The National Central Library has been engaged in establishing Taiwan Resource Centres for Chinese Studies at institutions across Europe, Asia, and the USA since 2012 as part of an initiative to promote Taiwan’s culture and intellectual assets overseas. As a result of several decades of studious endeavour, the National Central Library has now amassed more than four and a half million titles and various specialized collections, and is enabling scholars throughout the world to benefit from the academic resources it has to offer.

The addition of this TRCCS resource centre to SOAS, in the heart of London, is an exciting development for students and researchers alike. SOAS has a long history of excellence in Taiwan-related scholarship: the Centre of Taiwan Studies opened in 1999, and various teaching posts, projects, and events have been supported by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan and the Taipei Representative Office in the U.K. in the years since. The Taiwan Resource Centre for Chinese Studies at SOAS contains over 800 books and DVDs from Taiwan, and provides access to multiple databases, all tailored to enhance the teaching programs available at SOAS. The number of publications it holds is set to expand annually thanks to ongoing donations, and this will be accompanied by increased access to databases through the National Central Library.

Each Taiwan Resource Centre for Chinese Studies provides a platform for showcasing Taiwan’s academic materials and accomplishments to the outside world, and facilitating international exchanges between universities. The partnerships being forged between TRCCS institutes, and being able to use the resources of the National Central Library from outside Taiwan will make a tremendous contribution to furthering high quality research in the field of Chinese Studies. This will also serve to make many more people aware of Taiwan’s enormous value as a study and research environment.