Interview with Yang Luo: Toward a History of Children's Libraries in China, 1912-1937

GSLIS PhD student Yang Luo successfully defended her dissertation proposal last spring and promptly left on a trip to China for field research over the summer. The CCB was excited to find the opportunity to meet with Luo and to talk about her research and trip.

“My research is on the history of children’s libraries in China. I’m specifically looking at the time period from 1912-1937,” says Luo about her research. “I’m interested in the development and genesis of children’s libraries during this time, and my initial investigation has found several factors during this time period—modern education reform, the public library movement, the Republic’s investment in child welfare, influence of Western librarianship, the appearance of children’s rooms and children’s literature—that converge to form children’s libraries in the early twentieth century.” Luo sees this research as filling in a gap in the historical record: “There’s practically no historical work on the history of children’s libraries in China, especially this early on.”

During her trip, Luo had hoped to visit five libraries, but ended up only visiting four. She had hoped to access these libraries’ archives to find information about the history of their services for children. However, “I didn’t find the archives I needed to do my research—these libraries didn’t keep archives of their history like libraries in the U.S.” The trip wasn’t completely unsuccessful: “I’ve found some internal publications—annual reports and things like that—that detailed main developments in the history of the library.” In spite of these setbacks, Luo has found some excellent opportunities for her research. She says, “I’ve been surprised to find American places that have kept some archives of Chinese children’s literature and libraries. There’s a historical collection of Chinese children’s literature from my time period at Princeton, and the ALA archives here have some information that’s been useful.”

For people interested in doing research, Luo offers a few suggestions: “Building connections to the material you’re studying is important. Take classes, go to seminars, show up to discussion groups, and go to conferences. Know what’s going on out there in your field so that you can build those kinds of connections.”

Luo remains hopeful that she’ll continue to find the information that she needs and hopes that the history she’s working on will be relevant. “As China pays more attention to youth services today—we’re seeing more programs and libraries for young people being opened—I hope my research will answer the first question we should ask: ‘Where did we come from? How did we get here?’”

For the full interview, check out the Interview with Yang Luo page in the research section of the Center for Children's Books website.

Interview by Tad Andracki, CCB Outreach Coordinator

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