ALA Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Project in the year 2022 to the Calligraphy Connections Project, Run Run Shaw Library at City University of Hong Kong (2022)

In the years since CityU launched a major online database of historical Chinese texts in 2012, librarians have found low levels of interaction with physical materials. The Calligraphy Connections project, ongoing since 2014, leverages students’ interest in calligraphy as both a means of communication and a form of creative expression to drive engagement with undervalued historical East Asian texts. In the first phase of the project, students from universities in several countries participate in weekly tutorials in both creating calligraphy and parsing historical texts over the course of a semester. In the second, students participate in workshops and seminars with universities in other countries, and their works are collected for a roving exhibition.