In its first major update in 12 years, The Beijing Center’s Anton Library of almost 30,000 English books on and about China is now available to be perused online by anyone, regardless of membership status.
“We’re very excited to offer this to researchers and students around the world,” said Dr Simon Koo, Executive Director of The Beijing Center (TBC). “Our dedication to expanding the knowledge of the past, present, and future has been part of TBC’s mission for the past 25 years, and it’s been a great honour to be the first touchpoint for many renowned scholars.”
The Anton Library is the largest collection of books in English on China in Mainland China, with collections including but not limited to World Religions, Women’s Studies, Nature and Conservation, Education, Chinese Poetry, War History, Business and Development, and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
“The Beijing Center teaches in the Ignatian tradition, and in that tradition, we are so proud to have The Anton Library that has seen countless scholars-in-residence, Jesuit researchers, honoured guests, students from around the world, and of course our over 2,000 semester programme alumni,” said Amber Wang, Assistant Dean of Academics and Research. “To let the world in to see what we have is a great accomplishment and something we’ve been working hard to bring about.”
The Anton Library was dedicated to The Beijing Center’s founder Fr Ron Anton in 2009. The library collection began at TBC’s founding in 1998 with just 70 books, which grew to 17,000 in those ten years and now has over 27,000 items in the collection.
In addition, TBC has amassed a large collection of primary sources and historical documents dating back to 1588 in multiple languages such as Portuguese, French, Spanish and Latin in the “How the West Learned of China” special collection, including many maps and works by Jesuit missionaries. Other collections include 25 first editions of Quotations of Mao Tse-Tung, often called the “Little Red Book,” in various languages and the personal library of Dr Michel Oksenberg, former advisor to US President Jimmy Carter on China. Highlights of the historical collection can be viewed here and searched by title or author here.
TBC’s online database is available in both English and Chinese, and can be accessed at library.thebeijingcenter.org without registering an account. In addition, The Anton Library is open to partnership through inter-library loan, joint listing, and other opportunities to share collected knowledge.
For partnership inquiries or to physically borrow a book, interested parties can reach out to library@thebeijingcenter.org. The Anton Library is not open to the general public at this time, but appointments can be arranged.