The three primary functions of a university are education, research, and the promotion of services. The objective of setting up a university library is to harmonize with these functions. A library is a place to realize the pursuit of truth, the popularization of knowledge, and the cultivation of the mind. Founder and president Dr. Pao, Teh-Ming and co-founder Dr. Lee, Ying-Chao smoothed away vast difficulties to plan the building of a two-floor hexagonal library at the time of the school inauguration in 1957. They also donated a large number of books and bought others, making a total of more than 3,000 volumes.
The school set up two classrooms as a reading room and a collection room after moving to the current location in Shihlin in 1963. In October of the same year, work on a new four-story circular library began behind the Administration building. Over the ensuing thirty years, the library has continued increasing the number of books and updating facilities. In 1990, as part of efforts to establish a more modern environment, the school was promoted to a senior college, moved the collection to the Commercial Building and renamed it as the Library Building. Meanwhile, the library also set up a periodical room next to the faculty research rooms in Sun Yat Sen Auditorium. The library also introduced new technology to keep up with demands of faculty members and students, and to provide better services.
During the establishment of Taoyuan campus in March 1994, the college set up a branch of the library for faculty members and students in the Commercial Design Department. Keeping pace with needs of a rapidly developing campus, it set up a stack room on the first floor and a periodical room on the second floor for providing relevant resources to Departments of Applied Chinese, Applied Japanese, Applied English, Tourism, Commercial Design, Product Design and Interior Design. A modern high tech seven-floor library was completed in 1998 to serve faculty members and students on both Shihlin and Taoyuan campuses.
In the early period of running the library, assistants were charged with library affairs. The library began to be managed by specific people when the new library was established in 1964. At the same time, the school invited Dr. Ni, Bao-Kun as a consultant and gave Mr. Yang, Chun-Lou the responsibility of managing daily library business. The Library Director position was taken by Mr. Li, Yu-Fan in 1969, Professor Zhao, Zai-Tian in 1965, Vice President Chuan Lee in July 1979, Ms. Fang, Lan-Sheng in March 1981, Mr. Huang, Da Wei in 1988, Dr. Luo, Lun-Sin in August 1991, Dr. Zhuang, Yao-Huei in September 1994, Dr. Yang, Chien-Kuei in September 1995, Dr. Chen, Jen-Nan in August 1998, and Dr. Ho, Tsu-Feng in August 2002. The Library is currently under the charge of Dean of Libraries, Dr. Ho.
Organizationally, the library is divided into several sections: Acquisitions and Cataloguing Section, Readers' Services Section, Electronic Resources and Information Technology Section, as well as the Taoyuan branch and Kinmen Reading Room. The primary duties of the Acquisitions and Cataloguing Section are purchasing, receiving, registering, making booklists, cataloguing, and announcing new books and periodicals. The primary duties of the Readers' Services Section is data retrieval, reference inquiries, activity promotion, and inter-library cooperation. The primary duties of the Electronic Resources and Information Technology Section is system administration, hardware maintenance, and training of new staff in technological processes.
Founder Pao and the MCU presidents have always emphasized library software and hardware. They have increased the number of books and added new facilities in order to keep pace with the needs of teaching and research. The library collection reached 600,000 volumes in April 2008. The collection has increased by more than 50,000 books per year including categories such as history, management, information, literature, and social sciences. In addition, the Taoyuan branch houses categories such as design, tourism, as well as Chinese, Japanese and western literature. For example, the library spent over 1,000,000 NTD to establish a collection of Siku Quanshu.
There are over 2,000 kinds of Chinese and foreign periodicals and 27 kinds of Chinese and English newspapers, almost 56,300 types of non-book materials, 120 types of CD-ROM, 718 types of microfilm, 40,000 electronic books, the Taiwan New Business Information Directory, the Government Information Office Newspaper Clipping System, STICNET and TANET, and so on.
The Shihlin library was expanded from three floors to five. The first floor was used for stacks, the second floor for a periodical reading room and a reference section, and the third floor as a reading room with 360 seats. The library will be extended from three floors to five. The first floor is designated for a limited number of stacks. The second floor houses stacks with Chinese books, the reference collection, the faculty reference collection, and theses. The third floor is designated as an Online Retrieval area, Multimedia Center, and Language Self-learning Area. The fourth floor is designated for periodicals and an academic journal area, newspaper area, office, and small meeting room. The fifth floor is an independent reading room with its own air-conditioning system to provide a comfortable reading environment. In addition, multiple reading tables and chairs on each floor allow readers to study and read comfortably.
At the present, the Taoyuan library is comprised of three floors. The second floor is used as an audiovisual room, a reference section and a reading room of periodicals, newspapers, and maps. The third floor is a stack room of Chinese and Japanese books and a reading room. The fourth floor houses English books, old periodicals, and newspapers. There are about seven hundred seats in the reading rooms, and there are four meeting rooms. The library provides management with a personal touch and a rapid data retrieval service.
A reading room houses some physical library resources at Kinmen Location. Online and in-person services at Kinmen, Jihe and Michigan Locations are supported by local administrative staff. High speed network supports data searches no matter where students or faculty are located. Users may borrow and return any book at all domestic locations. The library spent almost 3 million NTD to introduce the URICA automatic management system in 1995, and began using it the following year. Meanwhile, together with the Information Management Department, the library established a server and official website, created a multimedia library guide system, and a “40 Years at Ming Chuan” CD-ROM.
1.Freshman Library Orientation
At the beginning of each academic year, the library will introduce first- year students to the services offered by the library.
2.Library Week
To promote national Library Week, the library will hold several activities to popularize the resources of the library.
3.Convening Library Committee Meetings
In order to facilitate communication between the library and readers, the Library Committee was formed of administrators, faculty members in departments, and student representatives. The committee discusses various issues and advises the library on policy matters.
4.Occasionally Hold Exhibitions
The Readers' Services Section will hold various kinds of exhibitions to promote the use of collections.
The School of Tourism and School of Design are special features of the university, so books related to this field are a special feature of the library collection. The Tourism collection includes Hospitality Management, Hotel Management and Operations, Leisure and Recreation, Natural Ecological Resources, Traffic and Telecommunication, and Food Chemistry.
The Design collection includes painting and art design works from different eras, architecture books, and artists’ works. These books have been purchased from Japan, England, United States, France, German and Holland. They are regularly borrowed by readers.
Professor Tomiyoshi Maeda of Osaka University donated about 9,000 Japanese volumes to the library in 2002, and the library subsequently established the Tomiyoshi Collection which includes books on language, literature, Ukiyo-e, cultural understanding, and history. The works represent all periods from the Heian Period right to the modern period. Furthermore Japanese Literature Archives published from the Meiji period through WWII are a valuable resource for teaching Japanese.
The rapid progress of new technologies and the vigorous development of the computer and communication industries allow the library to provide diversified services including electronic books and databases. These services are a fundamental challenge to the traditional paper-based culture of libraries. Thus, library employees are constantly seeking ways to upgrade their knowledge as part of efforts to keep up with current trends and the needs of faculty and students.
