the Translator: Ying Zhang
FOREWORD I
WITHOUT DOUBT, Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee, a highly regarded, renowned figure, has earned a tremendous reputation in the field of international librarianship. He is greatly respected and admired by his colleagues from libraries in China as well as those working in East Asian libraries in the U.S. This high level of recognition can be attributed to his remarkable achievements in the field: Dr. Lee has reached the highest leadership position of any Chinese American library professional, and completed a body of research unsurpassed by any top-ranked professor from a Library and Information Science (LIS) program. But it is also due to his respectful, approachable, and philanthropic nature, and his superb affinity and benevolence toward others.
I, personally, got to know Dr. Lee in the mid-1990s. He was then the dean of Ohio University Libraries, the first Chinese American who had reached this level of administrative position in a research library in the U.S. His was a much different title from that of “university librarian” or “director”: Dr. Lee had been given the rare title of “dean.” Within Chinese culture, this would be a rare occurrence, indeed—a university librarian holding the rank of dean. In China, the professional prestige of a university librarian is positioned lower than that of a dean of an academic school.
In fact, the position of university librarian, in an American school of higher education, is usually considered a professional rather than an academic standing. Adding “dean” to the title of the head of a university library not only empowers that individual to participate in the campus decision-making process as any college dean would do; it also represents an academic honor. That title of “dean” distinguishes Dr. Lee from many university librarians at a professional level.
Back in the fall of 1998, I was a visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). I made arrangements to visit Dr. Lee and his library during the Christmas holiday with Jinwei Yan, the university librarian of Wuhan University, then a visiting scholar at Kent State University of Ohio.
Dr. Lee was about to retire from his position then. Upon our arrival, we discovered that arrangements had been made for us to stay on campus in a historic house, one used as a guest house for the university’s distinguished visitors.
While watching television that evening, I was treated to evidence of Dr. Lee’s influence in the university community: television advertisements of a local Chinese restaurant repeatedly showed a photo of Dr. Lee dining with a university vice president.
A more pleasant surprise was the news that the newly renovated library storage facility was to be named after Dr. Lee, the “Hwa-Wei Lee Library Annex.” This was an honorable decision by the university administration—a retirement gift to Dr. Lee thanking him for his notable contributions to the community through his entire twenty-one-year tenure as the dean of Libraries.
Equally exciting news was the administration’s recent decision to name the first floor of the Vernon R. Alden Library, the “Hwa-Wei Lee Center for International Collections.” This decision was made immediately after the completion of that floor’s renovation to commend Dr. Lee’s remarkable achievements in globalizing the university. It is quite rare in the U.S., or anywhere in the world, for a university librarian to receive such a majestic honor from a well-recognized institution of higher education.
As the largest national library in the world, the Library of Congress (LC) is regarded as a flagship in the international librarianship arena; as such, it attracts an abundance of talented library professionals. Tung-Li Yuan (1895–1965), a renowned twentieth-century Chinese librarian leader and a former director of Peking Library (now the National Library of China) who later resided in the U.S., worked at LC as a Chinese bibliographer for eight years (from 1957 to 1965)—a much downgraded position for a man with Yuan’s qualifications.
Three years after Dr. Lee’s retirement from Ohio University, Dr. Lee was hired as the Asian Division chief with a five-year contract, to serve from 2003 to 2008, after Karl Lo, interim chief, left LC. This made Dr. Lee the first Chinese American to officially serve at this position. This historic appointment clearly shows Dr. Lee’s high status and great influence within the field of American librarianship.
Thus, writing a biography of Dr. Lee would not be an easy job. The writer would have to possess a rich insight, as well as be bold and fearless of the difficulties. Ms. Yang Yang happens to possess these characteristics. Not only did she do it; she did it very well.
In the early spring of this year, I received permission from Dr. Lee to be responsible for the editing and publishing of Collected Works of Hwa-Wei Lee. In response to my inquiry about the possibility of writing a personal memoir or having someone write a biography of him, Dr. Lee told me of Ms. Yang Yang, a journalist from China Central Television (CCTV), a former student, and a graduate student assistant to the dean at Ohio University Libraries, who had been working for several years collecting materials and in-depth interviews in preparation to writing Dr. Lee’s biography.
This was truly a pleasant surprise to me. I felt it would be wonderful to have the biography and the collected works released as complementary publications, allowing readers to get a holistic view of Dr. Lee’s personal life and family, as well as of his academic and professional career path. Thereafter, I contacted Yang Yang and spoke with her in person about the biography during a conference trip to Beijing. Having learned in July that 2011 was Dr. Lee’s eightieth birth year, we decided to have the Collected Works of Hwa-Wei Lee published by the end of October so that the official release of the publication could coincide with a forum on “Dr. Hwa-Wei Lee’s Library Scholarship and Thought,” scheduled to be held in November. I made a phone call to Yang Yang, encouraging her to finish writing the biography by then and to come join us in celebrating the special occasion.
As a full-time CCTV (China Central Television) journalist and a mother, Yang Yang’s busy schedule, with daily professional and personal commitments, would only allow her to work on the biography two hours per day, in the early morning from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. At this pace, it would probably take more than a year to complete her writing. However, due to my constant phone calls, Yang Yang decided she had no other choice but to set aside a greater amount of her work and family duties, as well as her personal leisure time, in order to gain extra hours for writing. Her dedication and sacrifice has allowed the timely publication of Dr. Lee’s biography.
There have been very few biographies or memoirs of library specialists in China, making it quite difficult to find similar published works to consult with. The scarcity of ready-to-use reference materials adds hardship to the writing of a library specialist’s biography, as the writer has to collect a large amount of first-hand data, in addition to researching the historical and cultural background of the subject.
Writing a biography of Dr. Lee is even more difficult because of his extensive and diverse background in various organizations, including Ohio University and the Library of Congress; and involvement in world regions, including mainland China, Taiwan, the United States, and Thailand. This difficulty is compounded by his year-round international trips between the East and the West, through which he left his footprints on numerous cities of the two continents.
Meaningful integration of the resources necessary for a single biography is more difficult than simple resource collection. To reach readers within the general public as well as other library professionals, Yang Yang employed an admirable approach and strategy in writing this biography. Her writing from a journalistic angle allowed a more vivid portrayal of Dr. Lee, creating a story that was compelling and accessible to the general public, one that ultimately also promoted librarianship and the library sciences.
The writing of the biography features Yang Yang’s in-depth reporting skill. The book begins with a prologue telling of Dr. Lee’s retirement party at the Library of Congress (LC), a celebration full of compliments, attended by many high-profile admirers including Dr. James H. Billington, librarian of Congress; Dr. Deanna Marcum, associate librarian of LC; congressmen; senior officers from the federal government; and Dr. Lee’s colleagues at LC. Yang Yang’s decision to begin Dr. Lee’s story with a flashback made the entire biography enchanting from