Media tours of new East Asian Library |
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07 March 2008 ATTENTION: Assignment and photo desks, broadcast reporters, Asian media |
Contact:
Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations
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WHAT
A guided media tour of the University of California, Berkeley's new C. V. Starr East Asian Library, in advance of the library's official opening on Monday, March 17.
The library is the first freestanding facility built at a United States university that is dedicated solely to East Asian collections. It is the world's largest academic repository of materials on contemporary China outside of China, and its Japanese holdings rank first among American university collections. It was designed by the award-winning firm of Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects of New York City.
Members of the media will get a peek at the library and its special design features such as bronze screens, a "floating staircase" and an airy reading room bathed by spectacular soft light filtering in from the ceiling.
The library collection has more than 900,000 volumes of primarily Chinese, Japanese and Korean materials that include woodblock prints, Chinese rubbings, manuscripts, Buddhist scriptures, rare maps and scrolls. Some items are more than 1,000 years old.
WHEN
1-4:30 p.m., Thursday, March 13
WHERE
C. V. Starr East Asian Library, on the north side of Memorial Glade. It is easily accessible from the North Gate entrance to campus. A map is online at: http://www.berkeley.edu/map.
DETAILS
A full press release on the new library will be available at the event and online.
R.S.V.P. for the tour to Kathleen Maclay at (510) 643-5651 or kmaclay@berkeley.edu. Photos of the new East Asian Library will be available via the UC Berkeley NewsCenter download page at: https://newsarchive.berkeley.edu/news/media/download/. For video footage of the new library, contact Roxanne Makasdjian at (510) 642-6051 or roxannem@berkeley.edu.