Welcome to the second post in the Asia Library’s year-in-review series. It chronicles our major events and highlights of Academic Year 2026 while celebrating achievements, retirements, and new hires.
This was a significant year of transition for the Asia Library, as three of our long-serving staff members retired. It was bittersweet to say goodbye, but we wish them much happiness in the new chapter of their lives. Meanwhile, our staff have worked hard to ensure continuity in Asia Library services while preparing to recruit new colleagues in the coming year.
One of the Asia Library’s most important public-engagement initiatives this year was our official participation in the Library’s Third Thursday series, a monthly themed open house highlighting our collections. For more information about the series, please see our Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 recap posts.
September 2025
- The Asia Library’s first Third Thursday event, Panels Across East Asia: The Art of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Comics, was held on September 18 in the Asia Library Quiet Study Room. The exhibit drew heavily from our East Asian language-learning collections.
October 2025
- Two former students of Liangyu Fu, Director of the Asia Library, received Pamela J. MacKintosh Undergraduate Research Awards:
- Qihao Liang, Global Project Awards, first place: “A Tale of Two Shores: Divided Kin-States and Mainland China-Taiwan Migration from 2008 to 2024”
- Shao-Chi Ou, Global Project Awards, second place: “The Canji Body as a Literary Person-Thing: Gender, Disability, and Uselessness in Late Imperial China (1598-1660)”
- Our second Third Thursday event, Shadows and Spirits: The Supernatural in East Asian Culture, was held on October 16. The event embraced the Library-wide theme and added a spooky touch to the Halloween season.
- After several months of discussion and negotiation, Radio Free Asia and the U-M Library signed a gift agreement for program materials from RFA-Korean Service. Yunah Sung, our Korean Studies Librarian, led this important acquisition effort and has since been preparing to process the collection.
November 2025
- Co-sponsored by the Asia Library and the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, the China Ongoing Perspectives (CHOP) film series presented Made in Ethiopia, a 2024 documentary about China-Africa connections, on November 13. The post-film Q&A featured director Xinyan Yu and U-M Professor Kelly Askew.
- On November 17, the Asia Library and International Studies teams took a refreshing joint field trip to North Campus, where we toured STEM buildings and laboratories, the AAEL special collections, the Book Arts Studio, and the Wave Field.
- To celebrate the achievements of modern East Asian literature, we presented the Third Thursday open house Pen, Ink, and Prestige: Nobel Laureates in Literature from East Asia on November 20.
December 2025
- On December 5, the Asia Library received a donated woodblock from the Sambongjip, an anthology of works by Chŏng To-jŏn (정도전, 鄭道傳, 1342–1398). The woodblock is one of a set of 228 carved in 1791 and will soon be repatriated to Korea in recognition of its rarity and historical significance.
- On December 5, Liangyu represented the Asia Library as a panelist in the International Institute’s symposium Languages Summit: Reinforcing the Foundations and Securing the Future of Language Study at U-M. She spoke about Asia Library’s language learning resources and the Oka Tadoku Room programs.
January 2026
- The exhibit Sword and Scroll: Three Centuries of Chinese Martial Arts Fiction was held on January 15 as part of the Third Thursday series. Yung-hui Chou, our Chinese Studies Librarian, was invited to discuss the exhibit on Speaking of Art, a program hosted by Ed Hoffman on Ann Arbor radio station WAAM Talk 1600.
- Keiko Yokota-Carter, our Japanese Studies Librarian, collaborated with the Center for Japanese Studies to invite Dr. Saburo Horikawa, Professor of Urban and Environmental Sociology at Hosei University, to present “Why Place Matters: The “Publicness” of the Lost Landscape” as part of the CJS Noon Lecture Series on January 22.
- The Asia Library staff collaborated with the Japanese Language Program to offer the annual Japanese New Year celebration in the Oka Tadoku Room on January 24. The event was featured in The Michigan Daily, including comments from Keiko.
- Yunah was invited by the Korea University & College Library Association (KUCLA) to present “Gen AI at the U-M Library” at its January 23 conference. Her presentation highlighted the University’s AI-related initiatives, the implementation of U-M GPT tools, and the library’s efforts to support users through research guides and the development of a search chatbot.
February 2026
- At the February 19 Third Thursday event, Rare Viewing: Mushi no Utaawase Emaki Scroll – Original Display on February 19, two rare Japanese scrolls were displayed publicly at the Library for the first time.
- The Asia Library collaborated with International Studies to present this year’s International Mother Languages Day event, From Babble to Babel: Children’s Language Around the World, on February 24.
March 2026
- During winter break, Liangyu and Yung-hui collaborated with the U-M Language Resource Center to offer Chinese-language field trips for 85 students from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy and 70 students from Clague Middle School. This marked the Asia Library’s first K-12 engagement initiative of its kind.
- Four Asia Library staff members had a productive trip to the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) annual conference and the Association for Asian Studies annual conference, held in Vancouver from March 10 to 15. Liangyu was elected vice president/president-elect of CEAL. Her two-year term as president will begin in 2028.
- The March 19 Third Thursday event, K-Library Collections: The Roots of Blossoming Korean Culture, showcased gems from U-M’s Korean studies collections, spanning the seventeenth century to the present.
- Liangyu collaborated with the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies to invite Dr. Ling Zhang, Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at Purchase College, State University of New York, to present “Transnational Feminist Mediation: The Other Half of the Sky (1975) and US-China People’s Diplomacy” as part of the LRCCS Noon Lecture Series on March 24.
April 2026
- The Asia Library and International Studies jointly organized the symposium AI in Language Instruction: Faculty Experiences, Ideas, and Reflections on April 10. Five U-M language instructors shared their approaches to integrating AI into language teaching and learning.
- We partnered with the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies (LRCCS) to present the Third Thursday open house Tales & Scales: East Asian Dragons in Art, Literature, and Festive Traditions. Held on April 16, the event is part of LRCCS’s “Dancing with the Dragon” thematic programming.
- In partnership with Helen Look (Collection Analyst at the U-M Library) and Sunhong Kim (U-M PhD candidate in musicology), we offered a special pop-up exhibit, Korea’s Sound Through the Centuries: From King Sejong to Folksongs and BTS, on April 21. The exhibit also served as an end-of-semester de-stressing event.
May 2026
- Gengna Wang, our Chinese Cataloger, retired on May 6 after 16 years of dedicated service to the Library.
- Qihao Liang began his one-year internship as Curatorial Assistant for Chinese Archival Collections on May 6, shortly after graduating from U-M with a BA in sociology.
- Thanks to the steadfast support of the Preservation, Facilities, and Physical Collections and Access departments, we relocated the Asia Library’s long-standing microfilm collection to off-site storage. This move created additional space on Central Campus for East Asian rare and unique collections.
June 2026
- Mei Wang, our Chinese Cataloger, retired on June 6 after 26 years of dedicated service to the Library.
- Yunah and Myung-Hee Kim, Korean Cataloger, attended the annual conference of the European Network of Korean Resources Specialists (ENKRS), held June 3–6 in Berlin, Germany. Focusing on the conference theme on AI, Yunah presented “An Overview of the University of Michigan Library and Its AI Strategies,” while Myung-Hee presented “Testing Alma’s Metadata AI Assistant for Cataloging Korean Materials: A Michigan Library Case Study.”
- Juwon Yeo began his internship at the Asia Library on June 15 after earning a master’s degree in Library, Archives, and Information Studies from Pusan National University in February. The Korea Foundation, which has supported the placement of library interns since 2014, generously sponsors this 10-month, full-time internship.
- Liangyu had a productive trip to China in June. She participated in a symposium on Chinese rare books, attended the Beijing International Book Fair, and visited Peking University’s Center for Digital Humanities and Project on Preserving Overseas Rare Materials.
July 2026
- The Asia Library and International Studies teams took a joint field trip to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library on North Campus on July 22. We enjoyed an in-depth tour led by the Supervisory Archivist and an engaging session with the archival team, during which we examined selected papers by and about President Ford.
- On July 31, Mr. Hideyuki Seki, Director of the Keio University Library in Tokyo, visited the U-M Library, where International Studies and Asia Library representatives introduced their collections and services before Yunah led a tour of the Asia Library.
August 2026
- Yunah was selected to receive this year's University Librarian Achievement Award, recognizing her outstanding contributions, dedication, and meaningful impact on the U-M community.
- Keiko retired on August 22, concluding 14 years of dedicated service as Japanese Studies Librarian at the U-M Library.
- Yung-hui was selected to participate in Training the Trainers: A Workshop on the Materiality of Ming Books & Manuscripts for Librarians workshop, held at UCLA and the Claremont Colleges from August 24 to 29.
Throughout AY 2026, we continued to welcome visiting scholars through the Asia Library Travel Grant program, sponsored by U-M’s East Asian studies centers. We extend our deep gratitude to the centers for their unwavering support of the broader East Asian studies community. It is always rewarding to see the impact of the Asia Library’s collections extend beyond U-M.
Grant recipients sponsored by the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies:
- Zhengyuan Ling, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, University of Connecticut
- Jian Meng, Ph.D. Student, Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico
- Dr. Yifan Li, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Art and Music Histories, Syracuse University
- Zihao Yuan, Ph.D. Student, Department of Dance, The Ohio State University
- Xueting Zhu, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Dance, The Ohio State University
- Dr. En Li, Associate Professor in Modern East Asian History, The University of Texas at Dallas
- Dr. Melody Yunzi Li, Associate Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Houston
Grant recipients sponsored by the Center for Japanese Studies:
- Saeko Suzuki, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia
- Dr. Xiaofei Tu, Associate Professor of Chinese and Japanese, Appalachian State University