Education:Wu, Eugene W., 1922-(Wen-chin Wu)
M.L.S., U. of Washington, 1951
from Chiamonline
Eugene Wu
For four decades, Dr. Wu was the dynamic leading force in the development of research sources for modern and contemporary China studies. As the Curator of the East Asian collections at Hoover Institute and the Librarian of the Harvard-Yenching Library, he presided over the growth of two outstanding East Asian collections, which have made possible the start of modern Chinese studies. Dr. Wu and his collaborators produced the invaluable bibliographic and research tool, Contemporary China: A Research Guide, based on the resources of libraries and research institutions around the world. With his effort, the Center for Chinese Research Materials (CCRM) was established. Dr. Wu's career was closely associated with the growth of the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL), a professional organization representing East Asian libraries and collections and their users in North America. As the chair of CEAL, Dr. Wu launched the study of the problems faced by the East Asian libraries, bringing national attention and new funding to their solution. At his retirement, CEAL presented him an award honoring his extraordinary achievements and leadership in the field of East Asian librarianship and scholarship, and his many contributions to CEAL (Tribute to Eugene Wu, 1998). (From Mengxiong Liu, "The History and Status of Chinese Americans in Librarianship", Library Trends, v. 49, n. 1 , 2000).
A Chapter Ends
Eugene Wu steps down as head of Harvard-Yenching Library
By Ken Gewertz
from CALA
http://www.whiteclouds.com/cala/dstg2001.htmMr. Eugene Wu
Librarian Emeritus
Harvard-Yenching Library
Harvard University
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mr. Wu has consistently demonstrated outstanding leadership in East Asian librarianship and excellent scholarship in contemporary China studies at the national and international level throughout his professional career extending over the last five decades. Mr. Wu is well recognized not only as a leader and scholar in the library community, but also as a prolific author and a man of great vision. He is truly a remarkable role model, scholar, mentor, and influential leader in librarianship among Chinese American librarians
Born in Szechwan Province, China, Mr. Wu served as a translator with the Chinese army during World War II. He was sent to the US to help Chinese pilots learn to operate American airplanes and weapons. When the war ended, he stayed in the US and earned his BA in history and MLS in library science from the University of Washington. He also completed his Ph.D. coursework at Stanford University. He soon began his life-long library career at Stanford University's Hoover Institution (1951-1965) and Harvard University's Harvard-Yenching Library (1965-1997). Under his able leadership, both collections experienced unprecedented growth and progress. They have since become the most distinguished East Asian research collections in North America and indeed the world.
Mr. Wu's devotion to promoting East Asian librarianship and scholarship has earned him national and international recognition. He was one of the founding members of the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL), a professional organization for the East Asian library community in the US. At his retirement, CEAL presented him with an award honoring his extraordinary achievements and leadership in the field of East Asian librarianship and scholarship and his many contributions to CEAL. Mr. Wu also initiated the OCLC CJK Users Group as a direct means of communication between OCLC CJK users and OCLC. In 1998 he was recognized “for his dedication to advancing East Asian librarianship and scholarship, for his leadership as founder of the OCLC CJK Users Group, for his tireless promotion of OCLC's Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cataloging program, for his vision and insightful advice, and for his contribution to the expansion of WorldCat for the benefit of librarians and library users around the world.”
Mr. Wu has published extensively. His publications include four major reference and research tools and more than 25 articles in library literature and journals of East Asian studies. He has also presented papers and lectured throughout China and the US. He has served as a consultant to the East Asian libraries at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Toronto, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Mr. Wu has received numerous awards and honors. He received the US Medal of Freedom in 1946; the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Washington in 1974; the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Asian Studies in 1988; the Sojourner's Award from the Chinese Historical Society of New England in 1996; the OCLC Distinguished Service Award in 1998; and the Distinguished Service Award from the Council on East Asian Libraries, Association of Asian Studies in 1998.
It is with the greatest honor that the Awards Committee requests the Board's approval of Mr. Eugene Wu as the recipient of the 2001 CALA Distinguished Service Award. The Award will be presented to Mr. Wu at the CALA Annual Awards Banquet on June 17, 2001.
http://www.whiteclouds.com/cala/CALA2000ProAnn.htm
Eugene Wu is the Librarian Emeritus of the Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University. He was the librarian of the Harvard-Yenching Library from 1965 to 1997. Prior to his 32 years at Harvard University, he was the Curator of the East Asian Collections at Hoover Institution, Stanford University from 1961 to 1965, Curator for Chinese Collection from 1959 to 1961, Assistant Curator for Chinese Collection from 1956 to 1959, and Chinese Cataloger from 1951 to 1956.
Mr. Wu received BA in History and MLS from the University of Washington in 1950 and 1951, Ph.D. (all but dissertation) in History and Political Science from Stanford University in 1965.
He is the author of 4 monograph books and more than 25 articles in library publications and journals of East Asian studies. During his tenure at Harvard-Yenching Library, under his leadership, the Library has undergone tremendous growth and change. Its holdings have more than doubled, rising from 407,424 volumes when Wu took over in 1965 to nearly 900,000 volumes in 1997. Important resources have been added, such as the Meiji Microfilm Collection -- 16,000 reels of microfilm of all the books known to have been published in Japan from 1868 to 1912. A Vietnamese collection was begun in 1973, which now comprises more than 10,000 volumes. And thanks to new funding, the Library is within sight of achieving a long-sought goal -- the computerization of all its records in both Romanized and vernacular scripts.
Among those collections where Mr. Wu paid a great attention to build over the years, he is particularly pleased with the Library's Tiananmen Archive, comprising approximately 1,200 handbills, posters, and pamphlets from the 1989 pro-democracy movement and subsequent massacre. Among these materials are about 3,000 photographs, including many of the "big character posters," that appeared in Tiananmen Square at this time, giving vent to ideas, criticisms, and frustrations of people involved in the movement.
Attracted by the wealth of material the Library has collected, ranging from the ephemera of the Tiananmen Archive to the ancient classics of traditional learning, numerous scholars from around the world now visit the collection.
Mr. Wu was awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom in 1946; Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Washington, 1974; Distinguished Service Award, Association for Asian Studies, 1988; Sojourner’s Award, Chinese Historical Society of New England, 1996; Distinguished Service Award, OCLC, 1998; and Distinguished Service Award, Council on East Asian Libraries, Association for Asian Studies, 1998.
After his retirement, Mr. Wu moved to California. His current plan is to write a political history of China in the 1920s, concentrating on relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. He also hopes to write a history of the Harvard-Yenching Library.
Publications:
Leaders of twentieth-century China; an annotated bibliography of selected Chinese biographical works in the Hoover Library.
Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press, 1956.
vii, 106 p. 26 cm.
The secret speeches of Chairman Mao : from the hundred flowers to the great leap forward / edited by Roderick MacFarquhar, Timothy Cheek, Eugene Wu ; with contributions by Merle Goldman and Benjamin I. Schwartz. Cambridge, Mass. : Council on East Asian Studies/Harvard University : Distributed by Harvard University Press, 1989. xxiii, 561 p. ; 23 cm
Contemporary China; a research guide, by Peter Berton and Eugene Wu. Edited by Howard Koch, Jr. Prepared for the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council. Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1967.
xxix, 695 p. 26 cm
Sung, Yung-i. The Cultural Revolution : a bibliography, 1966-1996 / compiled by Yongyi Song and Dajin Sun ; edited by Eugene W. Wu.
Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University, c1998.
xi, 521 p. ; 29 cm.
