to learn and new techniques or ability to master, but I am always interested in accomplishing them. To be a good librarian, researcher or curator, I do not think one should ever stop learning new things.

What scholarly and professional LIS associations are you involved with? And how do these professional memberships assist your work at the Vatican Library?

I am a member of EASL (European Association of Sinological Librarians)7 since 1994. It is really helpful in terms of keeping me up to date with outside world. Even if now, I have not been to any of their annual meetings in the last 10 years, I could still pose a question and ask for advice from other EASL members. I have also been invited to attend conferences held by the Society for Chinese Studies Librarians (SCSL).8 It is always pleasant to know other LIS colleagues from North America, even though I am not yet a full member of the SCSL. I am also an invited member of the Global Mapping of Macao Project,9 a project that was initiated and maintained by the Macau University of Science and Technology.10 Members from both the EASL and the SCSL are very supportive and generous, and they are always ready to help out each other, with issues ranging from resources sharing to providing professional advices for solv-ing particular technical problems, etc.

7 European Association of Sinological Librarians (EASL) – Homepage. Available at: http://www.easl.org/.8 Society for Chinese Studies Librarians – Homepage. Available at: http://www.scslweb.org.9 Global Mapping of Macao Project – Homepage. Available at: http://lib.must.edu.mo/gmm/ppt/全球地圖

中的澳門項目簡介.pdf.10 Macau University of Science and Technology – Homepage. Available at: http://www.must.edu.mo/en/.


Who are the majority users of the Chinese collection at the Vatican Library?

As mentioned earlier, they are mainly professors and researchers, and very often, doc-toral students. One must remember that only qualified scholars with proper credentials from their schools or affiliated institutions are admitted to use our Library’s collections.

Do you mean that these users from outside the Vatican would come to use your Library to find premodern Chinese materials on other subject disciplines that might not have anything to do with the Christian religion?

Yes, this is absolutely true!

Can you tell us about the typical reference enquires issue by the researchers at the Vatican Library?

Inquiries on our East Asian materials are very different. The nature of their enquiries could range from the in-depth research of single piece of document to request to see all related documents concerning the historical developments of a very specific geo-graphic area in China, to the history of a highly specialised collection.

Are you also a Roman Catholic? Or do you have to be a Catholic in order to work for the Vatican Library? Is your religious faith important for working for the Vatican Library?

Yes, I am a Roman Catholic. One’s faith does not affect the work as a librarian.

What is the size of Chinese section of the Vatican Apostolic Library? Could you describe the highlights of your particular Chinese collection?

Today, the Vatican Library’s Chinese collection includes about 7000 pieces. Around 2000 of them are original manuscripts, woodblock prints and other printed books that were published before 1911. Six-hundred printed books were published during the Republican Period in China (i.e., 1912–49), and 1000 titles were published after this date (1949). The nonbook collection consists of several hundred maps, rubbings, embroidery, ivory sculptures, photographs and about 3000 coins, etc.

The highlights could be two ‘Treasures of the Nation’ as defined the UNESCO President and Vice Chinese Minister when he saw our copy of 《清明上河圖》 and the Yuan manuscript copy, ‘大方廣佛華嚴經’. Other famous and very rare items include: Jesuit maps, such as Matteo Ricci world map, and Adam Schall von Bell’s coloured star map.

The librarians at the Vatican Library and the archivists at the Secret Archives, do they need to work together on a regular basis? Or the Library and the Archives are two totally separate units/departments?

The Vatican Secret Archives were separated from the Library since the beginning of the 17th century for various administrative, operational and technical reasons. Staff


from both the Vatican Library and the Secret Archives may access each other’s col-lections. However, in terms of administrations and operations, we are two totally sep-arate departments with entirely different collection contents, sets of goals, policies, operational procedures and approaches, etc. Sometimes we (the Library and the Secret Archives) collaborate together, but very often, we work separately as two separate and individual institutions.

Who performs the cataloguing work for the archival materials that are to be kept inside the Vatican Secret Archives?

They are catalogued by the professional archivists working for the Vatican Secret Archives. The concepts of treatment, the set of rules and the record structure for cata-loguing library materials are very different from the ones used for describing archival materials; hence, they need to be handled by different people with different training and professional expertise in respective fields.

Inside the Secret Archives, old archival materials, all the way until the end of Pope Pius XI’s papacy (1939), are normally inventoried. All documents during a papacy are open for consultation as a block of the mandate. The next to be opened will be that of Pope Pius XII, from 1939 to 1958.

As a librarian of the famous Vatican Library, how do you acquire and evaluate your collection? Is it proactive or do you accept donations/gifts?

This is an issue that is very much restricted by our limited storage space inside the Library; we acquire books that are intended solely to facilitate the study of the much larger collection of manuscripts. The same selection criteria might be applied when it comes to doing book exchanges or accepting a donation from another library or individual.

Could you tell us what challenges and difficulties that you and your library colleagues are currently facing?

The biggest problem we are facing lies in the fact that we are still unable to input orig-inal Chinese characters into our online cataloguing system. We have been waiting for a new cataloguing system that could support the input, searching and display of original Chinese characters for many years. Given there is so much Chinese (character) input software available in the market, until this very moment, we still need to transliterate all our East Asian titles/scripts and catalogue them in Roman script in instead, with original scripts. In a few months, we are going to migrate to a new cataloguing system with a completely new OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue) interface. When the new system is available, we will be able to catalogue our Chinese and Japanese books in original scripts/characters.

For Chinese manuscripts and rare materials, I have been cataloguing them in printed text, and the catalogue will be published in the form of a printed book. Information in the main fields (title, author, edition, publisher and publication date) will be converted


into MAchine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) records, with support provided by the National Central Library11 in Taiwan, and these MARC records will be uploaded onto the International Union Catalogue of Rare Chinese books12 (maintained by the National Central Library, Taiwan). Other regular Chinese printed books will be cata-logued in our local OPAC with the new system that supports non-Roman scripts.

However, they are not the pressing challenges that we are facing. The most pressing challenge is conservation work. Many of our Chinese previous rare books are in criti-cal condition, owing to the acidic components found in the pages, and we are looking for either financial or additional manpower support for performing conservation work for saving these valuable book items.

Which part of your job do you find most rewarding?

I am proud to say I enjoy all aspects of my work and have a particular interest in doing research on such culturally rich materials that come into the Vatican Library. In addition, being able to exchange ideas with other esteemed scholars, co-organising or participating in conferences and exhibits, etc., all these are, no doubt, valuable experiences.

How many librarians are there in total working at the Vatican Library?

We have less than 100 staff in total working at the Vatican Library. But many carry the job title as Collaborator. With various projects, now we need to collaborate with many different people outside of the Library, both internally and externally, onsite as well as offsite.

At the Vatican Apostolic Library, is there a balancing act in terms of managing priorities between the various areas of language expertise/collections in regards to the other Asian language collections (i.e., Japanese, Korean, etc.). What are your experiences at the Vatican Apostolic Library in this regard?

There are absolutely no balancing acts and priorities in terms of the way we man-age our collections. The size of holdings at the Vatican Library is absolutely huge. During the past centuries, only a small-portion part of the manuscripts and rare materials have been properly studied and catalogued. They are undoubtedly trea-sures of knowledge and the ultimate key to understanding various aspects of human-ity. For the purpose of supporting the ‘use and the common interest of the learned people’ from all over the world, the Vatican Library welcomes scholars to study our East Asian collections, without any distinction of race, religion, origin or culture. We welcome support and help from anyone who could contribute their knowledge and inputs.

11 National Central Library (Taiwan) – Homepage. Available at: http://www.ncl.edu.tw/mp.asp?mp=2.12 Union Catalogue of Rare Chinese Books – Homepage. Available at: http://rbook2.ncl.edu.tw.


In 2010, you were in Beijing for discussions about a project to edit works concerning Chinese history from the 17th to the beginning of the 19th centuries, which are kept in the Vatican Library. What is your progress and are you still working with the Chinese government on this project?

This project began in 2008. It will be published in the form of digitised texts and also in facsimile form on paper. Four series will be published, that is, including about 700 titles of the 1300 photographed. The first series of 44 volumes, including about 170 titles, were published and first presented in Rome in January and then in Beijing in April. His Excellency Archbishop Bruguès the Librarian, Dr. Piazzoni the Vice Prefect and I went to Beijing for the event. The second series will be published in the near future.

The current Librarian of the Vatican Library is Jean-Louis Bruguès, who is a Catholic Priest, not a librarian. How does that work for a library such as yours? Do you need to communicate directly with the Archbishop on a regular basis on different technical issues related to the daily operations of the Library?

Jean-Louis Bruguès is the current Librarian (President) of Vatican Library; he is an Archbishop. He is not only the Librarian of the Library, but also Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives. However, the Prefect and the Vice Prefect oversee the Vatican Library’s daily operations. And the Librarian (Jean-Louis Bruguès) reports directly to the Pope.

Was the Archbishop also trained in the field of LIS or archival science?

No. He is Dominican and came from a strong academic background.

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